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Freedom of Belief
3 min read

A tale of two Septembers

The recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is already a twice forgotten war. Forced to flee twice, Anush Petrosyan describes the experience.

Anush Petrosyan

Anush Petrosyan is a writer now based in Armenia. She is originally from Nagorno-Karabakh.

A sunset dramatically silhouette's a ruined tower and people at its base.
A September 2023 sunset over Stepanakert.

The ethnic cleansing of 100,000 Christian Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh has left Armenians around the world questioning the world order that allows dictators to have their way without impunity.  

 Following Azerbaijan’s brutal war of September 2020, the people of Karabakh were subjected to a complete blockade of their region – an exclave of Armenia in Azerbaijan. In the small stretch of land where Armenians had fought for independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union, civilians were being kidnapped, the elderly were dying for lack of basic healthcare, and schools were closing due to no heating gas. To the outside world, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev was speaking of peace and integration. Inside the region, experts were warning of genocide by starvation.  

In September 2023, Azerbaijan at last got what it wanted - the territory of Karabakh without Armenians. After an attack that left hundreds of people dead, Azerbaijani forces moved into the region as people began to flee to Armenia, forever leaving their homes and homeland.  

This is the story of Anush Petrosyan. A native of Shushi, Karabakh, which Azerbaijan took control of in 2020. Since then, Anush had been living in the Armenian-controlled Karabakh capital of Stepanakert, which she was forced to evacuate during the ethnic cleansing.  

In September 2020, I left my birthplace in Shushi, Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) with a strong conviction that I would be back soon. 

In September 2023, I left Stepanakert, my new hometown, with only the hope of staying alive. 

 

In September 2020, I had a father. He drove us to Yerevan in our own car. 

In September 2023, I no longer had a father… A kind person from Martakert, Artsakh, who I had not met before, agreed to evacuate my mother and me to Yerevan in his car. 

 

In September 2020, I left Shushi when there were still some people in the city. 

In September 2023, I was among the last to leave Stepanakert. The hotel where we had been living as refugees from Shushi for the last three years was empty. I had never seen the streets of Stepanakert look so desperate. There were stray dogs roaming, and those without cars and were waiting for public buses to come and evacuate them. 

 

In 2020, we left behind the harvest of my father's garden in Shushi, and an abundant life. 

In 2023, we left a few kilos of buckwheat, rice, and potatoes in our hotel room in Stepanakert. Food we had managed to get a hold of during a nearly year-long brutal blockade. 
 

In 2020, I left Shushi with dreams in my heart. I had not been broken yet, I had no personal loss, and I was confident I’d be back. 

In September 2023, I left Stepanakert with a sense of uncertainty about my life and my future. I had lost a homeland, my father, and I was lost in my own life. 

 

I have written much about Shushi since the September 2020 Artsakh War. I left a whole life and a garden of violets there. 

But I haven't written a single line about Stepanakert since the violence and ethnic cleansing of September 2023. Maybe one day I will write about this cozy city and its beautiful stadium where I would jog and regain a sense of peace. 

 

In September 2020, for the first time in my life, I felt how alone and powerless a person can be.  

In September 2023, for the second time in my life I felt how alone and powerless a person can be. 

 

In September 2020, I started to realize that in any hopeless situation a person should put their hope only in themselves and God. 

In September 2023, I became convinced that in any hopeless situation a person should put his hope only in themselves and God.  
 

I went through hell twice, or through different stages of hell.  It is difficult to say which hell was worse.... I am only afraid to imagine that there are people whose hell has been more hellish than mine. 

 

But in the midst of hell, I came across the most compassionate people, who made me feel God’s presence in this absurd world of ours. 

Stepanakert and Sushi

An avenue of colourful flats beside green trees.
Stepanakert before the exodus.
A hillside road blocked by stationary vehicles.
Cars evacuating from Karabakh to Armenia.
A view down a valley from a ridge.
Hunot Gorge State Reserve near Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ruins covered by growing weeds.
War ruins and gardens in Shushi, Nagorno-Karabakh.

Voices of Artsakh is a new series developed in collaboration with The Armenia Project, an educational non-profit in Armenia, that features the stories of the refugees who were forced to flee Nagorno-Karabakh (also known as Artsakh). These personal essays will focus on their experiences, and life after Artsakh as they try to rebuild new homes following the ethnic cleansing from their historic lands.

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5 min read

Asylum row pits Church against State

From Westminster to Weymouth, the church incurs the wrath of statesmen.

Steve Dew-Jones

Steve is news director of Article 18, a human rights organisation documenting Christian persecution in Iran.

A man wearing a waist coats sits at a desk and ask a questions of a panel of people with their backs facing us.
Lee Anderson MP questions clergy.

