{"id":24597,"date":"2026-09-16T09:43:46","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T09:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ancnews.info\/?p=24597"},"modified":"2026-09-18T11:11:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T11:11:53","slug":"congress-rallies-for-return-of-artsakh-refugees-release-of-armenian-hostages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ancnews.info\/?p=24597","title":{"rendered":"Congress Rallies for Return of Artsakh Refugees, Release of Armenian Hostages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Lawmakers demand Azerbaijani accountability at ANCA Capitol Hill program marking three years since Azerbaijan&#8217;s genocide of Artsakh<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br>A dozen Members of Congress demanded Azerbaijan release Armenian hostages held in Baku and open Artsakh to the safe, collective, and protected return of its indigenous population, joining Armenian American advocates, clergy, and international legal experts at \u201cAccountability | 2026 \u2013 Artsakh: Justice. Freedom. Right of Return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Capitol Hill program marked three years since Azerbaijan\u2019s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Artsakh and capped two days of advocacy \u2013 organized by the ANCA Eastern Region, ANCA Western Region, and ANCA National Headquarters \u2013 that brought over 100 advocates from more than 30 states into every one of the 435 U.S. House and 100 U.S. Senate offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The program was live-streamed on ANCA social channels and is available here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Accountability | 2026 \u2014 Artsakh: Justice. Freedom. Right of Return\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fomNYdeQ_B4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over two days of Congressional meetings, advocates pressed for enforcement of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, Global Magnitsky sanctions against Azerbaijani war criminals, co-sponsorship of the ARMENIA Security Partnership Act (H.R.6840) and the Azerbaijan Sanctions Review Act (H.R.5369), the right of return for Artsakh\u2019s displaced, and protection of Armenian Christian heritage sites. The full slate of ANCA priorities is available at <a href=\"https:\/\/anca.org\/priorities\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>anca.org\/priorities<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Free the Hostages<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA)<\/strong>, Vice Chair of the Congressional Armenian Caucus, detailed the February sentencing of sixteen Armenian defendants before an Azerbaijani military court. \u201cThe war is over. It\u2019s time to release the prisoners of war,\u201d Sherman said, noting that civilians were tried in a military court on some 2,500 charges in proceedings closed to independent observers. He reported that the House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted his amendment demanding the release of Armenian POWs and political prisoners by a vote of 44 to 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Vince Fong (R-CA)<\/strong> cited the nineteen Armenian hostages Azerbaijan continues to hold, including presidents, foreign ministers, and parliamentary leaders of Artsakh. \u201cWe must call for the immediate and unconditional release of all Armenian hostages and POWs whose unlawful detention and reported mistreatment remain a barrier to lasting peace,\u201d Fong said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA)<\/strong>, who grew up among Armenian Genocide survivors in the Central Valley and co-sponsored the Azerbaijan Sanctions Review Act (H.R.5369), tied the hostages to the terms of any settlement. \u201cYou can\u2019t have a lasting peace, of which Azerbaijan is a cosigner, unless you have justice, unless you have accountability, unless you have a respect for fundamental human rights,\u201d Costa said. That means, he added, the immediate release of the Armenian prisoners and civilian detainees, protection of Armenian culture and religious heritage, and the safe and dignified return of the displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Luz Rivas (D-CA)<\/strong>, who represents the San Fernando Valley and co-sponsors both H.R.5369 and the ARMENIA Security Partnership Act, recounted the letter she received from the Azerbaijani consulate during her first year in the California legislature, warning her about the Armenian constituents visiting her office and enclosing photographs of those meetings. \u201cThey were trying to intimidate a new member in the legislature, and it didn\u2019t work,\u201d Rivas said. \u201cBecause I\u2019m with the Armenian community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Reverse the Ethnic Cleansing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair <strong>David Valadao (R-CA)<\/strong>, who traveled to Artsakh in 2017 over State Department objections and authored the amendment funding HALO Trust landmine clearance there, pointed to the International Court of Justice order requiring Azerbaijan to permit displaced Armenians to return safely. \u201cIt\u2019s past time for Azerbaijan to follow that order,\u201d Valadao said. \u201cA lasting peace cannot mean leaving these people behind or asking Armenian families to simply accept that they can never return to their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)<\/strong> drew on her own community\u2019s history. \u201cIt\u2019s been three years since the ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Artsakh by Azerbaijan. There has been no justice. There\u2019s been no return of displaced families,\u201d Tlaib said. \u201cAs a Palestinian American I know these images, images of families trying to escape with what few prized possessions that they carry, not knowing if or when they will be able to return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two other speakers had seen Artsakh before Azerbaijan emptied it. <strong>Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA)<\/strong>, who represents the nation\u2019s oldest Armenian American community in Pasadena, traveled there in 2019 and was barred from Azerbaijan on her return, a distinction she calls a badge of honor. \u201cI did see that Artsakh was a place where Armenian people were thriving and proud,\u201d Chu said. \u201cIt breaks my heart to consider that those people I visited just a few years ago are now refugees in Armenia.