On the 10th of August, a number of Azeri news agencies, in particular, APA, 1news.az, day.az websites publicized information and pictures on supposedly conducted “interviews” with 3 Armenian servicemen who are in Azerbaijan now.
By openly exploiting the information for the propaganda purposes, Azerbaijan once again blatantly violates the norms of International Humanitarian Law. In particular, article 12 of the Third Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 and article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 both state that protected persons “must at all times be protected (…) against public curiosity”.

Therefore, the Azeri side had to withstand from presenting the abovementioned people to the public attention and had to prevent the posting of their pictures on the websites. Moreover, the agreement of the protected person to such media exposition or broadcasting does not relieve the Azerbaijani detaining authorities from their obligations because article 7 of the Third Geneva Convention of August 12 August 1949 and article 8 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 state that protected persons “(…) may in no circumstances renounce in part or in entirely the rights secured to them by present Convention…”. We draw the attention of international humanitarian organizations, in particular the International Committee of the Red Cross on the actions of the Azeri side. We expect appropriate actions to be taken against these barefaced violations of norms of the International Humanitarian Law by Azerbaijan. RA MoD Department of Information and Public Affairs