It has been several weeks since the independent Russian-language “Realni Azerbaijan” Internet newspaper from the oil-rich former Soviet repulic has not been updated after Azerbaijani officials closed the website down. I used to read that site often and summarize some of their breaking reportings (such as the recent affair of three Armenian journalists in Nakhichevan).

Just weeks before cracking down perhaps the only independent Azerbaijani voice, a court in Baku sentenced its editor to 2 and a half years in jail for having visited Armenia and questoned the official Azerbaijani line in regards to the 1992 massacre of several hundred Azeri civilians in Khojalu during the Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The colleague of the jailed editor was killed last year after comparing Azerbaijan’s regime to a Sicilian mafia.

I guess the most troubling aspect about this oppression in Azerbaijan is the world ignorance and Sacha Cohen continues to be the only person to have ridiculed autocrat president Ilham Aliyev whose photo apears at the end of the credits of Borat.

One of my acquaintances in Armenia – only 19 years old – has been acquitted from the army after having a heart attack. This was after several months of service during which he was apparently tortured. The army has forbidden him from being treated in a hospital perhaps fearing that could initiate a charge against his superiors. I have never heard of a teenager having heart attack, especially that the particular person used to be a hard worker and did everything to support his single mother and two sisters from a young age. Oppressed people are often triple persecuted almost anywhere (this is why you have poor kids from America fighting in Iraq)…

Media violence and real life tragedies – such as the ongoing genocide in Darfur – may have desensitized us all. I remember telling my class earlier this year that I felt horrible for having become desensitized.

I guess stories like the following have “contributed” to my desensitization (after having heard this one, I became “immune” to other stories):

During the genocide in Rwanda, one way of killing women was throwing them down the toilet. How? Well, the “toilets” were actually wells in the rural areas used as restrooms. There was no sanitary or water system at some places. Some Tutsi women, after they saw their family killed, were thrown down these wells. But before that, there fingers were chopped off so that they could not climb up and would drown in the toilet. This particular incident has really stayed in my mind from my 2005 genocide studies course where one of the witnesses to the Genocide shared the story with us.

Yesterday, nevertheless, I was told of another particular crime against humanity that shocked my conscience. An American colleague told me that her step-grandfather had participated in Operation Phoenix in the Vietnam war and used small Vietnamese children as protection. I was not sure what she meant so I had her to explain it to me again. Apparently, the American soldier tied live Vietnamese children to his chest so that when he was shot at the kids would get shot instead and he would survive. I was too disgusted to ask more particulars (such as how many kids he had killed this way), but I managed to find out that he has not been charged for these crimes against humanity.

No wonder why the U.S. did not sign on to the 1948 U.N. genocide convention until the late 1980s. I also remember that America refused to sign it until it was guaranteed that no American would be charged under that! What the…

Anyhow, I had changed my mind and was not planning to share this story at Blogian until a few minutes ago until I heard of a similarly disgusting and largely unreported crime that happened in Armenia a few days ago.

A young soldier of the Armenian army was shot to death on his forehead after laughing at one of his superiors in Karabakh. The teen was from the Republic of Armenia and was transferred to serve in the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh – a de jure part of Azerbaijan and a de facto part of Armenia. In case you didn’t know, largely sons of poor families in the Republic of Armenia get to serve in Karabakh because their parents cannot bribe the officials to have their children assigned to nearby bases.

This particular family is even poorer – to the extent that they cannot travel to Karabakh for the trial. Having left with no choice, now they are saying that their son is not a citizen of Karabakh and he should not have been taken to Karabakh in the first place. This is an argument used by the Azerbaijani government and they will most likely take a note of this incident to their propaganda. Unfortunately, Azerbaijani soldiers are treated no better – if not worse – in their own army to the extent that some of them choose to stay in Armenian prisons (after being captured for crossing the border) than to go back to the Azerbaijani army. One reason is perhaps Azerbaijani soldiers tend to get a long jail time after being turned back to Azerbaijan from Armenia. The xenophobic conspiracy theory says they must have cooperated with Armenians otherwise they wouldn’t be arrested in the first place. An Azerbaijani journalist was similarly placed to jail for traveling Karabakh and talking to Armenians.

I guess the bottom line is that both Azeri and Armenian soldiers are facing torture in their own armies. This is really scary and sad and makes one wondering of the crimes they would commit against each other if the war restarted.

This is a poorly organized entry with few transformations… I guess I just tried to share feelings and thoughts that had been bothering me in the last few days.

It could be a water bottle or something else, but a video camera is not ruled out either. In fact, the person who holds the object uses it too slow questioning its water bottle possibility.