\u201d <strong>Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA)<\/strong>, who visited while serving in the California State Assembly, warned against \u201ca slow-motion erasure of the Armenian people and the nation of Armenia.\u201d Friedman called for unconditional release of the hostages, an end to military aid to Azerbaijan, and U.S. guarantees for Armenian sovereignty. \u201cPeace has to start with accountability, lasting security and respect for sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)<\/strong>, who chairs the California Democratic delegation, credited former Rep. Anna Eshoo with opening her eyes to the Armenian Genocide and told advocates the delegation \u201cis on your side.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>End the Impunity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA)<\/strong>, co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee, represents Worcester, home to the first Armenian church built in the Western Hemisphere. He argued that the machinery of international accountability is being dismantled as Azerbaijan\u2019s crimes go unanswered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt is incredibly important for the sake of morality and justice that the United States and the international community work together to hold the government of Azerbaijan accountable for ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of ethnic Armenians from their homes,\u201d McGovern said. \u201cAccountability is fundamental to human rights.\u201d He pointed to the elimination of the State Department\u2019s Office of Global Criminal Justice and efforts to dismantle the International Criminal Court. \u201cUnfortunately, the accountability agenda is being ignored.\u201d McGovern called for compensation for Armenians who lost homes, businesses, and livelihoods, and for a peace \u201cthat upholds the sovereignty and the dignity of Armenia and that guarantees its security from any further Azerbaijani aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Dave Min (D-CA)<\/strong>, a co-sponsor of the ARMENIA Security Partnership Act, described the Armenian Genocide Memorial taking shape in the Irvine Great Park, in a district with a fast-growing Armenian American community. \u201cI had the privilege of seeing a mockup of this memorial. It is beautiful, and it is so important because we cannot forget the Armenian Genocide,\u201d Min said. He warned that the lesson is not confined to history. \u201cAt a time when we face so many threats around the world and yes, here at home, we cannot forget that lesson of history. This is something that we cannot be silent about right now.\u201d Min credited the advocates in the room with building the Congressional Armenian Caucus into a powerhouse. \u201cYou\u2019re punching way above your weight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stop the Erasure<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Fr. Sarkis Aktavoukian<\/strong>, Pastor of Soorp Khatch Armenian Church, prayed for the churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and khachkars destroyed or desecrated since 2023. \u201cArtsakh is the land where everything smells Armenian,\u201d he said. \u201cLord, do not allow the memory of a people to be buried beneath the ruins of its heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL)<\/strong>, an original co-sponsor of the 2019 Armenian Genocide Resolution, spoke to Artsakh photographer David Ghahramanyan\u2019s image of the exodus displayed behind the podium, and to the girl in it. \u201cI\u2019m guessing she\u2019s probably eight, nine, ten years old, and wondering what\u2019s happening and what to make of this,\u201d Schneider said. \u201cI think of the responsibility we have on our shoulders to make sure that we can answer her question, that what\u2019s happening is wrong, shouldn\u2019t have happened.\u201d He called for the hostages to be reunited with their families and pressed for heritage protection. \u201cStanding together as a caucus, standing united, we are protecting the churches, monasteries, cemeteries, and other cultural heritage sites that testify to the centuries of Armenian history in Artsakh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Rep. Fong<\/strong> called for investigations into the destruction of Armenian Christian heritage. Rep. Chu, who this year requested robust federal funding for Artsakh\u2019s 150,000 refugees and for Armenia\u2019s security and defense, tied the relics to the people who made them. \u201cI think often about Artsakh, the empty and damaged homes, the cultural and religious relics destroyed,\u201d Chu said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I continue to demand the preservation of those relics as well as the return of the political prisoners from Azerbaijan.\u201d She also called on the U.S. to prohibit military and security assistance to Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A Peace Process That Leaves Prisoners Behind<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Keynote speaker Siranush Sahakyan<\/strong>, Executive Director of the Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights and President of the International and Comparative Law Center, represents Armenian prisoners and their families in international proceedings. She examined what the peace process has actually delivered to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhat we are witnessing runs directly against the promise of peace,\u201d Sahakyan said. \u201cPrisoners remain detained while the safeguards protecting them and their families are being dismantled, deepening the suffering that a peace process should resolve.