Supporting the army
Azerbaijani Diaspora Holds Peaceful Protest in front of Finnish Parliament
The coordinator of Azerbaijanis in Finland and Azerbaijanis living in Finland initiated a peaceful protest ‘Stop the Armenian aggression against the Azerbaijani civilian population’ in front of the Finnish parliament in the capital Helsinki.
They first read out a letter of appeal to the Prime Minister of Finland Sanna Marin, head, and members of the parliamentary group of the leading Social Democratic party, Minister of European Affairs and Ownership Steering Tytti Tuppurainen, heads and members of Swedish People’s and Green League parties, as well as the Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto.
The letter speaks of the strong protest of our compatriots in Finland against the deaths and injuries among civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure due to heavy artillery and rocket firing by the Armenian armed forces at the city of Ganja and other Azerbaijani settlements away from the frontline.
Gulzar Ismayil, lawyer at the Society of Finnish Azerbaijanis, noted that the Finnish media was displaying a partisan view while covering the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, adding that the local journalists were not sufficiently aware of the history of the problem.
Ulviyya Jabbarova, the coordinator of Finnish Azerbaijanis, and Leyli Huseynova, a diaspora activist, spoke next of Armenia occupying Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent seven districts in 1993 and continuing their policy of occupation disregarding the international resolutions and documents adopted by the UN and other international organizations on immediate withdrawal from the occupied territories.
The speakers noted that the Armenian army grossly violated the ceasefire regime once again as of 27 September and the Azerbaijani Army retaliated worthily: ‘The Azerbaijani Army has been forced to wage war against the occupying Armenia on its own land in the current situation. As the humanitarian regime was established as of 12 on 10 October, the Armenian side grossly violated the regime around 2 AM on 11 October and shelled the Azerbaijani city of Ganja, killing 10 civilians, and injuring over 30 more.’ They noted that Armenia has thus grossly breached the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1954 Hague Convention, and the generally accepted norms of international law.
The speakers called on the Finnish parliament, the OSCE representative in Finland, the international community, and organizations on behalf of the Azerbaijanis in Finland, to stop the aggression by the Armenian state against the Azerbaijani civilian population and take more visible steps for the withdrawal of Armenia from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan.
The participants of the protest also chanted ‘Karabakh is Azerbaijan!’, ‘Long live Azerbaijan’, ‘Armenian invaders, leave Karabakh’, and other slogans at the event in English, Finnish, and Azerbaijani.