After a weekend of examining the December 2005 video from the Iranian-Azerbaijani border, I have speculations the vandals videotaped their own “heroism.” The video, taken by an Armenian film crew from the Iranian border, shows Azeri men in uniforms hacking medieval Armenian burial monuments down at the Djulfa (Jugha in Armenian) cemetery. The footage has become pretty popular by now and received over 10,000 hits in YouTube.com and other videos.

Now, after going through some of the footage with examining every frame of that particular portion, I have noticed this object (circled in red) in the hand of a man pointing toward the Iranian border. Surprisingly, some of the men in the area are also looking into the same direction (circled in blue) offering speculation that the Azeri soldiers may have videotaped their destruction of the Armenian cemetery. If true, did they do this to prove to someone they did this or what?

An article from the English Economist quotes Hasan Zeynalov as saying he doesn’t believe in dialogue. Zeynalov is the one who is working to keep the Turkish-Armenian border closed, as we mentioned several weeks ago. Our “findings” on Zeynalov are at http://blogian.hayastan.com/2007/04/22/the-godfather-of-hate/.

 

Clash of civilisations

economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9202614

May 17th 2007 | KARS
From The Economist print edition

Beleaguered Armenians in Turkey—and a closed border with Armenia

FOR a seasoned diplomat, Hasan Sultanoglu Zeynalov, Azerbaijan’s consul-general in Kars, eastern Turkey, is unusually indiscreet. He openly complains about Naif Alibeyoglu, the mayor, who is promoting dialogue between Turkey, Azerbaijan and their common enemy, Armenia, just over the border. “I don’t believe in dialogue,” Mr Zeynalov snorts. He recently ordered his compatriots to boycott an arts festival organised by the mayor after finding that “there were Armenians too.” Like his masters in Baku, Mr Zeynalov is unnerved at the thought of his country’s biggest regional ally suddenly making peace with Armenia.

He will have been cheered by the victory of Serzh Sarkisian, Armenia’s nationalist prime minister, in a general election on May 12th. Mr Sarkisian is said to have engineered a last-minute ban on Turkish observers of the election. “I think it would be unnatural to receive observing representatives from a country that does not even wish to have a civilised official dialogue,” he commented… (see the Economist website for the rest of the article)

Citing absence of “Armenian noise” as proof apparently ignoring this blog’s entry, officials in Azerbaijan are denying reports that three female Armenian journalists have been arrested in Nakhichevan, reports Russia’s Regnum News.

Representatives from Azerbaijan’s cabinet Ministry of Interior told Regnum the reports by “Realni Azerbaijan” (whose editor was sentenced to 2 ½ years last month by an Azerbaijani court) are false, because the Russian TV that the journalists supposedly work for is not talking about arrests, Armenia is not making noise and local human rights NGOs in Nakhichevan are silent.

According to the report by “Realni Azerbaijan” mentioned in this blog, three foreign female journalists were arrested by the local police in Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave after a villager overheard them talking Armenian.  The villager who tipped the journalists in was instructed by the police to say that the journalists were Russian and not Armenian.

The identities of the reportedly arrested journalists remain unknown at this time.  I tried calling the local prosecutor’s office in Kergerli region yesterday, where the arrest took place, but the phone number – found on an official Azerbaijani website – seemed disconnected.

Three international female journalists have been arrested in Nakhichevan after a local villager overheard them talking in Armenian, reports Realni Azerbaijan Russian-language online newspaper on May 5, 2007.

Map of Azerbaijan showing Kangarli rayon

Courtesy of Answers.com 

According to the accounts of villagers from Shakhtakhti (region of Kengerli), three journalists from a Russian TV visited Nakhichevan and convinced local villager Aleksper Asadov to guide them to the “Albanian church” of the village for a report on ancient historical monuments.

During videotaping the church, the journalists, according to Aleksper Asadov, started talking in Armenian.  Asadov informed the villagers who soon contacted the local police.  After the journalists were arrested having left the church, Asadov was instructed by the police to say that the journalists were not Armenian but Russian.

According to Realni Azerbaijan, whose editor was sentenced to 2 ½ years in jail last month after visiting Nagorno Karabakh (a disputed region de facto part of Armenia, de jure part of Azerbaijan) and challenging official’s Azerbaijan’s accusation that Armenian forces killed and mutilated several hundred Azeri civilians of Khojaly during the war of the 1990s, the news about the Armenian journalists has spread all over Nakhichevan. The identities of the three female journalists remain unknown.