\u201d She noted that the agreement initialed last August contains no explicit commitment to release Armenian prisoners or guarantee protected return, while Article 15 sets a one-month deadline for withdrawing interstate legal claims. There is a timetable for ending litigation, she said, but none for releasing the prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sahakyan reported that the International Committee of the Red Cross closed its permanent delegation in September 2025 at Azerbaijan\u2019s decision, and that no ICRC visits were permitted throughout 2026, ending independent oversight of detainees\u2019 treatment. Her review of the Vardanyan judgment found it recast Artsakh\u2019s institutions as a criminal organization to attribute responsibility without establishing individual conduct, relying in part on charitable activity as evidence of criminality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She closed by contrasting what the process has made possible with what it has not. \u201cIf arrangements can be made for goods to cross borders, why can they not be made for a family to visit a prisoner and a consular representative to check his welfare or an independent lawyer to defend him? And what does that tell us about the peace being proclaimed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u201cTo Normalize Genocide Is to Invite Violence\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian<\/strong> warned advocates about the direction of U.S. policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCurrent U.S. policy, sadly, is off course,\u201d Hamparian said. \u201cWe are normalizing the genocide of Artsakh. We\u2019re helping Azerbaijan consolidate the ethnic cleansing of an indigenous people. We\u2019re watching as this crime is consecrated, transformed into policy.\u201d He pointed to the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan dancing in Shushi, the cultural center of Armenian life for thousands of years. \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to visit. I understand a visit. I don\u2019t approve of a visit, but I understand a visit. It\u2019s normalizing. When you dance, you\u2019re celebrating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hamparian described a peace process \u201cthat creates the conditions for renewed conflict much more than it creates the conditions for enduring peace. One that leaves Armenian hostages abandoned, Artsakh refugees unreturned, illegal occupation accepted, Azerbaijani war crimes unpunished, Christian holy sites forsaken, and Armenian sovereignty, Armenian security outsourced to realtors, real estate people, and ballroom donors.\u201d He noted that none of the Members of Congress advocates met with that day had meaningful insight into the peace process or the corridor across southern Armenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re not guests in this house,\u201d Hamparian told the advocates, speaking of the U.S. Capitol. \u201cHere, in this altar of democracy, within these walls, we\u2019re citizens, not subjects, full stakeholders in our American enterprise.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What Grassroots Power Looks Like<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>ANCA National Grassroots Director Gev Iskajyan<\/strong> opened the program by measuring three years of captivity against three years of advocacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThree years since the families of Davit Ishkhanyan, Ruben Vardanyan, Levon Mnatsakanyan, Davit Babayan, and the rest of our hostages last saw the people they love,\u201d Iskajyan said. \u201cThree years in which every force on earth has tried to silence the voices of Artsakh. Well, they failed.\u201d He traced the legislative record to grassroots work: H.R.6840, H.R.5369, H.R.2585, and the amendments demanding hostage release and heritage protection. \u201cNone of those bills wrote themselves. They exist because advocates walked these halls and would not let Artsakh be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Iskajyan closed by quoting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev: \u201cFor us, the number one enemy is the Armenian lobby. Their scope of influence is quite broad, and we must be prepared to fight against it.\u201d His reply: \u201cHe\u2019s right. Our influence is broad and far-reaching, and they should be prepared, because we are just getting started.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>ANCA Eastern Region Chairman Dr. Ara Chalian<\/strong> turned to the same image of Artsakh\u2019s exodus. \u201cThat young lady with her back turned to us shows part of our power,\u201d Chalian said. \u201cBut look at her shoulders and her head. You feel the strength.\u201d He told advocates that their case on Capitol Hill carries beyond their own community. \u201cEvery time we speak, we speak for others. Every time we demand, we reflect the needs of others. And we build a better America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cArtsakh Is Not History\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>His Eminence Archbishop Anoushavan Tanielian<\/strong>, Prelate of the Eastern Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, closed the evening by telling the gathering that Artsakh\u2019s survival is a matter of insistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cArtsakh is not history, Artsakh is not past,\u201d the Archbishop said. He recounted telling athletes at this year\u2019s 92nd AYF Olympics in New Jersey that they had come not only for the games but \u201cto say to the world that we are Armenia and we are Artsakh, and there is no power in this world which can take from our hearts, from our minds, from our lives, this understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Archbishop turned to \u201cSarkis Gugunian\u2019s Song,\u201d in which a lifeboat breaks apart in a stormy sea and the waves rise to sink it, and the singer refuses to surrender hope. \u201cThe most powerful energy in this world is hope,\u201d he said. \u201cHope is the greatest power, my dear brothers and sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers demand Azerbaijani accountability at ANCA Capitol Hill program marking three years since Azerbaijan&#8217;s genocide of Artsakh A dozen Members of Congress demanded Azerbaijan release Armenian hostages held in Baku and open Artsakh to the safe, collective, and protected return of its indigenous population, joining Armenian American advocates, clergy, and international legal experts at \u201cAccountability [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[126,382],"class_list":["post-24597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-anca","tag-382"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - 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