The policy of restricting the dissemination of information by Azerbaijan’s military leadership has set a new benchmark for the distortion of facts, Armenia’s Defense Ministry states in a January 21 press release. The Ministry notes that this policy was implemented following a September 24, 2014 Presidential Decree “About a number of rules about security on the Armenian and Azerbaijani Line of Contact” issued by Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan.
The statement goes on to state: “Moreover, along with full distortion of the facts related to Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh and situation on the contact line, which are represented to both domestic and international communities, and dissemination of misinformation, the Ministry of Defence of that country has completely stopped publication of any negative information related to its own Armed Forces, especially those related to the flops on the contact line with numerous mindless human losses.”
Armenia’s Defense Ministry insists that this behavior falls in line with Azerbaijan’s restrictions on freedom of speech, freedom of media, human rights, and pluralism. “…characteristics of a free information society are eradicated, where free expression is viewed as treason, where generations are brought up with the image of Armenians as the enemy, its own fictional history and fictitious heroes created on committed crimes.”
For its part, the Defense Ministry of Armenia states that it will continue its “open, transparent and impartial information policy being accountable to the society for achievements and more importantly for oversight, because it realizes the full responsibility to overcome them and ensure the defense of the Republic of Armenia and Armenian society.”
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In the early morning hours of January 21, an Armenian soldier, Nahapet Asatryan was killed and another Hovhannes Gasparyan was injured following a number of infiltration attempts by Azerbaijan’s armed forces near Karvajar along the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact.
Since the beginning of January, 2015, a number of bloody exchanges have taken place along the Karabakh-Azerbaijan Line of Contact and the Armenia-Azerbaijan state border, resulting in a number of human casualties.