Nakhichevan is an exclave of Azerbaijan between Armenia and Iran.  According to eyewitness reports, the rich Armenian culture there has been reduced to dust and the few survived Armenian monuments have been proclaimed “Albanian.” The recent act of vandalism against Armenian heritage was the complete destruction of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery on Earth in Southern Nakhichevan’s Djulfa district in December of 2005 that was videotaped and made available on the Internet. European Parliament members were barred by Azerbaijan from visiting the site where the cemetery (now converted to a military rifle range) existed.

The international community has recently accused Azerbaijan for persecuting journalists.  Two Azeri journalists were jailed for “insulting Islam” just last week.

Cartoon source: “Ermenistan,” seen on the shirt of a Ku Klux Klan member, means Armenia in Turkish and Azerbaijani

What do Ku Klux Klan, Terrorism, Narkomania, Snakes, Swastika, Evil, blood thirsty Scarpions, Weapons, Death, Beasts and Big Nose devils have in common? They equate to Armenians and their country, according to a supra-talented Azerbaijani oil “investigator” and cartoonist who has received many honors from his government.

In October of 2005 I posted an article from Agence France Press telling about the president of Azerbaijan’s National Geophysicists Committee, Kerim Kerimov, who, the article said, is better known for signing treaties to open Azerbaijani oil to American and western markets than for his anti-Armenian cartoons.

Much of his work targets Armenia, against which Azerbaijan fought a bloody war, and in large parts complements the government’s official information campaign against the Caucasus nation.

Anyone in Baku will tell you that Azerbaijan has many enemies: Armenia with its Russian backing, Armenia’s wealthy diaspora, Azerbaijan’s own opposition forces and perhaps a few loose clerics from Iran.

Kerimov goes further and puts the enemies into pictures, with horned and bewarted horrific caricatures of Armenians clawing at the map of Azerbaijan or driving a wedge between the country and its ally Turkey with a giant bomb.

If you are surprised that you have not heard of Kerimov before, don’t feel bad. I mean what is wrong making hundreds of cartoons depicting Armenians as snakes, scorpions and Ku Klux Klan members? After all, Armenia has won the war over Azerbaijan, hasn’t it?

Cartoon: Azerbaijan holding Armenia’s swastika knife

This is exactly what you hear all the time. Azerbaijan hates Armenians to death, smashes their ancient monuments to dust, jail its own Azeri journalists for writing the truth about the war with Armenia, and even deports a Turkish pianist with Armenian roots because of the war of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. Who dares to ask why the war started in the first place? Who dares to remember the anti-Armenianism in Azerbaijan and the pogroms against Armenian citizens and the destruction of monuments before there was even word about war?

If you are still surprised that you have not heard of Kerimov before, you are missing something big. According to his official website, “Prof. Kerim Kerimov for the first time in the world found the right way and method for prediction earthquake approximately 4-5 hours before the starting of this process.” This is not Borat, it is true.

And there is more, in case you are interested. According to his official website, Kerimov is:

• President of National Committee of Geophysics of Azerbaijan (read about Committee)
• President of Azerbaijan Section of SEC
• Member-corresponding of Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences
• Doctor of Geology and Mineralogy sciences, Professor • Head of scientific works and author of many inventions
• Honored man of science and techniques
• Real member of Eastern International Oil Academy
• \fs20cf4Real member of Ecoegenetic International Academy
• Real member of European Academy Sciences
• He is an editor and chief of “Geophysics news in Azerbaijan” magazine An author of more than 550 scientific works, including different monographs, atlases, maps, inventions, articles and other.
He is an author of more than 4500 political cartoons, which have been published in different countries.
Since 1998, he has been awarded with a lot of medals including gold medals from the government and several times was appointed with the following titles: the man of the year, inventor of the year, scientist of the year.
He was conferred the cold order “Glory”, by government.

Pretty amazing. Did you catch the part that he is “author of more than 4500 political cartoons”?

Cartoon: Turkic countries – Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kirgizstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan – killing the Nazi snake, Armenia. The cartoon is reflective of Pan-Turkism, a racist-linguistlic idea to establish a pan-Turkish Empire from Turkey to Kazakhstan that some scholars have argued has contributed to the planning of the Armenian Genocide.

I must admit I have not seen all 4,500, although I had the displeasure to go through hundreds of them available at his website (added in October of 2006). Besides the boringly self-repeating few figures, there is something else that Kerimov’s cartoons have in common. Most of them say in four different languages, “Terrorism, narkomania and armenism are the same diseases.”

These ones are worth no words:

Cartoon source

Cartoon source

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Cartoon

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Cartoon

According to the Russian-language “Real Azerbaijan,” Iranian citizens are fleeing to bordering Azerbaijan with a fear of U.S. attack against the Islamic Republic.

