Armenophobia in Azerbaijan

Considering that the report reflects the official statements, this last point that the persons in question never applied to receive documents of their own accord is quite contestable. The cases of Zhanna Shahmuradyan and Elvira Movsesyan attest to the contrary; they duly applied to receive documents, but were turned down. As a result, one of them filed a court petition, and the other had to break the law and use the documents of another person. And these are not isolated cases. The Azerbaijani press reports another 30 court petitions to obtain a passport.129

In Azerbaijan, ethnic Armenians face threats in their daily lives. Born in mixed families of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, they prefer to take up the last name of the Azerbaijani parent to avoid bureaucratic hassles, and those who are unable to do so seek to prove their ‘Azerbaijani descent’ in a court of law to be allowed to integrate into the society. The case of Firuza Bagirova130 provides an illustrative example; at an advanced age of 74, she was forced to repudiate her Armenian father and portray her mother in what the traditional morality of the Caucasus views as disgrace only to be allowed to leave the country. The name of her Armenian father appearing in her identification documents keeps 74-year-old Bagirova stranded in Azerbaijan.

A 74-year-old woman in Baku renounces her Armenian stepfather, and the sum of 6,000 USD paid in legal fees is lost. In 1938, Halima Bagirova, pregnant at the time, left her Azerbaijani husband Isu Jafar-oghli and eloped with an Armenian named Khoren Khachaturyan. In the same year, her daughter, Firuza Bagirova was born, and in the birth certificate, H. Bagirova indicated the name of Isa Jafarov as the father of her child. However, later as Kh. Khachaturyan received the documents, he introduced changes in them and indicated his name as the child’s father. “Therefore, some of my documents indicate Isa and some others mention Khoren as the name of my father, in the remaining documents my father’s name is left blank” <…> Meanwhile, 74-year-old Firuza Bagirova reports that she is not allowed to leave the territory of Azerbaijan because of the name of her Armenian father appearing in her identification documents. “I traveled all over Azerbaijan. I want to get back the name of my Azerbaijani father to be able to travel to Meshed and Karbala”.

The absence of documents bars their access to basic civil rights: social assistance, employment, health care, pensions and the ability to leave the country.

Here is how an unnamed author describes the situation of Armenians on Day.az:

Citizens of Azerbaijan of Armenian descent often prefer to hush up the problem rather than bring up the matter on institutional level. Thus, many of our respondents cannot obtain the payment of their rightfully claimed pensions. As a rule, all their complaints run up against answers approximately termed as follows: “And you still have the cheek to ask for a pension? You must be grateful that we allow you to live here at all”!131

The ECRI report notes that as a result of the media policy and official ideology of Azerbaijan, being Armenian has become an insult, and claims of an Armenian descent can become a subject of litigation causing the person to lose his/her job. Azerbaijani news outlets teem with voices exhorting to fire not only Armenians, but also those who have Armenian lineage (i.e. have an Armenian mother, grandmother or spouse).

The Azerbaijani website Pia.az published an article entitled “A Disgraceful Fact in the System of Education” revealing that Elsa Tagieva who was the headmaster of the school № 246 in Binagadi district of Baku was Armenian by her maternal side. The article says that the Minister of Education of Azerbaijan, Misir Mardanov “entrusts the education of the rising generation of Azerbaijan to the enemies of Turkic peoples”. The author of the article wonders: “How can you entrust the education and patriotic upbringing of our children who represent our future to a half-breed Armenian?”132

Apart from copious adversities and perils of their life in Azerbaijan, ethnic Armenians become a daily target of abuse and vilification from the representatives of the authorities, intellectuals and other citizens in the press, official statements, social and political discourse as well as in the social media. In addition, the disparaging and insulting rhetoric against Armenians as ethnic group is profusely fomented by the authorities of Azerbaijan.

