“The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a government body, has recently published its latest annual report on the state of religious freedoms worldwide. For several years now, the Commission has openly demonstrated its bias against Azerbaijan. This year’s report is also filled with non-objective and baseless allegations against Azerbaijan. As in previous years, the authors of the report base their claims on fabricated reports prepared by radical Armenian nationalists (Lori Khatchadourian, Husik Ghulyan, Salpi Bocchieriyan) funded by extremist organizations such as “the Armenian General Benevolent Union” and “the Aragats Foundation”, as well as documents from the “Freedom House”, an organization known for its notorious, anti-Azerbaijani activities and being a tool in the hands of radical members of the Armenian diaspora,” the Western Azerbaijan Community said in a statement.
The statement continues: “Another important point proving the bias of this Commission, which was established by the U.S. Congress, is that it does not monitor Armenia at all — the main violator of religious freedom in the world. According to the Commission’s logic, Armenia has fully “ensured” religious freedom by subjecting more than one million Azerbaijanis to total ethnic cleansing from its territory and the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan because of their different religious beliefs, and by destroying over 300 mosques and hundreds of cemeteries.
We would like to remind the Commission, which is demanding that some international observers be sent to Azerbaijan regarding the state of cultural and religious heritage, that such a mission is in fact necessary not in Azerbaijan but in Armenia. It would be more appropriate for the Commission to deal with the issue of the Armenian government not allowing the dispatch of a UNESCO mission to Armenia to investigate the Azerbaijani cultural and religious heritage located there.
By using outdated terms such as “Nagorno-Karabakh” in the report, disrespect has been shown toward the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.
We condemn the racist stance of the Commission, which hinders peace and reconciliation in the region, and call on the U.S. side to take action regarding the non-objective and double-standard-based activities demonstrated by the Commission.”