Armenia and the information war

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Aztag: The Wave Of Misinformation Hits The Lebanese Media Shore

From: "Katia M. Peltekian" <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:48:54 +0500 (AMST)
THE WAVE OF MISINFORMATION HITS THE LEBANESE MEDIA SHORE
Shahan Kandaharian

Aztag Daily
Sept 15 2009
Lebanon

Some Lebanese media outlets have been lured into the
Turkish-Azerbeidjani misinformation trap. This is not surprising
because when internationally known media outlets willingly or
unwillingly are giving place to Azerbeidjani false information,
wrong reports circulate reaching to all kinds of media outlets.

The first shocking mis-information had to do with the withdrawal of the
Armenian forces from the liberated territories. This piece of news,
launched from Turkey and Azerbeidjan, stated that the Armenian side
has already agreed to yield to the demand of withdrawal from the seven
liberated terriroties. We didn't come across to any report that proved
the opposite and refuted the mis-information. The falsehood of the
information was obvious at first sight; nevertheless, the absence of
its negation led to the spreading of the news. Specially that the news
followed the august 31 pre-signing of the Armenian-Tukish protocols.

Second, another similar mis-information, with a similar
distribution rate came to perch on the branches of the Lebanese
media field. Azerbeidjani media outlets have used the pictures of
the dead Georgian soldiers, who had lost their lives because of
the Georgian clashes that had taken place on the Georgian-Armenian
border, to spread a false news that the Armenian forces had attacked
Azerbeidjani territories on the way of Aghdam and had encountered
resistance. The Armenian "attacks" had caused five casualties. There
was not one international, regional and local (Lebanese) news outlet
that had missed the news. The official declaration of the Mountainous
Karapagh Republic Defense ministry issued on the next day wasn't
enough to refute the mis-information.

If in the first case the deception that was propagated was that even
before the signing of the protocols between Armenia and Turkey there
was movement in that area, at the same time underlining the defeat of
the Armenian side, in the case of the second the attempt was to show
the combativeness of the Azerbeidjani army and the aggressiveness of
the Armenian side.

However, in both cases the chosen time and the logic of the sequence of
the mis-information is interesting. What is being said is that for the
Turkish and Azerbeidjani policies there's no omition of the Karapagh
issue from the pre-signed protocols. Karapagh is related to these
processes and no progress will be achieved in the Armenian-Turkish
relations without any serious step being taken in the resolution of the
Karapagh conflict. Turkey is spreading news that the Armenian forces
will withdraw from the liberated territories. And the Azerbeidjanis
are trying to manipulate proofs for the mis-information concerning
their military superiority.

Till this day the Armenian side has not responded properly to those
mis-information blows. Although virtually those are not true but
nevertheless an announcement must be made that Turkey and Azerbeidjan
are spreading news that have no truth in them whatsoever.

However, this is not all yet. The Lebanese Nahar Daily shone on its
first page the "masterpiece" of Marwan Iskandar. Speaking about almost
everything, he explicitly and boldly said that in 1992 the Armenians
committed an actual massacre against the Azerbeidjani Muslims.

Before questioning Marwan Iskandar's knowledge on the Caucasus region,
we must think about what led a prominent newspaper like Nahar to allow
the publication of such a statement on its front page. This not just
the issue of Marwan Iskandar. Giving a religious label to the Karapagh
conflict, trying to ignite an Islam-Armenian confrontation and claiming
Armenians to be mass murderers in Karapagh is a Nahar issue more than
being a Marwan Iskandar issue. And if the silence and the indifference
of the Armenian side both on the state level and on the level of
public opinion will continue, that would be above all else our issue!

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg283563.html

[Federate]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Rock band Iron Maiden was on its way to India and landed in Baku to get fuel. Azerbaijani hospitality included payment for weather report as well as the payment of $1600 for the beer they drank in Baku Airport. Iron Maiden made an official statement NEVER EVER TO ENTER AZERBAIJAN IN THE FUTURE. - http://parcomo.livejournal.com/23409.html and http://www.panorama.am/am/politics/2009/09/15/dnevnik/