Columnist Chinara Vugar: The continued presence of Armenian women in Baku undermines our family life. <…> How could we sink so low? When the Armenian mother or grandmother of some official, a simple head physician or school headmaster dies, we shamelessly take part in the funeral because we depend on them, to say nothing of those who weep and shed tears at the funerals of Armenians. <…> How could we demean ourselves so much; when we send matchmakers to ask a girl in marriage or to marry off a girl, we move heaven and earth to find out from the law enforcement authorities whether or not the bride’s or groom’s pedigree has any Armenian lines. We unwittingly besmirch our honor with the blood of these dogs.133

Gyunel Mehdi: Today, as our country is going through wartime, over 30 thousand Armenians lead carefree lives here. It is not enough that they never bother to mask their origin and have their documents massively restored, many of them hold high offices. They all raise their children in a spirit of hatred towards the Azerbaijani and remind them daily that the Azerbaijani are their enemies. We scare our children with some wild beasts, while Armenians are something much worse. <…> As long as there are Armenians living in our country, we won’t be able to resolve the issue of Karabakh.

A few days ago, here in the center of Azerbaijan and its capital city of Baku, the ‘freshest’ citizens of Azerbaijan came into being. I refer to Zhanna Shahmuradyan and her daughter. Just look at how insolent they are! As if it were not enough that they freely live here in tens of thousands using cloaked identities, today, through the Migration Service and courts, they seek to obtain documents under their true Armenian names.134

Here, the reaction of the Azerbaijani community in social networks and forums presents a greater interest than the process itself. At grass roots level, many Azerbaijanis are genuinely surprised that “these insolent Armenians” dare to lay down the law, as if it were not enough that they lived in Azerbaijan. This rush of aggressive rhetoric among the regular Internet users from Azerbaijan is quite elucidating. Some demanded to have the addresses of the Armenian women to lynch them, and some others suggested “using these Armenians for propaganda”. It is of interest to examine both factions as they reveal the true attitude towards Armenians that Azerbaijan is so carefully trying to sweep under the carpet.135

It is no secret that Azerbaijan can be hardly described as a country where common European values thrive, with its increasing incidence of corruption, misrule in the military, spiraling crime rate and hard-pressed social situation. To make matters worse, the propaganda keeps shifting the responsibility for everything that happens in Azerbaijan on Armenians who live there.

“Today, Armenians are represented in virtually all power structures, social and political organizations, and they enjoy daily elevation in office. Today, they are capable of plunging us back into the events of 1993 putting our very statehood at risk. Today, numerous religious groups, movements and sects have been created and presently thrive in the city; it is Armenians who are behind and at the head of them. Day after day, they raise difficulties and throw obstacles in the way of the Azerbaijani citizens by poisoning their existence”.136

“The former Minister of Economic Development of Azerbaijan Heydar Babayev had a driver named Gharib, but the Minister himself called him by a fishy name of Garik. <…> Our investigation conducted as part of the Witch-hunt operation revealed an outrageous fact; this very Garik had Armenian lineage. <…> Just imagine that the Minister of Economic Development entrusted the Armenian to steer his vehicle who had been his driver for many years. A person who dealt with problems related to the development of our country let an Armenian into these important processes. And we are all too well aware of their unfortunate outcome. Today, our country’s economic development continues to be in the hands of aliens who have infiltrated the Ministry. <…> The former minister, instead of getting rid of his driver, had a new passport concocted for him changing the driver’s name to Gharib”.137

“A group of cadets from the Military Academy of Azerbaijan addressed a letter to the Azadliq newspaper in which they described the unbearable conditions of their training. <…> The Head of the Academy, Najaf Gambarov was a friend of the Defense Minister Safar Abiyev from his student years and was notorious for his murky dealings during the years of his work in the military enlistment office. In 1993, N. Gambarov surrendered the military unit in his command to the insurgent colonel Suret Huseynov and fled. He is also accused of having an Armenian wife”.138

For the sake of fairness, it must be noted there are opinions which accurately reflect the bewilderment of ordinary citizens about the discrepancy between the declared values and calls on the one hand and the true state of affairs on the other.

In fact, no matter how regretful it may sound to be, we must not exhort the Armenians of Karabakh to accept our conditions on the widest autonomy, on the one hand, and inter alia refuse to issue documents to Armenian citizens of Azerbaijan, on the other. We must do the contrary so as to guarantee in practice the viability and security of the Armenian community of Karabakh, should they agree to autonomy within Azerbaijan.139

With this onslaught of armenophobic policy that Azerbaijan has long sought to conceal, the surviving Armenians who had not been able to leave the country in time for various reasons found themselves virtually marginalized and excluded as low-grade citizens who stand as a constant reminder of a dented dignity and are continuously made to answer for sins they never committed.

