The Stephanus Foundation for Persecuted Christians honored Gegham, the Armenian human rights defender from Nagorno-Karabakh living in exile, at a ceremony during the ISHR annual meeting on April 20th in Bonn. Stepanyan and the Salzburg Armenologist Jasmine Dum- Tragut were awarded the Stephanus Special Prize.

In the fall of 2023, the Christian Armenians were brutally expelled from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). Stepanyan, Artsakh’s last human rights ombudsman, witnessed the war crimes and displacement firsthand and has since worked tirelessly worldwide to promote solidarity with the survivors.

Photo by Gegham Stepanyan © G. Stepanyan

The political scientist took office during the most difficult and final phase in March 2021. Among other things, he coordinated the search for fallen soldiers and missing civilians. Now, on behalf of the people of Artsakh, he is demanding the release of high-ranking representatives of their former autonomous region who have been held captive by Azerbaijan since 2023, as well as the prisoners of war who have been detained since 2020.

Stepanyan, speaking via video link, reported:

“Throughout this ordeal, the Ombudsman’s office in Artsakh has worked tirelessly to document these violations and bring them to the attention of the international community, shedding light on the injustices perpetrated against our people and calling for urgent interventions to alleviate our suffering.”

He stated that the atrocities were part of a systematic campaign aimed at complete expulsion. “What happened in Artsakh has been described as genocide by several respected experts, including the founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo.” He demands that Azerbaijan be held accountable for the crimes committed.

The linguist Dum-Tragut, who holds a postdoctoral lecturing qualification and also works in history and archaeology, is being honoured for her unparalleled dedication to researching the Armenian Christian traditions of Nagorno-Karabakh, which are currently under threat. The foundation explained its decision by stating that Dum-Tragut has distinguished herself through “impressive steadfastness” in the face of aggressive propaganda from Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The international law expert Gurgen Petrossian from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg justified the award for the Salzburg-based scholar Dum-Tragut as follows:

“Her contributions extend far beyond the boundaries of the academic world. She played a crucial role in the preservation of Armenian cultural heritage and led projects that shed light on little-known aspects of Armenian history and life.”

Special prize winner Jasmine Dum-Tragut expressed her gratitude, saying:

“I feel honoured, but even more so spurred on to continue my work.”

Photo with Jasmine Dum-Tragut © W. Franke

She was deeply concerned about the fate of the displaced, the irretrievable loss of a Christian region, and the looming destruction and malicious repurposing of the nearly two-thousand-year-old Christian cultural heritage:

“We should also be alarmed by the unpredictability of the Azerbaijani regime, which has set its sights on southern Armenia.”

Artsakh is one of the earliest regions in world history where Christianity officially took root and was taught in schools. With the blockade and invasion of September 19, 2023, and the subsequent expulsion, well over 2,000 years of Armenian existence, including 1,700 years of Christian history, were erased from the map of the South Caucasus, as the scholar emphasized. The culture of historical Armenia, located in what is now western Azerbaijan, specifically in Nakhchivan, has already been completely wiped out. Four thousand registered cultural monuments are abandoned, unprotected, and completely inaccessible to Armenians.
Carmen Krusch-Grün, the International Society for Human Rights’ expert on Eastern Europe and Central Asia, stated:

“This small, Christian, ethnically homogeneous mountain people became a pawn in the game of geopolitics and a victim of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan.”

The political scientist introduced the history of the conflict, recalling that during the Soviet era under Stalin, Nagorno-Karabakh, which was “almost 100 percent populated by Armenians,” became an autonomous region of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, and the Armenian-populated area was fragmented into several parts. During the era of glasnost and perestroika, the Armenians saw their chance for reunification. In 1988, the largest mass protests in the history of the Soviet Union reignited tensions between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. The award recipient, Jasmine Dum- Tragut, witnessed these historical events firsthand, marking the beginning of her academic career.