YEREVAN — The website www. freearmenianprisoners.com, run by the family on Ruben Vardanyan, issued a press release on March 13 about the humanitarian’s plight during his illegal incarceration in Baku: According to the statement, dur- ing a phone call with his family, Ru- ben Vardanyan attempted to deliver a public address to Azerbaijan’s Ombud- sperson, Sabina Aliyeva. The call was forcibly terminated. This address was an act of last re- sort: over the preceding ten days, Ru- ben had repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to reach her through his law- yer, written requests, and phone calls. The trials took place a month ago. To date, neither Ruben nor the other Armenian prisoners have received the official texts of their verdicts – neither in Russian, nor in Armenian, nor in Azerbaijani. They do not know under which charges they were convicted, or when and where they will be trans- ferred. We are deeply concerned by the current situation. The absence of reli- able information about his condition and the condition of other Armenian prisoners, combined with the disman- tling of independent human rights mechanisms in Azerbaijan – includ- ing the departure of the International Committee of the Red Cross — leaves all prisoners without any institutional protection.