Author: admin

“My friend Ruben Vardanyan, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Armenian philanthropist and political prisoner, has spent 486 days (to date) in detention in Azerbaijan. His trial is currently ongoing behind closed doors, in secrecy, with violations of procedural norms. It is not only about one person. Ruben’s case is a litmus test of global justice, freedom of the press and the power of collective action. It is time to act”.

“Azerbaijan shows the whole world what it means to be an executioner and torturer. Ruben is a martyr for the idea and the Motherland, he is a victim of all past and present Armenian governments that failed to reunite Artsakh and Armenia”.

“Today we face a painful reality. Ruben has been in detention in Azerbaijan for 471 days. These illegal actions, which are purely politically motivated, violate justice and human rights.

I am honored to have known Ruben Vardanyan for many years. I speak with deep admiration for a man who has always distinguished himself as a visionary activist and devoted patriot.

By carrying out charitable initiatives and educational programs, Ruben has proven that true success is about improving people’s lives and creating value. The establishment of the Aurora Award is a testament to his deep belief in the power of compassion, human resilience and hope.

Ruben Vardanyan’s dedication to the Armenian nation and universal values is truly exceptional. He is the embodiment of integrity and compassion, qualities that inspire. I am proud to call Ruben my friend and I look forward to the day when he can continue to implement initiatives that change the world for the better.

Today more than ever, we must support Ruben. His courage and dedication not only deserve our support, but require our combined efforts to secure his freedom and protect the values he embodies”.

“Ruben Vardanyan has made serious allegations of violations of his human rights, including ill-treatment in detention, being forced to sign falsified case files, and being deprived of the opportunity to prepare his defense. The authorities must promptly, thoroughly, independently, impartially and effectively investigate these serious allegations and hold those suspected of these violations accountable.

The authorities must grant Ruben Vardanyan full access to his lawyers, as well as adequate time and opportunity to prepare his defense. The international community must closely follow this high-profile case to guarantee Ruben Vardanyan’s right to a fair trial and justice”.

“As State Minister, the second most important position in the capital, Stepanakert, Mr. Vardanyan hoped to draw the world’s attention to Armenians who faced the threat of extermination.

Conspiracy theories followed. Some claimed that Mr. Vardanyan had been sent by Moscow to turn the republic into a Russian protectorate, others that he was to facilitate its surrender to Azerbaijan. The simple explanation, that a person might aspire to something more than money and comfort, or be driven by romantic ideas such as patriotism or justice, seemed far less likely. And certainly less comfortable for those who had never been inspired by such ideas.

Conspiracy theories about Ruben Vardanyan continued even after Azerbaijan returned to Artsakh in 2023, ethnically cleansing its indigenous Armenian population, looting its churches and cemeteries, and liberating the land from Armenian presence for the first time in thousands of years. They continued even when Azerbaijan arrested Mr. Vardanyan himself, along with 15 other former officials.

And yet, as the trial of Armenian political prisoners begins behind closed doors in Baku, these few photographs show us something we cannot deny – something we recognize as historical memory. Deprived of a lawyer and water, emaciated to the bone, rejected by Russia that created him, ignored by the West whose values he romanticized, abandoned by his own Armenian government, standing for the last time to face his life sentence, Ruben Vardanyan looks at last like a real Armenian”.

“We cannot accept the very idea of Ruben’s existence. We deny it. We do not accept that such a person can exist.

A person who can earn a lot of money honestly, remain a man with sparkling eyes and pure thoughts, walk without guards, sit at the table with “commoners” without considering them as such, shake hands with the Pope and the Prince of Great Britain without having even a ghost of a thought of groveling before them, spend a lot of his own money and energy on projects that correspond to his values and not to his own benefit. We cannot accept that a person can have great knowledge and not stop developing, be able to create strong relationships, be generous, be real.

And worst of all, we do not want to recognize that a person can voluntarily endanger his life and the life of his family. Voluntarily. How can a huge number of successful people, who have made the most of donations in the terrible 2020 or 2023, recognize that there is a person who acted in such a way? How to accept that he sent his own son to serve in the army of Artsakh? No. It is easier for us to say that the son was just chilling in a sanatorium, not serving, and Ruben has just negotiated everything with either the Russians, or the British, or the aliens and Ilon Musk, and he will soon be released and given power over planet Earth, planet Saturn and half of Mars in addition.

