Anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan

[21][22][23] According to Fyodor Lukyanov [ru], editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, "Armenophobia is the institutional part of the modern Azerbaijani statehood and Karabakh is in the center of it".

"[25] According to historian Jeremy Smith, "National identity in post-Soviet Azerbaijan rests in large part, then, on the cult of the Alievs, alongside a sense of embattlement and victimisation and a virulent hatred of Armenia and Armenians".

[36][37] Before and during the Russian Revolution of 1917, anti-Armenianism was the basis of Azeri nationalism, and under the Soviet regime Armenians remained the scapegoats who were responsible for state, societal and economic shortcomings in Azerbaijan.

[39] Between 1921 and 1990, under the control of the Azeri SSR within the USSR, Armenians in the region faced economic marginalization and cultural discrimination, leading to a significant exodus.

[42] This policy – sometimes called a "White Genocide"[43][44][45][46][47][48] – aimed at "de-Armenizing" the territory culturally and then physically and followed a similar pattern to Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians in Nakhchivan.

[53] The 1981 "law of the NKAR" denied additional rights, restricted cultural connections between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, and removed provisions that had explicitly listed Armenian as a working language to be used by local authorities.

[68] In February 1988 at the session of Politburo of the Central Committee in Moscow it was officially acknowledged that mass pogroms and murders in Sumgait were carried out based on ethnicity.

[64] It was then that the academician Ziya Bunyadov, whom Thomas de Waal, a British journalist, calls "Azerbaijan's foremost Armenophobe" in his book, Black Garden, became famous for his article "Why Sumgait?"

[69] According to Memorial, the thorough investigation of the massacre by Soviet authorities has not been made in a timely fashion and its perpetrators have never been held accountable for their crimes,[70][71] which escalated inter-ethnic tensions.

"[78] In July 1990 "An Open Letter to International Public Opinion on Anti-Armenian Pogroms in the Soviet Union" was signed by 130 intellectuals and scholars all over the world, which stated:[79] The mere fact that these pogroms were repeated and the fact that they followed the same pattern lead us to think that these tragic events are no accidents or spontaneous outbursts... we are compelled to recognize that the crimes against the Armenian minority have become consistent practice – if not consistent policy – in Soviet Azerbaijan.During the war, on 10 April 1992, Azerbaijanis carried out the Maraga Massacre, killing at least 40 Armenians.

The Armenian forces occupied large areas beyond the borders of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), the question of refugees is still unresolved and Azerbaijan continues to enforce an economic blockade on the breakaway territory.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Council of Europe's anti-discrimination watchdog, stated that the "overall negative climate" in Azerbaijan is a consequence "generated by the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

"[81] Vladimir Kazimirov, the Russian Representative for Nagorno-Karabakh from 1992 to 1996 and co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, has many times accused certain forces in Azerbaijan up to the level of state authorities of inciting anti-Armenian sentiment.

[82] At the beginning of 2004, characterizing the decade following the conclusion of the ceasefire, Kazimirov stated: Having found itself in the position of long-term discomfort, Baku has actually started pursuing a policy of a total 'cold war' against the Armenians.

[87][88] For instance, in 2008, Allahshukur Pashazadeh, the religious leader (Grand Mufti) of the Caucasus Muslims made a statement that "falsehood and betrayal are in the Armenian blood.

[99] As a response to Azerbaijan barring on-site investigation by outside groups, on 8 December 2010, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) released an analysis of high-resolution satellite photographs of the Julfa cemetery site taken in 2003 and 2009.

The AAAS concluded that the satellite imagery was consistent with the reports from observers on the ground, that "significant destruction and changes in the grade of the terrain" had occurred between 2003 and 2009, and that the cemetery area was "likely destroyed and later leveled by earth-moving equipment.

After his request under the Strasbourg convention, he was extradited[106] on 31 August 2012 to Azerbaijan, where he was greeted as a hero by a huge crowd,[107][108][109] pardoned by the Azerbaijani president despite contrary assurances made to Hungary,[110] promoted to the rank of major and given an apartment and over eight years of back pay.

"[113] On 4 April, during the 2016 Armenian–Azerbaijani clashes, it was reported that Azerbaijani forces decapitated an Armenian soldier of Yezidi origin, Karam Sloyan, with videos and pictures of his severed head posted on social networks.

[117] HRW spoke with the families of some of the POWs in the videos, who provided photographs and other documents establishing their identity, and confirmed that these relatives were serving either in the Artsakh Defence Army or the Armenian armed forces.

Particularly, in 1918-1919, during the struggle for independence under the leadership of the great Atatürk, who cleansed his land of Armenians and other enemies, the Turkish people and Turkey offered their help to Azerbaijan, to Nakhchivan.

"[133] Viktor Krivopuskov, who previously served as an officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and a member of a peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh gives the following assessment of Azerbaijan's current state policy: "The criminals are promoted to the rank of heroes, monuments are erected on their burial places, which comes to prove that the government of Azerbaijan actually continues the policy of genocide which was initiated at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th centuries.

[135] The Human Rights Defender of Armenia, the country's ombudsman, called it a "clear manifestation of fascism", saying that it is a "proof of Azerbaijani genocidal policy and state supported Armenophobia".

The EU Parliament also added that they deplore the opening of the military park and urged its immediate closure, saying it would deepen the long-lasting hostilities and further decrease trust between the nations.

[137] In response to a March 2023 resolution released by the EU pariliament which condemned the large-scale military aggression by Azerbaijan in September,[138][139] Azerbaijan's parliament accused MEPs of being influenced by “Armenia and the Armenian diaspora, long since a cancerous tumor of Europe.” On 28 February 2012, during his closing speech at the widely reported conference[141][142][143] on the results of the third year of the state program on the socioeconomic development of districts for 2009–2013, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated: "...there are forces that don't like us, our detractors.

"[144]In November 2012, Aliyev launched a twitter rant where he made anti-Armenian and irredentist statements:[145][146] Our main enemy is the Armenian lobby ... Armenia as a country is of no value.

[153] In 2011, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in his speech at the United Nations General Assembly said: Baku has turned Armenophobia into state propaganda, at a level that is far beyond dangerous.

"[155] On 7 October 2008, the Armenian Foreign Affairs Ministry statement for the OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights claimed that "anti-Armenian propaganda is becoming more and more the essential part of Azerbaijan's official policy.

Such behaviour of the Azerbaijani authorities creates a serious threat to regional peace and stability" and compared Azerbaijan with Nazi Germany stating "one cannot but draw parallels with the largely similar anti-Jewish hysteria in the Third Reich in the 1930s and early 1940s, where all the above-mentioned elements of explicit racial hatred were also evident.

[160] Council of Europe – The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published five reports on Azerbaijan and noted a general “negative attitude towards Armenians” in each of them.