Azerbaijan’s institutional racism and glorification of violence towards ethnic Armenians, a thread:
It’s nothing new that there is extreme racism between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. Today’s thread is going to be about a specific case which involves an Azerbaijani officer and an Armenian lieutenant.
Gurgen Margaryan was an engineer of Armenian origin who became a lieutenant in the Armenian Army after completing the mandatory military service all Armenian men must do once turning 18.
In 2004, Gurgen was granted the opportunity by NATOS ‘Partnership for Peace’ to take part in a 3 month English language course in Budapest, Hungary.
The same partnership that Ramil Safarov had taken up. Though the two never actually spoken to each other nor acknowledged each other’s presence, there was tension there - mostly coming from Ramil.
In fact, Ramil stated: “..I regret that I hadn't killed any Armenian before this. The army sent me to this training and here I learnt that two Armenians were taking the same course with us. I must say that hatred against Armenians grew inside me..” (1/2)
“...in the beginning we were greeting each other, or rather they said "hi" to me but I didn't respond. The reason why I committed the murder was that they passed by and smiled in our face. At that moment I decided to kill them, i.e. to saw their heads off.” (2/2)
There was nothing said about any conflicts between the Armenian and Azerbaijani officers. On the first days of the courses the Armenians greeted their Azerbaijani colleagues ex comitate but received no reply. Everyone knew there were no contacts between them.
At 5 a.m. on February 14, 2004, Gurgen’s Hungarian roommate, Kuti Balash was awoken by noises. Coming out of sleep, Kuti saw Ramil standing over the hacked & dismembered body of the Armenian officer, holding a bloodied axe.
Prior to this, Balash had tea and went to bed, as he had fever, while Gurgen kept on studying. Around 9:30 p.m. Margaryan went to visit another program participant from Armenia—Hayk Makuchyan—who was staying in another room.
Balash didn’t remember when Gurgen came back to the dorm, as he had been asleep. When he felt the light turned on, he assumed it was Gurgen, when in reality it was Ramil who had snuck in with a weapon. Balash woke up and saw Ramil with the bloodied axe.
“By that time I understood that something terrible had happened for there was blood all around. I started to shout at the Azerbaijani urging him to stop it. He said that had no problems with me and would not touch me, stabbed Gurgen a couple of more times and left..” (1/2)
“..The expression of his face was as if he was glad he had finished something important. Greatly shocked, I ran out of the room to find help, and Ramil went in another direction” stated Balash.

What he didn’t know was that Ramil was going after Hayk Makuchyan, the other Armenian
Ramil then went over to Hayks room and tried to open the door, but couldn’t. Usually Hayk locks the doors but that night he forgot to do it, and it was locked by his Lithuanian roommate. Unable to open the door, Ramil started to shout out Makuchyan's name in a threatening voice.
Hayk, coming out of sleep, went over to open the door by was stopped by his Lithuanian roommate. The roommate thought there was a real threat in Safarov's voice and that he might be armed. He phoned the other Lithuanian who lived in the same corridor asking him what was going on.
During all this, Ramil was going around looking for Hayk in the dorms of the Serbian and Ukrainian mates, showing them his bloodied axe stating he “..thirsted for nobody’s blood besides an Armenians.”
Ramil met a classmate from Uzbekistan who came out of the room after hearing the suspicious noises. Ramil offered him to come & assist him in killing the SECOND Armenian, Hayk. The Uzbek tried to calm the murderer down but did not manage to stop him.
Ramil ran to the room of another Azerbaijani officer, told him something in Azerbaijani, and then ran and stabbed the door of Hayk’s room three times with the axe.

By this time, the Hungarian police were phoned. They arrived and arrested Ramil.
He confessed that he had killed an Armenian man and promised to kill more Armenians once as soon as he was set free. His revenge was not against anyone particular, but against the whole Armenian nation. It was a racially driven crime.
Budapest Police discovered Gurgen Margaryan in his bed, hacked and mutilated with over 16 hacks to the head and stabs to the heart.

Gurgens head was practically decapitated off of his body.
The murder had been planned in advance. It was not a personal crime with problems between Gurgen and Ramil, because after murdering Lieutenant Margaryan, Ramil Safarov went to the room of the second Armenian officer, to finish with him as well, meaning he had motivation.
Kuti Balash (Gurgens roommate) stated he saw Gurgen lying on his back with blood spurting out of his head and neck as he was wheezing his last breath of air before succumbing to his injuries.
Gurgen was described as “..a kind and sympathetic person” by Balash, as the day before, he had caught cold and Gurgen looked after him by making his roommate tea and bringing him medicine.
Ramil bought the axe from Tesco and the reason for his weapon of choice was: “.. I had a knife, but if I pierce them through with it, they may shout, shout for help, but if I hit their head by the axe, they loose their consciousness and will not be able to shout for help.”
Safarov was found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison in April 2006, with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

On Aug. 31, 2012, Safarov was extradited to Azerbaijan, and this is where it gets beyond shocking and disrespectful from the Azeri. gov.
Azerbaijan’s Justice Ministry had ASSURED officials in Hungary that Safarov would continue to serve his sentence in Azerbaijan. However, this wasn’t even what took place. Brace yourselves...
Hours after his arrival on an Azerbaijani Airways special flight, Ramil was greeted with a P A R D O N signed by President Ilham Aliyev which was affective from the day it was signed.

Safarov’s pardon actually *contradicted* Azerbaijani criminal code.
Which according to it, prisoners serving a life sentence can be freed ONLY after having served a period of a minimum of 25 years. To add to this, it was revealed that more than $7mil was transferred to a Budapest bank account around this time.
Not only was Ramil pardoned from his prison sentence, but he was also given a rank in the Azerbaijani military to lieutenant colonel and given an apartment with over eight years of back pay.
Ramil, to this day, is constantly praised and is even an Azerbaijani national hero for killing an innocent man and trying to kill another one simply because of their ethnicity.

The president CONGRATULATED him for his vile acts. He didn’t kill - he legitimately slaughtered a man
This proves that every decision regarding Armenians, from banning Armenians from ever entering the country to honoring an axe murderer that killed an Armenian soldier simply because he was Armenian is a reflection of how irrational and unjustified this government is.
It is our duty as Armenians to keep Gurgens name shining high. He was a man of dignity and honor, unlike Ramil, a person who has no worth as he killed a sleeping man.

We are all Gurgen Margaryan. #JusticeForGurgenMargaryan #StopAliyev #AzerbaijanIsATerroristState
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