SACRAMENTO, CA – California Assemblymember Laura Friedman and members of the California Armenian Legislative Caucus have issued a powerful call to action to California’s Secretary for Natural Resources, Wade Crowfoot, to shine a spotlight on Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing and genocide of Artsakh’s indigenous Armenian population and ongoing human rights violations in the run-up to the 2024 United Nations Climate Summit – COP29 – hosted in Azerbaijan this November.

Assemblymember Friedman’s strongly-worded September 10th letter, co-signed by California Armenian Legislative Caucus members Bob Archuleta, Wendy Carillo, Mike Fong, Anthony Portantino, Luz Rivas, Miguel Santiago, and Rick Chavez Zbur, comes at a pivotal moment, as Azerbaijan seeks to bolster its international image by hosting the COP29 summit. “California must condemn efforts to use COP29 and the presence of participating governments to greenwash Azerbaijan’s repressive regime,” argued Friedman and her California Assembly colleagues. They urged the international community to condemn a litany of Azerbaijani human rights abuses, “particularly the ongoing arbitrary detention and torture of Armenian prisoners of war, the systematic destruction of Armenian cultural heritage, the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population, and the repression of civil society activists through violent crackdowns – and beyond.”

“With COP 29 being held in a nation committing documented human rights violations against its Armenian citizens and neighbors, California has a duty to call for both human rights and climate justice to be at the center of every policy discussion at the conference,” Assemblymember Laura Friedman told the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). “As climate leaders and members of the California Armenian Legislative Caucus, we’re calling on the Administration to shine a spotlight on Azerbaijan’s human rights record and condemn any attempts to obfuscate or greenwash environmental destruction and genocide.”

“We are grateful to Assemblymember Laura Friedman and her colleagues for standing with the Armenian American community and leading California calls for accountability for Azerbaijan’s genocidal ethnic cleansing of Artsakh’s indigenous Armenian population,” said ANCA Western Region Chairperson Oshin Harootoonian.

“COP29 presents a global opportunity – on a state, national, and international level – to put Azerbaijan in the spotlight for their human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Artsakh, and their repeated threats of renewed war against Armenia,” stated ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

Assemblymember Friedman and her colleagues called specific attention to Azerbaijan’s illegal detention and torture of 23 Armenian hostages and over 250 Azerbaijani civil society activists, including journalists, academics, and opposition activists, urging governments participating in COP29 to demand their release before the climate summit. “Azerbaijan has routinely used Armenian POWs as bargaining chips, refusing to comply with their obligations under international law to ensure their immediate and unconditional release in order to extract concessions from Armenia in the ongoing peace process,” asserted the CA legislators.

Assemblymember Friedman and her colleagues called on the international community to hold Azerbaijan accountable for the 10-month blockade of Artsakh’s 120,000 Armenians from December 2023 to September 2023 and the forced displacement of Nagorno-Karabakh’s entire Armenian population in September 2023. “Participating governments must ensure the return of the region’s Armenian population under safe and secure conditions as required under international law by a provisional ruling of the International Court of Justice and take tangible steps to establish an international mechanism to support the return of Armenian residents that would guarantee their fundamental right to self-determination,” stated the California legislators.

More broadly, Assemblymember Friedman and her colleagues asserted that “the international community cannot allow COP29 to be hijacked by authoritarian regimes seeking to obscure their human rights abuses under the guise of climate action,” stressing California’s key role in ensuring that human rights remain at the forefront of climate justice.

Assemblymember Friedman’s letter comes amid growing U.S. and international outcry regarding Azerbaijan’s hosting of the COP29 summit.  The ANCA – and the international of network of affiliate ANCs and Armenian advocates – are working with a host of human rights and environmental organizations to increase global scrutiny of Azerbaijan’s human rights violations and genocidal actions.  To learn more about Azerbaijan’s record of human rights and environmental abuses – and the international response – visit https://protestcop29.org/.

Assemblymember Friedman represents one of the largest Armenian American districts in the country, which has been deeply affected by Azerbaijan’s genocide against Artsakh’s Armenian population and ongoing military aggression against Armenia. The ANCA has endorsed Friedman, a steadfast advocate for the Armenian American community and a champion for human rights, in her election bid to represent California’s 30th Congressional District. She is running for the seat being vacated by Representative Adam Schiff, who the ANCA has endorsed in his U.S. Senate run.  As Friedman’s congressional campaign gains momentum, her advocacy on critical human rights issues continues to resonate with voters in California’s 30th District, home to one of the largest Armenian American populations in the country.