Visiting Armenia, Greta Thunberg Decries Azerbaijan’s Repressive Regime, Ethnic Cleansing in Karabakh

During her visit to Armenia, Thunberg visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial.

Director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (AGMI) Edita Gzoyan briefed her on the history of the creation of the memorial. The AGMI Director also touched upon the three khachkars installed in the Tsitsernakaberd area in memory of the Armenians who fell victim to the massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak), and Baku late last century, and the stories of the five freedom fighters buried in front of the Memorial Wall during the Artsakh war.

Thunberg honored the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide with a moment of silence at the eternal flame.

She also toured the Armenian Genocide Museum, where she got acquainted with the permanent and temporary exhibitions accompanied by AGMI tour guide Elen Hakobyan, after which she made a note in the museum’s guestbook.

At the end of the visit, Gzoyan presented Thunberg with books on the Armenian Genocide and the Artsakh issue.

While in Yerevan, Thunberg appeared on a panel organized by the  American University of Armenia (AUA). She also met with AUA President Dr. Bruce Boghosian.

Thunberg was a featured panelist in the conference titled “The Impact of Azerbaijan’s Aggression on Human Rights and Environmental Protection,” which was hosted at AUA and organized in parallel to the 2024 United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference (COP29). The event was a response to the UN’s decision to designate Azerbaijan as the host of COP29, despite grave concerns over its track record of aggression toward the people of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), as well as the authoritarian policies and Armenophobic rhetoric of President Ilham Aliyev.

The conference addressed the effects of Azerbaijan’s actions on both human rights and environmental protection in the region, including war crimes, blockades, ethnic cleansing, and damage to the environment and cultural heritage. It brought together lawyers, environmentalists, journalists and other experts to discuss these critical issues.

“The American University of Armenia is proud to host these pertinent panel discussions on topics of such pressing concern. Our institution, founded on the principles of academic freedom, intellectual discovery, and community impact, has always stood at the forefront of such important conversations, and I hope we always will. Indeed, you will have the chance today to hear from some of our own faculty, who are engaged in addressing these issues of human rights and environmental advocacy. I am proud to see them on this stage today,” Boghosian said.

The first panel, moderated by lawyer and human rights defender Luiza Vardanyan, focused on human rights violations and war crimes during the 2020 Artsakh War and featured speakers Ara Ghazaryan (LL.M. ‘01), international law specialist; Anna Melikyan, legal expert at the Protection of Rights Without Borders NGO; Siranush Sahakyan, AUA lecturer, president of the Center for International and Comparative Law, and representative of the interests of Armenian POWs at the European Court of Human Rights; and Gegham Stepanyan (MPSIA ‘16), human rights defender of the Republic of Artsakh.

At the end of the session, Thunberg was invited to the stage to deliver her keynote speech. “We need to stop hosting climate conferences in places like Azerbaijan, a country that is repressing its own population to an extreme degree,” she said, highlighting the intersection of climate justice and human rights. She continued by condemning the country’s ethnic cleansing of the entire population of Artsakh, Azerbaijan’s military aggressions, and its severe human rights violations, including torture, the keeping of hostages, and widespread violence.

Countries buying Azerbaijani oil and gas are “complicit” in those crimes, she added.

“If we are standing up for justice, that has to mean justice for everyone,” she concluded.

The second panel, moderated by Sona Ayvazyan, director of Transparency International, discussed the consequences of Azerbaijan’s aggression on environment and cultural heritage.

Thunberg, 21, became the face of young climate activists after her weekly protests, starting in 2018, next to the Swedish parliament, quickly grew into a global youth movement with large rallies across continents. She has repeatedly been detained during such protests staged in Sweden and other European countries.

Thunberg has been widely credited with raising global awareness about the climate crisis, in what has become known as “The Greta Effect.” She has been included in Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, named the youngest Time Person of the Year, included in the Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Reports from Armenpress, Azatutyun, the American University of Armenia and the Public Radio of Armenia were combined for this story.)