We are all sinners, we are all mortal and we will all stand trial. And there will be no way to hide anything. Not a gray hair with paint, not a pimple with powder, not a hole in the conscience with money. You see, every man is just a man. Everyone has been given something and not given something. And I am not devaluing anyone’s actions by comparing them to Ruben’s. Everyone will be asked according to their abilities. Well, that is the whole point, to accept that we are different. And that there is someone who is cooler than you. Just cooler. Just the scale is different”.

“On the eve of the trial, political prisoner and Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan said that his lawyer and interpreter were forced to sign documents retroactively, including falsified protocols of interrogations that were not actually conducted. Ruben was not given the opportunity to get acquainted with the case in a language he understood, was tortured, forbidden to drink water and use toilet paper, and was subjected to other inhumane actions. And he is not the first to complain about prison conditions in Azerbaijan.

Vardanyan’s statement about violations of the lawyer’s defense and falsification of interrogation protocols is a serious violation that contradicts the fundamental principles of the right to a fair trial.

I would like to emphasize that Azerbaijan, violating the Geneva Conventions, refuses to return Armenian prisoners of war. The accusations against the former leadership of Artsakh and others are clearly political in nature. Allegations of terrorism and the establishment of illegal armed groups serve exclusively political interests and violate the norms of international humanitarian law.

In light of the above, I called on my international partners to demand that Azerbaijan comply with its international obligations and immediately return all Armenian prisoners to their homeland”.

“Recently Ruben Vardanyan was able to demonstrate to the public what kind of “criminal case” was fabricated by Azerbaijan and what kind of “trial” this country is preparing for him. The Armenian authorities, absorbed in their petty political revenge, have absolutely nothing to say about this “case” and “trial” initiated against an Armenian citizen.

The situation is terrible in several aspects. First, Pashinyan and his team are completely unconcerned about Armenia’s international prestige and dignity. Vardanyan thinks more about it in the most dire circumstances.

But there is an even more terrible thing: a group of government propagandists even now, in this situation, repeats the words of their “chief” and asks the question “Who sent Vardanyan to Artsakh?”, continuing to incite hatred towards him”.

“Humanity is a universal, all-human value, but this does not apply to Azerbaijan.

For more than 470 days our Artsakh, our presidents Bako Sahakyan, Arkady Ghukasyan and our other compatriots have been held hostage.

I am sure that each of us felt indescribable anxiety and pain after the message of Ruben Vardanyan, who is in the same inhuman situation.

The emerging “trial” is not jurisprudence, but a mockery of minimal humanitarian and internationally recognized norms, but the international community is silent.

No other member of the Council of Europe has had such an inhumane situation, but the Council of Europe is silent.

It is tragic that we exist in this reality, the silence of the international community is tragic, it is absurd that the interests of our compatriots are not protected in any way by today’s officials, who are vested with this duty of universal values”.

“So you live, create, do things to make the world a better place – for people of different nationalities, faiths, cultures. And then one day something like this happens, because someone has his own truth – perverted, absurd, defying logic.

There is no need to even talk about justice. It is long gone. I never cease to be amazed every time at what different worlds people live in… and how naive even such visionaries as Ruben Karlenovich can be sometimes.

Freedom to Ruben Vardanyan!

My heart aches for him and for people like him. But I continue to believe that he will still be able to do a lot of good things for this doomed world, which still needs hope…”

“The horrible story of our prisoners of war and political prisoners in Baku is turning into a real tragedy.

I stand by my position: the Government of Armenia must do everything possible to rescue its citizens (according to official data, 23 people, according to unofficial data, more than a hundred) from the Baku prison. This is a matter of State security and national dignity. Until this is done, no one, no one is safe from the hell in which our people are trapped”.

“The case of Ruben Vardanyan, a philanthropist and former state minister of the unrecognized republic, is being considered in a military court. Vardanyan, who has spent almost 500 days in Baku pre-trial detention center, was given only 9 days to get acquainted with 422 volumes of the case.