“I don’t know a single fact when the rights of the Armenians living in Azerbaijan were infringed”, said Heydar Aliyev on July 1, 1999 during the meeting with Georgian and Armenian journalists taking part in the conference held at the Presidential Palace in Baku as part of the Media Support Project by the Geneva Institute for Democracy.140

4. Ban on Armenian names

The custom of banning names is quite common in the world. Such bans have their rationale based on the interests of children, protection of the current ideology and set of values.

Thus, many countries have a strict state-regulated procedure for assigning names to the children by their parents who often chase the tendencies in vogue and choose quite exotic names, such as: Kanalizatsia, Tractor, Lucifer, Number 16 Bus Shelter, Biological Object Human descendant of the Voronins and Frolovs born on June 26, 2002, digital names, etc. For instance, China has long maintained a ban on naming children after representatives of the imperial family, particularly those of the dynasty in power; such names had to be changed. Some countries taboo names related to religious views; for instance, certain countries place a ban on such names as Lucifer and alike.

The restrictions and bans in Azerbaijan have to deal with the ethnic origin of the name.

In 2011, the Academy of Sciences and the Government of Azerbaijan approved a principle of the traffic light, according to which the state authorities themselves determine the list of trustworthy and prohibited names for children that Azerbaijan parents can choose from.

The Director of the Institute of Information Technologies of ANAS, Rasim Aliguliyev, has noted that based on the principle of the traffic light, the names which “correspond to the national, cultural and ideological values of Azerbaijan” will be included in the green list and can be assigned without any restrictions.

The second category will be comprised of names included in the yellow list. These names are neither desirable nor recommended; they cause derision and sound inappropriate in other languages.

Names of the third category will be included in the red list; assigning of these names will not be allowed. “Such names include the names of persons who have perpetrated aggression against the people of Azerbaijan, names whose meaning is offensive in the Azerbaijani language”.141

Armenian names were included in the red list of prohibited names. According to Rasim Aliguliyev, “it is unacceptable in Azerbaijan to name your baby Andranik”.142 That comes to say that if a Lezgin wants to name his son Arsen – a name very popular both among Armenians and Lezgins, or if a Talysh wants to name his son Armin – a name quite popular among both Armenian and Talysh people, he will have to apply to the commission for a special authorization.

Russian names, too, came under attack. According to Sayali Sagidova, the chairman of the Commission, “not every Azerbaijani family would marry their daughter off to somebody named Dmitry”.143 A ban will be also placed on such names as Maria, Ekaterina, Alya and other Russian names.

Also, a special commission of the National Academy of Sciences approved a bill imposing changes in the last names used in Azerbaijan where endings with – ov and – ev would be substituted by their Turkicized variants of – lu, – li, -beyli, etc.

Nizami Jafarov, Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee on Cultural Issues, when asked how this new law would affect the national minorities of Azerbaijan, such as Lezgins, Talysh, Avars, Tats and representatives of other ethnic groups gave this answer: “The question on the agenda is as follows; every person who considers himself/herself Azerbaijani – and most of the ethnic minorities of Azerbaijan have merged with the Azerbaijani people and consider themselves Azerbaijani – will have to change his/her last n a me”.144

This lays a very interesting groundwork not only for fast-tracking the assimilation processes of the indigenous population of Azerbaijan, but is in direct contravention of the country’s declared set of values, such as tolerance and cultural diversity, the commitment to which the myth of 30,000 Armenians living on the territory of Azerbaijan purports to illustrate.

It appears that the ethnic Armenians who live today on the territory of Azerbaijan are automatically divested of any chance to keep and develop their cultural traditions by naming their children Andranik145, Armen, Hrayr or alike.

