FREE ARMENIAN POWS - GLOBAL NETWORK is dedicated to the immediate and unconditional release of the 200+ Prisoners of War held & tortured by Azerbaijan.
Cities already part of the network
Berlin, Boston, Brussels, Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, Geneva, Haifa, Hamburg, Houston, Lausanne, Leipzig, London, Los Angeles, Lugano, Marseille, Milan, Montreal, Moscow, Naples, New York, Nizhny Novgorod, Osijek, Ottawa, Paris, Prague, Reggio Calabria, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Rostov On Don, Sacramento, Sofia, São Paulo, Tbilisi, Tel Aviv, The Hague, Toronto, Treviso, Vienna, Warsaw, Yekaterinburg, Yerevan, Zagreb, Zurich
The ceasefire agreement was signed on November 10th by Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The 8th point of the agreement was an all-for-all exchange of all POWs. While the Armenian side returned ALL Azerbaijani POWs in December 2020, Azerbaijan returned only a fraction of the Armenian POWs and even restarted the fighting - taking two MORE Armenian villages and 64 NEW POWs in December 2020. This is not only a direct violation of the ceasefire agreement and of multiple articles within the Third Geneva Conventions - most directly protecting POWs against “acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity” - but also a horrifying precedent for the 2020s. If a country can egregiously break international law for months with little repercussion, what world are we entering?
This is why this network of dozens of cities - from Montréal to Manhattan, Marseille to Milan, Moscow to Miami (& growing) - call on Azerbaijan as well as our local, state, and national leaders to further pressure Azerbaijan to release the POWs. This is not merely an Armenian issue - this is an international, humanitarian and legal issue. Working together, we can fight this injustice and make this world better.
If you or your city would like to take part, reach out to us at freearmenianpow@gmail.com. If you can’t attend our worldwide protests, there are several other ways you can support. See you soon!