Baku, Azerbaijan, March 26. The US Commission
on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has recently released
its annual report on the state of religious freedoms worldwide. For
several years, the commission has openly exhibited bias against
Azerbaijan, and this year’s report continues to include baseless
and subjective claims directed at the country, the Western
Azerbaijan Community said in a statement, Trend reports.
“As in previous years, the authors of the report base their
allegations on fabricated reports prepared by radical Armenian
nationalists, funded by extremist organizations like the
‘All-Armenian Charitable Union’ and the ‘Aragats Foundation’ (L.
Khachaturyan, H. Gulyan, S. Bokcheryan), and documents from the
disreputable ‘Freedom House,’ which has been an instrument in the
hands of the radical Armenian diaspora, notorious for its
anti-Azerbaijani activities.
Another major point proving the commission’s bias is its
complete disregard for Armenia, a country that is a primary
violator of religious freedoms. According to the commission,
Armenia has ‘fully ensured religious freedom’ despite the country’s
history of ethnic cleansing, the destruction of over 300 mosques,
and hundreds of cemeteries during its occupation of Azerbaijani
territories,” the statement reads.
The community further emphasized that it is more appropriate for
the commission to focus on Armenia’s actions, including the refusal
to allow a UNESCO mission to assess the condition of Azerbaijani
cultural and religious heritage in the occupied territories.
“We would like to emphasize that such a mission should be
directed to Armenia, not Azerbaijan. It would be more appropriate
for the Commission to focus on the issue of the Armenian
government’s refusal to permit a UNESCO mission to assess the
cultural and religious heritage of Azerbaijan within Armenia,”
reads the statement.
The report also includes the disrespectful use of terms like
‘Nagorno-Karabakh,’ a violation of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity and sovereignty.
“We condemn the USCIRF’s racist actions, which hinder peace and
reconciliation in the region. We call on the U.S. side to take
appropriate measures regarding the commission’s biased and
double-standard approach,” the statement concludes.
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