I noticed that only media in Azerbaijan have been reporting the trial against Eynulla Fatullayev for questioning what happened in an Azeri village – Khojaly (Khojalu) – when Armenian forces occupied it during the Karabakh war of the 1990s.  Even the few reports are difficult to follow and understand (the word, “Armenian” for example, is not mentioned in any article perhaps to avoid attracting attention on the trial through popular “Armenian” keyword searches).  Here is a summary of Azerbaijani sources (in Russian and English) with a background on the journalist’s involvement.

An Azeri journalist, who has challenged the official Azerbaijan’s rhetoric that Armenian forces have massacred between 200-600 Azeri civilians in the 1990s, is facing charges for insulting Khojaly village refugees in an Azerbaijani district court, reports Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency.

Photo source

Eynulla Fatullayev, editor-in-chief and founder of the Russian language Realni Azerbaijan and Azeri language Gundeliik newspapers, has reportedly accused the Azeri government for perpetrating the killings of Khojaly civilians – an event that Azeri officials and pro-government media refer to as “Khojaly genocide perpetrated by Armenians” – often denounced as “anti-Armenian propaganda” by others.

In 2006, Fatullayev visited Nagorno Karabakh – an Armenian enclave within Soviet Azerbaijan that proclaimed independence in 1991 and provoked war between Armenia and Azerbaijan – and wrote a long article in Russian called “Karabakh diary.” Fatullayev recalled in the diary of interviewing Azeri refugees from Khojaly in the 1990s who said that Armenian forces had warned the civilians several days before the attack about the upcoming operation and offered the civilians to leave the village through a humanitarian corridor along the river Kar-Kar (the exact scenario of the pre-operation presented by Armenian officials). Visiting Khojaly in 2006 and putting the account of some Azeri refugees with the geography of the village, Fatullayev concluded that “It seems that the battalions of Azerbaijani Popular Front strove not for the salvation of the Khojalies, but for a big blood.”

According to the March 1, 2007 issue of Today.az, a news website from Azerbaijan, “[a] group of [former] Khojaly residents held a protest action outside Gundelik Azerbaijan paper editorial office… and raised posters ‘Eynulla Fattulayev is dashnak’s (Armenian) agent.” They demanded depriving the journalist of citizenship and broke two windows of the office by throwing eggs.

A letter from Human Rights Watch to Azerbaijan’s president Illham Aliyev (dated February 9, 2007) accused the authorities for suppressing freedom of speech and persecuting journalists in the country. According to the letter, “Eynulla Fatullayev, editor-in-chief of Realny Azerbaijan and Gundelik Azerbaijan, was forced to suspend publication of both papers on October 1, 2006, after his father was kidnapped. The kidnappers threatened to kill Fatullayev, as well as his father, if Fatullayev continued to publish the papers. The kidnapping had been preceded by numerous phone threats against Fatullayev and his family.” The letter also denounced Azerbaijani courts for fining high amounts to journalists, including Fatullayev.

The Armenian government has long denied responsiblity for the massacre of between 200-600 Azeri civilians in Khojaly, charging one fraction of Azeri military – a political opposition group in Azerbaijan at the time- for orchestrating the event for anti-Armenian propaganda and domestic political purposes. They often recall the footage of Azerbaijani cameraman Chingiz Mustafayev, who shot footage of killed Azeri civilian corps from Khojaly – under Azeri control – both on February 29 and on March 2. The same corpses were mutilated on March 2, 2007 but not on February 29 – an incident that led Mustafayev to accuse Azerbaijani forces for orchestrating the mutilation of Azeri bodies. The footage was shown in the Azerbaijani parliament, followed by Mustafayev’s murder during filming military units of the Azerbaijani Popular Front.

If until today state-sponsored destruction of Armenian material heritage in Azerbaijan has been the norm and the exception for Azerbaijan’s self-praised image of “tolerance” for minorities – such as Jews, Russians, and Catholics – the tolerant ambition of the mostly Muslim Republic is under threat as a fire intervened with the construction of a Catholic church in the capital city of Baku.