Azerbaijan’s appetite for integration of the Armenian-populated territory of Nagorno-Karabakh inevitably leads to a series of conclusions, such as:

(a) Armenians of Karabakh and citizens of Azerbaijan will be prohibited from using their own ethnic names entered into the red list. This will violate their rights, or they will be outlawed;

(b) Azerbaijan is working out an option of returning Karabakh without Armenians populating its territory which means that they will have to face a forceful assimilation or banishment, which is in contradiction of the promised concept of the widest autonomy possible;

(c) The Azerbaijani power elite have ceased to view Karabakh as an integral part of their country on a subconscious level; therefore, in adopting certain laws, they completely disregard the interests of the population which itself has long lost the feeling of affiliation with Azerbaijan.

It is noteworthy that the Azerbaijanis themselves, despite their claims of individual ethnic identity, lack traditional Azerbaijani ethnic names. These names can be exclusively traced back to: Arabic roots, adapted through Islam (Seid, Seyran, Ali, Vugar, Rasim, Zia, Ilham), Iranian roots (Panah, Nariman, Bahram, Rovshan, Siyavush, Azar) and Armenian roots (Mayis). The Iranian-speaking Talysh people bear ethnic names from pre-Islamic period, such as: Zardusht146, Kadus147, Zabil, Kekul, Shali, Chessaret, Ferin, Revane, and Sherebanu. The practice of using names common for all Turkic people from Altai to Turkey, such as Ogtay, Elnur, Atakhan, Elshan, Altay has been introduced but a few decades ago which is at odds with the concept of genuine ethnic names.

5. Entry ban to Azerbaijan

An extraordinary manifestation of armenophobia and incitement to hatred take form of banning the entry for ethnic Armenians who are not Armenian residents or nationals.

The practice of banning entry is quite common worldwide. Thus, certain conflicting, warring or ideologically opposed countries impose similar bans (Israel and Muslim countries), significantly complicate the entry visa issuing procedure (India and Pakistan) and sometimes go as far as imposing fines or arresting the person concerned (Georgia and Abkhazia or Southern Ossetia).

Azerbaijan, in its turn, has mimicked the practices of other countries amalgamating their methods into an arrangement that above all is in contradiction with its commitment to the principles of tolerance avowed domestically and internationally. The emotional character of this decision along with its chaotic application and insufficient elaboration made the enforcement of this mechanism quite perplexing. This latter circumstance frequently leads to scandals and some singular incidents.

First, the self-ascribed commitment to the principle of tolerance prevents Azerbaijan from placing a legislative ban officially proscribing the entry of ethnic Armenians into the country. Second, the absence of an unambiguous regulatory document such as a law or a sublegislative act lends absurdity to the actions of the Azerbaijani officials. Third, the citizens of Azerbaijan themselves and the officers of international agencies have hard time pinpointing where the denied entry, removal, detainment or deportation of a specific person is legitimate and where it is not so.

Two football players from the Russian club Torpedo of Armavir were deported from Azerbaijan immediately upon their arrival at the airport of the city Ganja in July 2011 on the account of their Armenian origin. Mehman Allahverdiev, the head coach of the Azerbaijani football club Kapaz, had invited Armenian football players for an audition, however, it was reported that he had had no prior knowledge of the Armenian origin of the Russian players. Their arrival drew a great uproar at the airport of Ganja. The officers of the State Border Service returned the Armenian football players who held Russian passports on the same plane in which they had arrived.148

In 2010, the Armenian delegation was unable to board a plane from Moscow to Baku to attend the 64th General Assembly of the European Broadcasting Union due to the wrongful acts of the Azerbaijan’s representative office of Aeroflot Air Company.149

The representatives of the Armenian delegation were about to board the plane when the representative of the Azerbaijani side asked the passengers if there were any Armenians among them. Hearing an affirmative answer, she asked Armenians to hand over their boarding passes and step aside. After all passengers including numerous participants of the EBU General Assembly boarded the plane, the boarding passes of the Armenian representatives were shredded, and they were told that passenger seats in the plane were complete which by definition could not make any sense as the tickets of the Armenian delegation members were in the business class. Moreover, the boarding pass indicates a seat assigned to a specific passenger; therefore, it is virtually impossible to register two passengers for the same seat.

