Social media has become unbearable lately, and not just because of the upheaval caused by Elon Musk’s sudden rebranding of Twitter as X with constant changes being made to the site. As the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh becomes increasingly dire, the Azerbaijani propaganda machine has gone into overdrive trying – and failing – to defend it. Whereas Azerbaijani messaging was once a well-oiled machine backed by a massive bot army and slick western PR firms, the daily outrages against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh have turned their desperate narrative upside-down.
This tweet provides a good summation of just how difficult it has become to defend Azerbaijan these days. Some analysts had once claimed that after the 2020 war and President Aliyev’s resulting popularity, there would be no reason for repression. Yet besides seven months of blockade at Lachin and harassment of the Armenian population, Aliyev continues to threaten his own people as well. Azerbaijanis themselves in the village of Soyudlu, near Armenia’s border with Tavush, have been blockaded after they protested the horrendous damage to health resulting from a mining operation with ties to the Aliyev regime. Getting even more condemnation has been the arrest of dissident scholar, Dr. Gubad Ibadoghlu, on dubious charges of counterfeiting just weeks after returning to the country.
Ibadoghlu’s daughter says that her mother, Gubad’s wife, was beaten during his arrest. There have been numerous calls for his release, but the regime forges ahead. The threshold for arrest and harassment remains low. Those who are in political opposition, like Ibadoghlu, as well as Azerbaijanis who simply make the regime uncomfortable are persecuted. This is terrible for its own sake. No one wants an oppressive regime as a neighbor. But worse, what used to be an Armenian concern is now out in the open: Just how is the illusion of peaceful “integration” of the Nagorno-Karabakh population under Aliyev rule going to work?
While most Azerbaijanis are wrapped up in the idea that Armenians are to blame for the blockade being instituted, while simultaneously claiming it doesn’t exist, this tweet is an invitation to step back and consider the situation from the other side, an exercise in empathy which has been sorely lacking around the conflict.
As this article was going to press, yet another development, as the Red Cross was finally permitted to bring a critically ill patient through the Lachin blockade towards Armenia, only to have the 68-year-old patient kidnapped out from under them and imprisoned by Azerbaijan. This is just the latest violation of international norms and only heightens the fear and distrust of what Azerbaijani rule over Nagorno-Karabakh will mean, on a daily basis, for all its residents.
The Lachin blockade of Armenians had largely gone without mention in the global press. But the now-explosive situation is becoming harder to ignore.
Former US Senator Sam Brownback, who testified last month at a US House hearing on the situation, is one of the few Americans shining a light on the blockade.
By mid-July, the humanitarian situation in Nagorno-Karabakh was reaching a breaking point and the story was shared by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
The days since have been a daily parade of harrowing news. Miscarriages have almost tripled, most pregnant women have been found to be anemic due to malnutrition…
Then there was this photo which went viral, being seen almost half a million times already. It became the personification of the horrible statistics. Not surprisingly, Azerbaijani accounts widely mocked the scene as “Armenian lies” with one even coming up with the conspiracy theory that this woman is not actually pregnant because she doesn’t look it, using as ‘evidence’ that a pregnant woman would never wear black in the summer.
This came at the exact moment Azerbaijan was hosting a “Global Media Forum” in the occupied town of Shushi. Despite being what was laughably described “the world’s most important media event in 2023”, the 200 attendees did not boast any particularly notable attendees, though a few rather prominent pro-Putin propagandists were seen in the crowd. While just down the hill in Stepanakert, people are starving, the Forum’s attendees partied.
Adding to the bad publicity, the global NGO Reporters Sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) condemned the event in extremely strong language. Every invitee to the forum was selected by the Aliyev regime – no independent press, including none from Azerbaijan itself – was permitted to attend.
This maelstrom of bad press swelled when a traveling influencer on a free trip to Shushi provided by the Azerbaijani government just got around to posting her Azerbaijan trip at the same time as the tweet above. Did she know about the nearby blockade and empty supermarkets? Not clear. But the reputational damage is clear.
In response, the influencer said the Azerbaijani press filmed her constantly and they attributed statements to her which she never made. This cannot be independently confirmed, but is in sync with the actions of a government-supported press, and is another reason why Azerbaijan’s offer of free vacations to influencers is actually too good to be true. She removed all evidence of the Azerbaijan trip from her social media.
A tweet which sobered up some of the more passive journalists was this one from the Red Cross. While Azerbaijani propagandists sought to squash all Armenian cries for help by saying there is no blockade, the Red Cross made it clear that it very much exists and that the humanitarian situation is deteriorating.
The former French Ambassador to Armenia made the chilling comparison of the current SOS coming from Nagorno-Karabakh to the one from Musa Dagh a century earlier.
A leading western analyst of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Laurence Broers released this in-depth thread which decries the blockade for exacting “a terrible human cost on those most affected by it”. He notes the many offers by Azerbaijani propagandists of “integration” for the Armenian population into Azerbaijan are “rendered irrelevant” but instead “vindicates the worst fears of the Karabakh population vis-a-vis the Azerbaijani state.” He warns Azerbaijan at attempting to impose a maximalist deal, saying “a peace that is extorted today will unravel tomorrow”.
Singer Serj Tankian brought attention to the humanitarian crisis in an interview with Spin magazine, which was shared by other luminaries of the music world including Peter Gabriel and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.
Attention also came from Nobel Peace Prize laureate human rights activist Nadia Murad, who is a leading activist for victims of genocide. This, much to the dismay of many defenders of Aliyev.
The state-sponsored hatred regularly tweeted out by Azerbaijani officials and mouthpieces was already so high that it takes a lot to shock anymore, and yet this article by Qabil Ashirov for AzerNews did just that. It drew the attention of a prominent organization fighting Anti-Semitism for asserting Hitler had a degree of humanity. Azerbaijan will have to reconcile this with its repeated claims of friendship with Israel, as evidenced in weapons deals and a shared rivalry with Iran. The rhetoric in Ashirov’s article had to have been green-lit from above: another example of hatred running rampant, again to the point of self-harm. The article’s title was changed due to the backlash, though the new one putting all of Armenia’s leaders on an equal footing with Hitler is hardly an improvement.
Canada is expanding its involvement in Armenia. First announcing it is opening an embassy in Yerevan, it is also sending observers to the EU civilian monitoring mission on the Armenian border with Azerbaijan.
Trying to end this round-up with some positive news, US National Public Radio listeners heard this story on The World of diasporans returning to Armenia.
The General Manager of the hugely popular and ever-expanding Los Angeles Football Club is of Armenian descent, and shared his own immigrant story with pride.