The report says local Azerbaijani authorities in the Nakhichevan region have searched the basements of multi-story buildings where Iranian escapees find refuge.  After confirming that there are Iranian citizens in these basements, local authorities have decided to help refugees by making the basements more “comfortable.”

How the arrest of a journalist leaks to the infamous agenda of an ultranationalist

Pictured: Hasan Zeynalov, member of Azerbaijan’s “Sicilian” mafia who is more famous for persecuting Azerbaijani journalists and less famous for his sinister agenda in Turkey to keep the Armenian-Turkish border closed.I hope that after the murder of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink there is more appreciation for the work of journalists among Armenians.

I am not sure that my optimism is applicable to the case for Armenia’s journalists yet, who are usually beaten, threatened and harassed in Armenia. Speaking of torture against journalists, I want to continue telling the underreported story of one journalist who was placed in jail yesterday, with the hope that there will be transnational outcry for persecution of journalists worldwide in general, and in Azerbaijan in particular. And not only because persecution of Azerbaijani journalists is too alarming (deaths, unbelievable high fines, regular beatings), but also because it is in the interest of everybody in the Caucasus – Armenia, Azerbaijan and the rest – to have democracy and freedom of speech. Journalists are the only ones in those isolated conflicts that can bring the rails to the truth on the table. They are the ones who can de-demonize “the other” by showing how much common all people have among each other.This is exactly why Eynulla Fatullayev was placed in jail for 2 ½ years yesterday. “Why do you interview Armenians?” This is the question that Fatullayev, in his own words, is being asked.

In his “last words” (before the court decision), published at Fatullayev’s founded Russian-language Realniy Azerbaijan website, the Azerbaijani journalist ridicules the fact that in the twenty-first century people ask him why he interviews Armenians.

“It is my duty to do so,” has uttered Fatullayev, “After I am free again, I will be occupied with the same exact work.”

Fatullayev is not playing games. He knows how serious it is to challenge Azerbaijani authorities. Before establishing his own newspaper, Fatullayev worked with editor Elmar Huseynov. Huseynov was an Azerbaijani journalist who was murdered in March of 2005 after having written “The Godfather,” an article that accused the labeled Azerbaijani authorities “Sicilian mafia.” Before his murder, Huseynov, along with Fatullayev, was taken to the court by an Azeri ultranationalist – Hasan Zeynalov, Nakhichevan’s permanent representative in Baku since at least 1998.  This is the same Zeynalov who made news in 1998 when talking to the BBC he denied state-sponsored vandalism against Armenian monuments – especially the now-gone-to-dust Djulfa cemetery – in Nakhichevan by saying, “Armenians have never lived in Nakhichevan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that’s why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any.”

In my research about the Djulfa vandalism – the annihilation of several thousand hand-crafted medieval Armenian monuments called khachkars – I have seen pattern between persecution against journalists in Azerbaijan and destruction of Armenian monuments in Azerbaijan. It is interesting how Zeynalov himself has been apparently involved in both, but there is more to come – something hard to believe.

Zeynalov is now the Azerbaijani Consul General to Kars (unless there are two Hasan Zeynalovs – which would prove my speculation wrong), where he is involved in “proving” that there is no Armenian heritage there (just like Armenians have never lived in Nakhichevan).  For example, only last month Zeynalov alarmed to the Azerbaijani press that an Armenian delegation had visited Kars and “By the study of some historical sites, the delegation tries to prove the relation of these areas to Armenians. During the visit the Armenian representatives discussed the opening of the state border.” In August of 2006, the mayor of Turkey’s Kars city – across the Armenian border – was attacked by Zeynalov for having advocated for the opening of the Armenian-Turkish border.  

I don’t know when Zeynalov transferred to Kars, but I can’t help to speculate that his mission is to stop the border from opening (why would Azerbaijan need a representative in Kars in any way?).  He is further busy organizing a commemoration for “Azerbaijani genocide” in Kars.

I don’t think the line of anti-democracy and anti-“otherness” has ever been this bold in Azerbaijan before. And the bottom line is – ultranationalist Azerbaijanis are not only danger to ordinary Azerbaijanis, but to ordinary Armenians and ordinary Turks likewise and vice-versa.

The international media is finally reporting the trial of an Azeri journalist who is accussed for “insulting” some Azeri refugees for having challenged Azerbaijan’s official claim that Armenian forces have killed up to 600 civilians in the 1990s during the Karakabh war.

The Associated Press informs

Eynulla Fatullayev, editor and founder of newspapers Real Azerbaijan and Everyday Azerbaijan, was found guilty of disseminating false information about a 1992 attack during the country’s six-year war with Armenia.

He was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.