Wife of Ruben Vardanyan intends to organise an international women’s humanitarian delegation to travel to Baku

Veronika Zonabend, wife of Ruben Vardanyan, former State Minister of Artsakh, has put forward a humanitarian initiative.

“My husband has been unlawfully held in Azerbaijan since September 2023. For more than three years he has been away from his family and the people who love him. In that time, his granddaughters were born, granddaughters he has never held in his arms. I am writing this as a loving wife, as a mother, as a grandmother, and as a person who can no longer wait in silence while various institutions explain why they cannot or should not act.

This is not only about Ruben. Eighteen more Armenians remain in Azerbaijani detention. Many of them have not seen their loved ones for six years, have received no letters, have not heard familiar voices, and have not held photographs of their children and grandchildren, and some, of their great-grandchildren.

For their families, they are not an ‘agenda item,’ a ‘political problem,’ or a ‘complex diplomatic case.’ They are husbands, fathers, grandfathers, sons, and brothers. Their only fault was wanting to live on the land of their ancestors, to speak their language, and to preserve their culture. Today it too often seems that their fate matters deeply to almost no one but their families.

All this time, an endless conversation has continued around their fate — about mechanisms, procedures, mandates, and political circumstances. While some are busy preserving their political positions, others have spent years in detention waiting for so much as a photograph, a letter, or a few words from their loved ones. Following the closure of the ICRC delegation office in Baku, the families of Armenian detainees have been left with virtually no regular independent humanitarian access to their relatives. The international mechanisms that are meant to protect individuals in such circumstances are not functioning in practice.

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender stated that the matter falls outside her competence. The state delegation of their own country, during visits to Azerbaijan, has not found it possible to go and see these people, to check the conditions of their detention and the state of their health. In the face of this institutional vacuum of accountability, I can no longer simply wait.

At Ruben’s request, I intend to organise an international women’s humanitarian delegation that will travel to Baku in the near future. I am addressing Sabina Aliyeva, Azerbaijan’s Human Rights Commissioner, and her office with a request to facilitate this delegation’s visit to Baku, to arrange an official meeting, to organise a visit to the Armenian prisoners held at the Umbaki penitentiary facility, and to officially hand over parcels, photographs, letters, and permitted personal items from their families in accordance with Azerbaijani law.

For the prisoners, this will serve as a reminder that they have not been forgotten. I believe that we can remain human only when we do not allow indifference to become the norm, when we continue to nurture within ourselves compassion, love, and mercy, even in the most difficult of circumstances. I want to believe that even where politics destroys trust, there remains space for a human gesture…

In connection with this, over the next two weeks we are collecting letters of support for the Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan. We will endeavour to deliver them together with family parcels as part of this humanitarian initiative.

The full text of the appeal and details of the humanitarian initiative, including instructions on how to send letters, are available on the website.

The names of the women who will form part of the delegation will be announced separately,” Zonabend’s statement reads.