When Journalism Becomes Propaganda: Whitewashing Azerbaijan’s Record in Artsakh․ Armen Ayvazyan

Doctor of Political Science and historian Armen Ayvazyan writes.

The latest disgraceful visit by diplomats from various countries—European diplomats in particular—to ethnically cleansed Artsakh marks the beginning of a new, organized phase of anti-Armenian policy, aimed at the gradual international legalization and legitimization of the dispossession of the Armenians of Artsakh from their homeland.

Another manifestation of this same process appeared just a few hours ago in Euronews English: a report on remarks made by Hikmet Hajiyev, adviser to the President of Azerbaijan, at the Euronews Forum in Dubai (link in the comments).

Euronews reproduces Hajiyev’s claims about Azerbaijan’s supposedly exemplary protection of Christian heritage almost in their entirety, without any meaningful fact-checking. The Armenian objections are reduced to a single perfunctory sentence: representatives of the Armenian Church, we are told, accuse Baku of destroying churches in Karabakh, while Azerbaijan denies the allegations.

But this has long ceased to be a matter of mere Armenian “allegations.” The destruction of Armenian cultural heritage has also been documented by independent researchers, including through satellite-based investigations conducted by Caucasus Heritage Watch, a research initiative based at Cornell and Purdue universities. Its findings have confirmed, for example, the complete destruction—after the establishment of Azerbaijani control—of the Armenian Church of St. John the Baptist (Kanach Zham) in Shushi, built in 1847. The same research initiative documented the destruction, between 1997 and 2011, of 108 out of 110 Armenian medieval and early modern monasteries, churches, and cemeteries it had identified in Nakhichevan—98 percent of the total.

Euronews mentions none of these facts. Nor does it mention the International Court of Justice’s 2021 order requiring Azerbaijan to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage.

Instead, Hajiyev is given an unobstructed platform to advance one of the central narratives of Azerbaijani propaganda concerning the appropriation of Armenian historical heritage. He presents the conversion of Caucasian Albania to Christianity in the fourth century as part of the ancient Christian history of modern Azerbaijan. Euronews does not even ask the elementary historical question: on what basis is the Caucasian Albania of the fourth century being equated with the Republic of Azerbaijan, established in the twentieth century?

Thus, documented evidence of the destruction of Armenian cultural heritage is either simply ignored or reduced to the simplistic formula of “the Armenian side alleges, Azerbaijan denies,” while the historically and politically false claims of a senior Azerbaijani official are disseminated to an international audience without serious scrutiny.

This is not journalism. It is dirty propaganda serving Azerbaijan’s interests. Through publications of this kind, the international public is being systematically accustomed to the new reality of Artsakh, emptied of its Armenian population, while Artsakh’s Armenian historical and cultural identity is simultaneously being erased from public consciousness.

The silence of foreign diplomats visiting Artsakh, emptied of its Armenian population, and publications of this kind in international media are different manifestations of the same process. Through this mechanism, Baku’s propaganda narratives and falsifications are introduced into the international information space and gradually presented as accepted and uncontested realities.

Let us judge our “European friends” by their deeds, so that we may better anticipate what they will do next.