[KanadaHye]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Rock band Iron Maiden was on its way to India and landed in Baku to get fuel. Azerbaijani hospitality included payment for weather report as well as the payment of $1600 for the beer they drank in Baku Airport. Iron Maiden made an official statement NEVER EVER TO ENTER AZERBAIJAN IN THE FUTURE. - http://parcomo.livejournal.com/23409.html and http://www.panorama.am/am/politics/2009/09/15/dnevnik/

LOL, it's also on their official website http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?..._articleid=763

We arrived in Baku to refuel. Whist on the ground Bruce did an interview in the xxxxpit with Sky News. As refuelling progressed the local airport staff came on the plane and started asking for payments for other services on top of the fuel and handling fees which had been agreed. Bruce asked what other services to be told "Weather Information". "But we didn't need or have any," says Bruce. This got a blank look. And this was after we gave them the signed autographs! I can tell this tour will have a bit of the Wild West about it -- great!!! We had also ordered 200 cans of beer, the small ones, to restock the second leg -- they brought them on and gave us a bill for $1600!! £4 a go -- at an airport duty free!!. Bruce's Yorkshire blood boiled and he told them to eff off and take them away. Maiden are very generous but no one takes the piss. I doubt we will ever play in Azerbaijan -- the whole stop must have been at least 40 min longer than necessary. And we certainly didn't give in to their demands!!

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Rock band Iron Maiden was on its way to India and landed in Baku to get fuel. Azerbaijani hospitality included payment for weather report as well as the payment of $1600 for the beer they drank in Baku Airport. Iron Maiden made an official statement NEVER EVER TO ENTER AZERBAIJAN IN THE FUTURE. - http://parcomo.livejournal.com/23409.html and http://www.panorama.am/am/politics/2009/09/15/dnevnik/

thats classic. $1600 for beer? thats just retarded.

[Mukuch]

Re: Armenia and the information war

LOL, it's also on their official website http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?..._articleid=763

We arrived in Baku to refuel. Whist on the ground Bruce did an interview in the xxxxpit with Sky News. As refuelling progressed the local airport staff came on the plane and started asking for payments for other services on top of the fuel and handling fees which had been agreed. Bruce asked what other services to be told "Weather Information". "But we didn't need or have any," says Bruce. This got a blank look. And this was after we gave them the signed autographs! I can tell this tour will have a bit of the Wild West about it -- great!!! We had also ordered 200 cans of beer, the small ones, to restock the second leg -- they brought them on and gave us a bill for $1600!! £4 a go -- at an airport duty free!!. Bruce's Yorkshire blood boiled and he told them to eff off and take them away. Maiden are very generous but no one takes the piss. I doubt we will ever play in Azerbaijan -- the whole stop must have been at least 40 min longer than necessary. And we certainly didn't give in to their demands!!

LOL wellcome to the turkland ! )))

[londontsi]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Another version of an old story, still sounds ridiculous.

Quite funny presentation if you have not seen it before.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/32485081

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Friday, September 18, 2009

EURASIA INSIGHT
AZERBAIJAN AND ARMENIA: ONLINE CONFLICT ENGULFS NAGORNO-KARABAKH PEACE PROCESS



The information war surrounding the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process appears to be intensifying. Electronic sniping between Armenians and Azerbaijanis is spreading into new areas, including social networks, wikis and blogs. Some commentators believe that Azerbaijan is gaining the upper hand.

For years, Armenia arguably dominated the electronic fight, relying on a host of multilingual websites featuring Armenia-angled news about the disputed territory. In addition, members of the country’s active Diaspora recently launched an Armenian-language global search engine, Hanguyc. Meanwhile, Russian online news services often supported Armenian arguments -- a reflection of the long-term special relationship between Russia and Armenia. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

But Azerbaijan has made major advances of late on the online battlefield. This has prompted calls for a counter-attack by Armenian Internet users. "Many nationalist activists here seem to think that Azerbaijan has gotten an upper hand in the online information war," commented Onnik Krikorian, a prominent Yerevan-based blogger and the Caucasus editor for Global Voices Online, an international network of bloggers and citizen journalists.

Based on Internet access statistics, Azerbaijan would indeed seem to be doing well in the battle over Karabakh spin. The country has experienced a 12,400 percent increase in Internet access since 2000, according to data portal Internet World Stats. Roughly 18.2 percent of the country’s 8.2 million residents can now go online, compared with a mere 5.8 percent of Armenia’s population of 2.98 million.

