Ruben Vardanyan was allowed to talk to his family for the first time since the hunger strike began. Relatives called for the International Red Cross to be allowed to see him

The former head of government of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Ruben Vardanyan, who has been under arrest in Baku since September last year, was allowed to talk to his family after he went on a hunger strike, according to a statement on his Telegram channel.

Before this, Vardanyan was kept in custody for more than two weeks without the right to correspondence or communication, the family’s statement states.

Vardanyan’s family demanded that the Azerbaijani authorities immediately allow representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross to see him. “This is the only way to obtain objective information about the state of his health and provide him with all the necessary medical care during the hunger strike,” the statement says. Vardanyan’s relatives claim that they only measure his blood pressure and fear that his condition will worsen. According to them, the entire time he was in isolation, he was not even allowed to read.

Also, Vardanyan, in a conversation with his family, expressed a demand for the immediate and unconditional release of Armenian political prisoners by Azerbaijan.

• Ruben Vardanyan was detained on September 27, 2023, when he tried to leave Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia. The next day he was arrested . Vardanyan was charged with several charges, including financing terrorism and participating in the creation and activities of illegal armed groups. He faces up to 14 years in prison.
• On April 19, 2024, Vardanyan announced a hunger strike, which, according to him, began on April 5. He demands the release of his own and “other Armenian prisoners illegally held in Baku.” The report said that after the hunger strike, “regular telephone calls between Vardanyan and his family stopped, in violation of all international norms.”
• Vardanyan is the former owner of the investment company Troika Dialog, founder of the Skolkovo business school. He was included in the list of the richest people in Russia according to Forbes. In September 2022, Vardanyan announced that he was renouncing Russian citizenship and moving to Nagorno-Karabakh, where he took up the post of head of government of the unrecognized republic in November.