Australian parliamentarian John Alexander
CANBERRA — On Wednesday, 16 March, the Federal Member for Bennelong, John Alexander, spoke in the Federation Chamber of Australia’s Parliament to commemorate the 28th anniversary of the Sumgait Pogroms that took place in February 1988.
During his address, Alexander spoke of the oppressive history of the region towards Armenians, stemming from the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923 by the former Ottoman Empire, to the anti-Armenian Sumgait Pogroms, and how Azerbaijan’s poor human rights record has continued today.
Alexander talked about the history of the Sumgait Pogroms and how peaceful demonstrations held by the Armenian people living in Azerbaijan and in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh to re-unite with Armenia, turned sour as violence broke out “as an act of collective punishment.â€
