Human rights advocates preparing appeals over health of Armenian prisoners in Baku: Siranush Sahakyan

At present, there is no way to obtain objective information about the health of Armenian prisoners held in Baku, Siranush Sahakyan, representative of the Armenian prisoners’ interests at the ECHR, told Sputnik Armenia.

She was commenting on reports that some prisoners have severe injuries, including fractures, which may have resulted from torture. Sahakyan noted that appeals on this issue are being prepared, but said she did not consider it appropriate to disclose when and where they would be sent.

One of the main problems at present remains the impossibility of obtaining objective information about the health and detention conditions of the Armenian prisoners held in Baku. Until September 2025, information came through the International Committee of the Red Cross, but after Azerbaijan halted the ICRC’s activities, this channel also disappeared.

“We are talking about their complete isolation from the outside world, with no contact with independent international monitoring missions, independent lawyers, independent doctors, or consular officials. In this situation, their conditions can only be assessed, and information about them can only be gathered, from Azerbaijani sources, which are not trustworthy and, most importantly, cannot be verified,” Sahakyan said.

The only way to obtain information at present is through phone calls with relatives, which are also monitored by the Azerbaijani side. The frequency of these calls is also not consistent. According to Sahakyan, there is a certain selective approach here, one prisoner, for example, may be allowed to call relatives once a week, while another may only be allowed to call once every four or six weeks.

“Moreover, the situation has changed over the course of their captivity. For example, there were cases at the initial stage when families could not speak with relatives for weeks or even months,” Sahakyan said.