If it seems to some that the surrealism of the situation ends here, it does not: things are even worse. Eva Merkacheva, a member of the Human Rights Council, recently stated that Ruben Vardanyan is being forced to change his own lawyer for a state one.

Let me remind you that after Vardanyan’s illegal detention in the Lachin corridor on September 27, 2023, Azerbaijan accused the philanthropist of financing terrorism, creating illegal armed formations and illegally crossing the state border of Azerbaijan. But over time, the number of charges increased 14 times to 42 articles. It is worth noting separately that out of 422 volumes of the case, only six are related to Vardanyan, and all the others examine in detail the history of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1987 (Ruben Vardanyan was 19 years old at that time, he was studying at Moscow State University).

All of the above turns the trial of the man nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize into a farce. Or Kafka’s “The Trial”. In civilized countries, of which Azerbaijan sees itself as an integral part, such work of the legal system would be simply impossible to imagine”.

«Процесс над Рубеном Варданяном в Баку превратился в судилище: филантропа вынуждают сменить собственного адвоката на государственного, которого предоставил Азербайджан.

17 января в Баку начался суд над бывшими лидерами Нагорного Карабаха, которых задержали еще в сентябре 2023 года. При этом дело Рубена Варданяна, который три месяца занимал пост госминистра НКР, рассматривают отдельно. Власти Азербайджана предъявили ему 42 обвинения, по некоторым из них социальному предпринимателю грозит пожизненное.

Среди прочего Рубену Варданяну вменяют финансирование терроризма, создание незаконных вооруженных формирований и незаконное пересечение границы Азербайджана. Мировая общественность считает эти обвинения абсурдными, так как в Нагорном Карабахе известный в мире социальный предприниматель занимался исключительно гуманитарными проектами. Обвинения в нарушении границ тоже звучат неубедительно: Варданян въезжал в НКР через Лачинский коридор, и на тот момент упомянутой границы просто не существовало.

В пользу абсурдности судебного процесса над Рубеном Варданяном говорит и тот факт, что его заставляют сменить собственного адвоката на защитника, которого предоставил Азербайджан.

Самое любопытное, что из 422 томов уголовного дела 416 посвящены подробной истории Нагорного Карабаха и разгоревшегося там конфликта, а на долю Рубена приходятся “жалкие” шесть томов. Хотя уже сейчас понятно, что внятной доказательной базы у Азербайджана нет. Вероятно, именно поэтому процесс в Баку пытаются провести в закрытом формате: несмотря на заверения в открытости, на слушании не присутствуют независимые журналисты и правозащитники».

“Ruben Vardanyan acted as a peacekeeper in the conflict in the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (another name for Artsakh). During the hostilities there in 2020, he asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to help resolve the military conflict. He also renounced his Russian citizenship in order to go to the field and head the government in Nagorno-Karabakh. Why did he do all of this? In his view, this was the only way to draw the world’s attention to the problem (there was nothing about it on the international agenda). He solved the issues of providing the residents of blockaded Artsakh with food, medical care and electricity.

And now there is the trial going on. I will share my thoughts.

The case of a man who did not participate in the hostilities in Karabakh is being heard in the Baku military court. This is strange. At the second court session Ruben was appointed a state lawyer. According to his family, they are trying to force him to change his own lawyer for a state lawyer.

Taking into account the events of the interstate conflict, the forcible imposition of a public defender from one of the parties on the accused looks ambiguous.

In itself, the state institution of the public advocacy is a strong humanistic initiative. But it is bad when such a mechanism is used to legalize the judicial process. A person must have a choice: a state lawyer or a non-state lawyer. “A person must have a choice: a state lawyer or a non-state lawyer. And this is especially important, as I think, when it comes to courts, which, both in terms of their content and the attention of the world community attached to it, have an international status”.

”I literally owe my life to Ruben.

When I was 16, I entered the international college in Dilijan founded by Vardanyan: from a small yard school in a dormitory neighborhood, I went to Hogwarts. Imagine: in a school on the outskirts of Dilijan (population 17,000), Ivy League professors teach, businessmen from the Forbes list give lectures, and the school’s official spokesman is George Clooney. I mean literally: here is George Clooney (who starred in the movies “From Dusk Till Dawn”, “Oh, Where Are You, Brother?” and “Ocean’s Eleven”) sitting in the front row at our graduation in the auditorium.

