Page 6 - KDK

The Report on Human Rights Violations Committed by the
Armenian Armed Forces during Azerbaijan & Armenia War 5

FOREWORD

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In the first half of the 20 century, humanity had taken two important steps right
after going through two great World wars, which not only cost the lives of tens
of millions of people, but also represented an unprecedented catastrophe with
an aim to end the sufferings of wars as well as to guarantee the right to life for

everybody. The first step is the ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights by the member countries of the United Nations in 1948 while the second
one is signing of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by the
member countries of the European Council two years later, in 1950. Currently,
there are 193 countries that have signed the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, while 47 member countries of the European Council are parties to the
ECHR, and these countries recognize the authority of the European Court of
Human Rights (ECtHR) established as an institution with the aim of overseeing
the enforcement of the Convention. Both of these milestone instruments
guarantee every individual’s fundamental human rights including right to life,
right to protection, right to physical integrity, right to freedom of thought and
faith, right to property, right to privacy, and right to vote and stand for election
without any discrimination notably on grounds of sex, race, colour, language,
religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, belonging to a

national minority, wealth, and birth or any other ground.
Despite such positive developments aiming to protect fundamental human
rights, particularly the right to life, we have witnessed incidents of crimes against
humanity in the last three decades and we continue to do so. For instance, one of
the most ruthless massacres in history was the slaughter of more than two hundred
thousand Bosnians between 1992 and 1995 right in the middle of Europe, before
the eyes of the entire World. Another tragic example is killings of over eight

hundred thousand Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda in 1994, as a result of attacks which
lasted for days, again while the entire World was watching and remained silent.
This black list of examples goes on with the recent or currently on-going incidents