Via Nazarian, Azerbaijani media report:

Fire occurred in the Catholic Church “Saint Maryam” under construction in Baku today. Baku Catholic Church’s head Yan Chapla exclusively told APA that the explosive material thrown inside the church through the window caused the fire.

If until today anti-Christian (and anti anything) bigotry in Azerbaijan has been blamed on the conflict with the Armenians, the attack against the Catholic church seems a new development of Islamic circles in Azerbaijan that Azeri authorities have usually been in denial of. 

This also challenges the uncontested notion that the cultural genocide against Armenian monuments in Azerbaijan, directed by or with the awareness of Azeri authorities, solely deals with ethnic conflict and is not anti-Christian.

America’s so-called president George aBush has introduced his glorious budget, that like last year’s, gives reduced economic and military aid to Armenia and much more aid to Armenia’s friendly neighbor and the most tolerant country in the world – Oilzerbaijan. Moreover, the Bushdickcandy administration is apparently cutting humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh.

Here is why and how, according to Blogian (this is also what exactly happened last year).

1. Bush hates the “Armenian lobby,” which even being not so-powerful (to say the least), can have Congress to keep the aid parity for Armenia and Oilzerbaijan (because it is retarded otherwise).

2. The Turkish foreign minister is in America gulling candy to convince bush to stop the Congress from passing the Armenian genocide resolution. They need something to entertain the loshtak.
3. Bush will swap his own daughter with Borat before recognizing the Armenian genocide.

Bush wants both Armenians and Turks be happy. So he will make Armenians angry as Gull in Bulling in America, but will later let the glorious Armenian lobby convince the Congress to give more aid to Armenia and some aid to Nagorno-Karabakh (by making Turks and Azeris angry). As Armenians will celebrate their unbelievable glory of conquering the Congress (and the Turkish media will condemn The Protocols of Ararat) and convincing them that it is wrong to give more economic and military aid to the most tolerant country in the world than to democratic Armenia, they will find out that the genocide recognition resolution was killed. But hey, they still changed the budget!

In the words of George W. Bush himself, “More and more of our [oil] imports come from overseas.” He was referring to Canada and Mexico.

A self-described independent blogger from Azerbaijan and Doctor of History Vulgar Seidov is writing in Russian the circumstances under which European parliamentarians and UNESCO would be allowed to visit Djulfa (Julfa or Jugha) – the site of the largest medieval Armenian cemetery that was wiped off the face of the Earth in December of 2005:

Путь в Джульфу европейским экспертам лежит только через разрушенные азербайджанские могилы и памятники в сегодняшней Армении и оккупированных азербайджанских территориях. Только после того, как каждый до последнего разрушенный и осквернённый азербайджанский объект будет наведан, задокументирован, зафиксирован европейцами, только после этого можно будет им сказать Welcome to Julfa!

(The road to Djulfa for the European experts lies only through [the examination] of destroyed Azerbaijani graves and monuments in modern Armenia and [in] occupied Azerbaijani territories. Only after that, when the very last destroyed and desecrated Azerbaijani object is visited, documented, and noted [fixed?] by the Europeans, only after that they can be told, “Welcome to Julfa!”)

Ironically enough, Armenia has agreed to the examination of the state of Azerbaijani monuments in Armenia by European experts. During such a visit last year to Armenia and Azerbaijan, the delegation was denied access to Nakhichevan where Djulfa lies. But you don’t tell this to Azerbaijani academicians, because they know it very well.

I agree that the price to visit Djulfa should be through the documentation of all Azerbaijani objects in Armenia (although I am not sure what Seidov means by “all objects”). There are Azerbaijani monuments in Armenia, and even if they all together do not have 1% of the significance of only one of the thousands of medieval Armenian cross stones forever gone in Azerbaijan, in the words of Norwegia’s former Ambassador to Azerbaijan, “Any kind of act of destruction toward any kind of historical monument of any religion, nation or people should be condemned.”