To tune into yesterday’s Home Affairs Committee hearing on asylum-seekers was to witness the Church in the dock. 

The Church is “aiding and abetting” people-smugglers by being so welcoming to refugees, one committee member, MP Marco Longhi, claimed. 

There were audible groans when one of the three Church representatives put forward to defend such claims - Baptist Union spokesperson Steve Tinning - revealed that seven asylum-seekers from the Bibby Stockholm have been baptised since October.  

There were more groans when Mr Tinning claimed each of the baptisms had involved individuals whose conversions had taken place before their arrival on these shores. 

“A likely story!” the groaner - I think it was the new Reform Party MP, Lee Anderson - seemed to wish to say. 

The “hostile environment” facing asylum-seekers was referenced several times by the Church of England's Bishop Guli Francis Dehqani, and “hostile” would certainly describe the reception she received. 

On the other hand, there was celebration for the “bravery” of the “whistleblowing” former Church of England minister, Rev Matthew Firth, who told The Telegraph recently about the alleged “conveyor belt” of asylum-seekers being baptised after falsely claiming to have converted to Christianity. 

One committee member, MP Tim Loughton, suggested Rev Firth might be appointed to a prospective working group on the issue.  

There was no such invitation for the other Church representatives. 

It seemed in this particular hearing that to speak for asylum-seekers was very much to swim against the prevailing tide. 

There perhaps could be no clearer illustration of this than when Mr Longhi flatly accused the Church of England of “working in the opposite direction” to the government’s efforts to deter immigrants from arriving on our shores.  

While the Home Office minister tasked with responding to this accusation did not specifically charge the Church of this sin, he did caution them to “think very carefully” about how the work that they do “can be portrayed by those that are facilitating these terrible [Channel] crossings”. 

There can be little doubt that the comments of senior figures, including MPs, have contributed to such threats. 

Dame Diana Johnson, who chaired the meeting, paid tribute to the churches “supporting some of the most vulnerable people in our country”, but such tributes were not forthcoming from the other committee members. Quite the contrary. 

Dame Johnson also thanked Mr Tinning for highlighting the “sadness and fear” of church members in Weymouth who have been insulted and threatened since the stories of asylum-seekers converting in their church were publicised. 

Mr Tinning said the church had received an email saying: “You need shutting down, and the backlash from this will be huge. The truth is, you know you’re lying and cheating our system. Treacherous to taxpaying people! Brace yourself!” 

“This church is now fearing the backlash because of language used,” Mr Tinning said, “about whether taxpayers are being ‘scammed’, or others saying that ‘you attend Mass once a week for a few months and bingo, you're signed off by a member of the clergy’. It's just not true. And it's doing damage to the communities that are desperately trying to serve the poor and vulnerable in their areas.” 

Dame Johnson said it was “quite disturbing” to hear the Weymouth church had been targeted. But again, this was to swim against the prevailing tide.  

There was an eagerness to celebrate the “bravery” of Reverend Firth - this was mentioned by several committee members - to stand up against the powerful Church, while the bravery of regular church members to stand up for refugees seemed to be overlooked. 

All of which leads one to wonder which is braver: to stand up against the Church, or to stand up against the State? And which is more powerful?  

“The Church of England has come down on you like the Spanish Inquisition!” MP Tim Loughton suggested to Rev Firth.  

And when Rev Firth reported being told that “people might try to get you” for speaking out, he received understandable sympathy.  

But might it have been even more courageous for the other committee members to have joined Dame Johnson in also speaking out on behalf of church members like those in Weymouth who have been threatened simply for daring to assist asylum-seekers. 

And there can be little doubt that the comments of senior figures, including MPs, have contributed to such threats. 

Another element in the background of the hearing was Suella Braverman’s contribution, in absentia, by having recently claimed - in another widely read piece in The Telegraph - that churches around the country were “facilitating industrial-scale bogus asylum claims”. 

The Home Office Minister, Tom Pursglove, was asked several times whether there was any evidence for this claim, the short answer to which appeared to be no.  

“You’ll have to ask her,” was his repeated response.  

But as Mr Tinning mentioned in his closing remarks, words are important, and what stood out most from the hearing was that the general consensus among MPs, it would appear, is that those who speak out against asylum-seekers and the Church are to be welcomed - perhaps simply because they are working with, and not against the government. 

Perhaps it's little wonder, then, that churches who do stand up for refugees - which in the current climate would appear to be standing up against the State - incur the wrath of statesmen.  

The question for the general public to decide is which is more harmful: the desire of the Church to speak up for asylum-seekers, even if some may be found to be bogus, or the desire of the State to stop them arriving at all costs. 

 

Watch the full Home Affairs Committee hearing on Parliamentlive.tv.

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