Ahmad Shahidov’s remarks on Khojaly Genocide made armenian nationalists resentful
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe took place on January 28, in Strasbourg, France. During the discussions with participation of European MPs, protests of various nations diasporas were conducted outside of the PACE building.
Approximately 40 armenians held a demonstration with the demand of achieving recognition so called Armenian genocide in front of the PACE building. In respond to this about 5000 people from Azerbaijani and Turkish Diasporas gathered in the same venue.
While attending PACE discussions, Ahmad Shahidov, Head of the Azerbaijani Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (AIDHR) observed demonstration process. Approaching to protestors, human rights defender firstly tried to find out the demands of armenians and had a conversation with them. Aftermaths, human rights defender Ahmad Shahidov touched on Khojaly Genocide following which he faced pressure from armenians. In order to avoid confrontation law enforces of Strasbourg took away Ahmad Shahidov and dispersed armenian protestors. In face of police intervention armenian protestors had to stop demonstration and got away from the venue.