And I am not from a rich family, but one of the hundreds of students whom Vardanyan’s team gave a chance: teenagers from Ethiopia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, and about 70 other countries studied with me. Many of them learned for the first time only in Armenia, for example, what it is to live and not to starve. I am not even talking about the opportunity to get an education.

Vardanyan was once partly rightly considered a Russian oligarch, but at the decisive moment he took a different path: the path of investing not in golden ruffles, but in people, and I am living proof of that.

During his imprisonment, Vardanyan had already spent three weeks in a disciplinary cell, where he was deprived of food, water and the opportunity to change clothes. In his open letter, he said that the protocols of his interrogations were falsified, and his lawyers and interpreters signed them retroactively under extreme pressure.

Probably, one can have a different attitude towards Ruben Vardanyan. But damn it, he certainly does not deserve this”.

“Ruben Vardanyan’s address yesterday shocked me. And not because I sympathize with him, with his visionary activities, as personal attitude, personal acquaintance can have an impact.

No.

I was triggered by my profession – I could not imagine that a neighboring state, which aspires to much in the world, could allow SUCH gross violations of the basic rights of the accused.

More precisely, their shameless disregard. You do not need to be a lawyer to realize that Ruben Vardanyan’s rights have been significantly violated:

“I and my lawyer were only allowed to look through 422 volumes of the criminal case in Azerbaijani, a language I do not speak, with a rather short period from December 9, 2024 to January 8, 2025”.

I will not comment on the falsification of interrogation protocols. It is clear to a non-lawyer that this is a criminal offense”.

“The trial against Russian-Armenian philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan, a talented businessman who risked everything and headed the government of Nagorno-Karabakh, sincerely rooting for all its inhabitants, has started in Azerbaijan.

It is strange that the case of the former Artsakh premier is being heard by a military court and not a civilian one, although Vardanyan did not take part in military actions, but focused his efforts on the humanitarian situation in the blockaded region, for which he was later nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Before the trial began, Vardanyan stated through his family that he had not given any testimony at all during this year and a half of the investigation, had not signed any interrogation reports, and had not even been allowed to get acquainted with the case file. It seems that the case, as they say, does not hold water. Ruben Vardanyan himself insists on his complete innocence.

Aliyev said that Moscow was interested in Vardanyan’s fate, Vladimir Putin urged Aliyev to show mercy to the prisoners. But there are no visible results of any work so far. It is a shame, because Vardanyan could seriously strengthen Russia’s position in the South Caucasus”.

“Billionaire Ruben Vardanyan has been sitting in Azerbaijani solitary confinement for more than 470 days. I have worked with this man, seen him in action and have the deepest respect for him. Everything that is happening to him now is monstrously unfair”.

“Ruben Karlenovich Vardanyan offered to help the Elizaveta Glinka Foundation during one of the most difficult periods, when we were no longer sure that we would be able to do all our work.

Without his help, our Foundation would have been very different.

And for all of us it is simply unbearable to think that we cannot help him now.

“Ruben Vardanyan became interesting and sympathetic to me when he turned from an ordinary rich man, of which there are tons in Russia, into a man who sacrificed everything for the sake of his motherland Armenia, and besides, he launched a wonderful pedagogical experiment – the Dilijan school.

The fact that Vardanyan has been held in an Azerbaijani prison for more than a year is outrageous by itself. And now it turns out that his trial will be completely Kafkaesque”.

“You [Azerbaijan] are doing everything to convince me that this is a politically engaged process. You do not let a person justify himself. You do not let him prepare for the process. The process will be public, but you do not do it. So what are you hiding? Why are you doing this? If everything is fine, everything is proven, you have great researchers and a great prosecutor, why is the trial being conducted in a language that the defendant does not understand?

And I am not even talking about the presumption of innocence. Or the fact that I know Ruben and he is not a terrorist. But let’s say you think so, prove it to me! But you do everything to say: “We will not let him justify himself”.