In November 2011, the officers of the passport control service at the airport of Baku denied entry to the interim head of the Public Relations Department of the company Beeline Kazakhstan, Mr. Bayram Azizov on the ground that he had previously been to Yerevan on a working visit;150 incidentally, he was a citizen of Kazakhstan and an ethnic Azerbaijani. The aggrieved person had to spend 48 hours in the transit zone of the Baku airport before his deportation to the country of origin. It is worth mentioning that Mr. Bayram Azizov tried to seek assistance from the head of the Azerbaijani state by posting a message on the Twitter account of the president Ilham Aliyev: “Good day! Please, help me! I’m a citizen of Kazakhstan. It’s almost 48 hours since I have been in the transit zone of the airport of Baku. Border guards have seized my passport, and I don’t understand the reason of my detention. I have to sleep on the floor and feed myself on instant noodle! I’m running out of money! The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan has been made aware of the situation”. Unfathomably, both postings somehow disappeared from Aliyev’s Twitter account.

In reply to a remark from a journalist of Vesti.az news agency to the effect that a person who had visited Armenia would face difficulties in entering Azerbaijan, the aggrieved person said that he had traveled into Georgia approximately a year prior to that and could easily cross Georgian-Armenian border despite his Azerbaijani ethnicity indicated in his passport.151

Reasons for denying entry:

1. Visit to Nagorno-Karabakh Republic through the territory of Armenia;152

2. Visit to Armenia;

3. Armenian origin, existence of Armenian relatives or friends, expressing feelings of sympathy towards Armenia or Armenian people;

4. Incapacity to secure the safety of Armenians visiting Azerbaijan;

5. Suspicions of a terrorist threat;

6. Existence of a law to that effect;

7. Names that arouse suspicions because they sound Armenian, or an alleged relation to Armenians;

8. Persons whose relatives or acquaintances have committed insulting or outrageous acts from the Azerbaijani perspective (a concert by a popular singer Philip Kirkorov was canceled in Baku because at the time his father was helping an Armenian disabled boy153).

Sufian Zhemukhov: The secret of my name was revealed during my visit to an international workshop in Baku, to where I flew from Istanbul. At customs, a good-looking Azerbaijani lady checked my passport. <…> In fact, that lady called an officer of Azerbaijani special services and handed him my passport. The officer joined his colleague at the other end of the hall where they long conferred together and even made some telephone calls. After that, they beckoned me and asked: “This name of yours, what is it?” <…> Then they asked me bluntly: “So, this means it’s not an Armenian name?” Then, it all dawned on me. These cloaked Turkish officers and their simple-minded Azerbaijani colleagues took me for a crafty Armenian trying to sneak into their country! <…> “No, no, Sufian is not an Armenian name”, reassured them I. And I breathed a mixed sigh of relief and anguish. It seemed that the problem was not my name but their anti-Armenian complexes. <…> Later, An American told me that he, too, had had problems at the Azerbaijani customs because his passport had an Armenian visa. Although as it is, it appears that they should never stop bowing, if they take an American passport into their hands. This put my mind in rest about my red-skin passport. Of course, I have heard that Armenians and Azerbaijanis dislike each other, but I never knew that it was that serious.154

Zurab Dvali: The first hassles started when we measured the height of the wall once and then began to build the same scene for the shooting.”But you have already measured the wall, why are you doing it all over again?” asked a cheerless party official sporting a golden signature of H. Aliyev pinned on his lapel. <…> “Oh, no,” groaned the vigilant party leader Abbasov. “You are deceiving us; you have come here to shoot something else!” And precisely at that moment he noticed a book in Georgian that a member of our expedition, geographer Kakhi Jelia was holding in his hands. “What is this?” he asked. “A book on ancient Georgian architecture”. <…> The book published back in 1979 and authored by a famous scientist Ilia Adamia was a bombshell for Abbasov. All of a sudden, he started calling someone and went off into a loud discussion accompanied by an intensive body language. Then, seeing our bewilderment, he finally uttered: “The Armenian finger!” We all exchanged bewildered glances without understanding the meaning of it. Only later did we find out that the party bigwig somehow thought that the last name ‘Adamia’ was an Armenian one. Another ten plain-clothes officers rushed to his ear-piercing scream. We were surrounded, but refused to hand over the book. But our work had to be done, and amid this disapproving buzz of the local populace, we started the shooting. Our every step, our every move around the village was supervised from three cars that accompanied us.