So why not go ahead and do it? Let’s have the delegation examine the ethnic artefacts and cultural sites of both countries. Although I have not seen reports of Armenian army or authorities destroying Azerbaijani monuments, I am sure Armenia is not an angel either – especially given the fact that even Armenian monuments are neglected in Armenia.
Unfortunately, it seems that the examiniation of Azerbaijani monuments is not Azerbaijan’s real intention. They don’t care about these monuments. They just want one thing – no foreigner witness what they have done in Djulfa. And here is how Seidov, for example, makes the transformation:

Да и вообще, я думаю тема памятников исчерпала себя и и её пора закрывать.

(And actually, I think, the topic of monuments has exhausted itself and it it time to close it.)

What was the whole point of Dr. Seidov’s post if he concludes that Armenian and Azerbaijani monuments should not be of concern?

According to the International Herald Tribune, “One of the suspects [in Hrant Dink’s assasination], Yasin Hayal, an alleged Islamic militant who learned to make bombs from Chechen militants at a camp in Azerbaijan and who served 11 months in jail for the bombing of a McDonalds restaurant in Trabzon in 2004, is suspected of masterminding the attacks on both Dink and Father Santaro.”

The Turkish Haber Vitrini has an article on Yasin Hayal and a photo of him.

Months after annihilating the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world, Azerbaijan honored a nearby Muslim monument in stamps.

An ongoing Google search about Jughacide (Jugha + cide/kill) – the destruction of the world’s largest Armenian medieval cemetery in Jugha (Djulfa or Julfa) by Azerbaijani authorities in Nakhichevan– introduced me to a website that sells Azerbaijani postal stamps since 1992.

(Gulustan tomb by Digital Image, 2003)

I was shocked to find out that on May 22, 2006, just a few months after wiping out the cemetery and banning European delegations from visiting the vandalism site, Azerbaijan had issued a stamp with the depiction of Gulustan Tomb – a medieval Muslim monument only a few miles away from the barbarized cemetery.

I couldn’t help but think about the irony and the cynicism of honoring a Muslim monument – just next to the vanished cemetery – in a time when Azerbaijan vehemently denied (and still does) that the vandalism ever happened. What this a coincidence or a message to the Azerbaijani people? If it was a message, then what was it? A sense of satisfaction of finalizing the Jughacide? A reminder that the Azerbaijani people should only think about the Muslim heritage? What about the sarcastic speeches of Azerbaijani tolerance?

Interestingly, the same Gulustan tomb was already depicted, among with other monuments, on a 1999 stamp that commemorated the 75th of Nakhichevan – the birthplace of then president Heydar Aliyev who has stamps for his 80th Anniversary, for his death, etc.

The stamp for Aliyev’s 70th Anniversary had three grammar errors in one word: Nakhichevan, the Armenian region (now part of Azerbaijan due to J.V. Stalin’s order in the 1920s) where Aliyev was born. The regular Azerbaijani spelling for Nakhichevan is Naxçıvan (“c” with a tale on the bottom and “i” without the dot on the top), yet the 1993 stamp wrote the name as “Haxcivan” (H- for Heidar Aliyev?).

In 1994, Aliyev was replaced by Prehistoric Animals – the Dinosaurs – namely Coelophysis and Segisaurus, Pentaceratops and tyrannosaurids, Segnosaurus and oviraptor, Albertosaurus and corythosaurus, Iguanodons, Stegosaurus and allosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus and saurolophus, perhaps in an attempt to document the early days of Azerbaijani culture destroyed by Armanian terrorists. Well, the last one was a joke, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Azerbaijani authorities claimed that Armenians were responsibly for the extinction of the Dinosaurs. But if you pay attention to the stamps, you will see that all stamps, but one, depict fighting animals, and this perhaps symbolizes the anger in Azerbaijan at the time although the war with Armenia was already over.

Another war, namely the one on terror, has also become a theme for an Azerbaijani stamp. On September 18, 2002, Azerbaijan issued a stamp with New York’s twin towers and the phrase, “Freedom for All.” Are the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh part of that “All”? Not the vanished cemetery in Nakhichevan for sure.