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By Sara Ganjiyeva
The Azerbaijani MP, born in once-occupied Garabagh, says that the four-century-old Shah Abbas mosque in his native village has been destroyed by Armenian invaders. In a post on his X page, MP Vugar Bayramov notes that, despite this gruesome fact, the USCIRF remains indifferent to this atrocity.
The post reads:
As a child, I used to visit the Shah Abbas Mosque near our village. This four-century-old mosque was destroyed and used by Armenians as a pigsty during the Armenian occupation. Why was USCRF never worried about the fate of 403-year-old historical and religious monuments destroyed during the occupation?
Recall that on January 4, 2024, the United States Department of State issued a statement adding Azerbaijan to its Special Watchlist of countries that engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom and require close monitoring, a classification that potentially opens the countries to sanctions from the U.S. government.
Releasing his annual index of designations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken kept all 12 countries that had been on the previous year's blacklist: Burma, China, Cuba, the DPRK, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.