Protest in Ottawa against Azerbaijan's Anti-Armenian Actions

More than 160 protesters from Cambridge, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Laval weathered blistering subzero temperatures on Friday to condemn Azerbaijan’s anti-Armenian actions.  They marched from UNESCO’s Ottawa office toward the Azerbaijani Embassy, carrying a 12-foot dummy with blood-stained hands representing the President of Azerbaijan, an 8-foot cross-stone, and signs.

They protested the Azeris’ destruction of Armenian cross-stones, the 1991 massacre of ethnic Armenians in Sumgait, near the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, and government threats to break the 1994 cease-fire with the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, a similar ethnic Armenian territory that rebelled against Azeri rule in 1988.  The embassy was not available for comment.

The protest was organized as the Azerbaijani army was caught on video last December, destroying ancient Armenian cross-stones in the Autonomous Region of Nakhichevan, and dumping the remains into the Aras River.

"They’re trying to erase any trace of the Armenians who had lived in Nakhichevan for the past 4000 years," cried Raffi, an emotional protestor from Toronto, who described the acts as "cultural genocide". 

The group urged UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to protect the ancient artifacts by making them World Heritage Sites. The UNESCO office refused to respond.

The engraved stones, some more than 1000 years old, were made by Armenian Christians who used to live in the region. However, Stalin had transferred jurisdiction over Nakhichevan (as well as the region of Nagorno-Karabakh) to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic).  Nakhichevan was depopulated of its Armenian inhabitants and replaced by Turkish-speaking settlers.

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