Given those numbers, there are signs that web warfare has become an important instrument in the Azerbaijani government’s foreign policy toolkit.

Baku recently has scored several significant web-based victories. In its weather listings, for example, Microsoft’s MSN.com indicated Karabakh as an entity independent of Azerbaijan, with the word "disputed" added in parentheses to define its status. Google, in turn, listed Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave, which is surrounded by Armenia, separately from Azerbaijan in its map service.

After Azerbaijan’s embassy in Washington demanded an explanation, both Google and Microsoft made changes to show that both territories belonged to Baku, adding the qualification "Azerbaijan" after both Karabakh and Nakhichevan.

Those virtual victories followed another gain over Armenia on Wikipedia, the user-generated online reference site. On August 24, the Azerbaijani online news site Day.az, an outlet reportedly close to President Ilham Aliyev’s administration, issued a call to readers to help detect "errors" on Wikipedia. As an example of such errors, the outlet pointed to a Wikipedia statement that Armenia "borders with Artsakh to the southeast."

Armenians widely use "Artsakh" as the name for Karabakh. The Wikipedia entry in question now contains more neutral language, saying that Armenia borders Iran, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Emin Huseynzade, the Baku-based Caucasus project manager for Transitions Online, a media development organization and online journal, states that Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also used crowd-sourcing to respond to YouTube videos that are seen as having an anti-Azerbaijan message. Users either report the videos as abusing YouTube’s terms of usage to trigger their removal, or post clips in response.

"Azerbaijan is catching up, thanks to the accessibility of information on the Internet and to its growing Diaspora, whose members are increasingly conscious of what they perceive as distortions and try their best to correct them," said independent media analyst Nikki Kazimova, who has long followed the two countries’ online labors.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, which has recently encouraged attempts to organize Diaspora communities in order to counter Armenia’s own well-financed Diaspora groups, could well have a role in promoting Azeri Diaspora responses, Kazimova believes.

The Foreign Ministry was not available for comment to EurasiaNet for this article. Any such official support for Web-based initiatives focused on foreign policy aims would be ironic, given the ongoing high-profile trial of two bloggers in Baku. The pair is facing assault charges for supposedly starting a brawl at a café in July. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The defendants insist, however, they are being punished for using the Internet to criticize domestic government policies. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Armenian officials are now looking for ways to use the Internet to bolster their diplomatic position. Armenian media outlets have reported that President Serzh Sargsyan’s office has set up an email hotline to report online "anti-Armenian activity," according to Krikorian. Sargsyan’s office did not respond to an emailed request seeking to substantiate the reports.

Meanwhile, with Facebook and Twitter’s membership mushrooming, the Internet’s role in both countries’ information campaigns is likely to increase. "[The] [o]nline world ha[s] much more channels, than [the] traditional media [for information campaigns]," Huseynzade noted in an email exchange. "Especially for diplomatic issues it is vital? Printing some article in [The] New York Times is not [as] effective as forming greater, [more] effective communities in Twitter."

[Editor’s Note: Huseynzade works for Transitions Online, which receives funding from the Open Society Institute. EurasiaNet operates under OSI’s auspices. In addition, Onnik Krikorian has worked in the past as a freelance writer for EurasiaNet].

Both Huseynzade and Krikorian say that Armenian and Azerbaijani officials have largely overlooked public diplomacy opportunities available online.

Among the few exceptions is DOTCOM, a US State Department-sponsored program that selects 90 students from Armenia, Azerbaijan and the United States to provide coverage of issues of mutual interest, including the Nagorno-Karabakh situation, and to distribute it through international online networks.

But this appears to be a drop in the sea of blogs and online campaigns that seem to perpetuate the divisions between the two countries. Initiatives to collect signatures for both sides’ opposing views on the Karabakh question are proliferating on Facebook, for instance. Meanwhile both Armenian and Azerbaijani bloggers admit they are using their blogs to offer opinionated analysis to Western audiences who, in their view, receive sanitized and inaccurate information about the countries of the South Caucasus.

Some observers see hidden benefits to all the online jousting. Before the advent of blogs and social networks, Armenians and Azerbaijanis rarely had opportunities to exchange views. Krikorian expressed hope that the changing means of communication might ultimately alter opinions. "The Internet keeps lines of communication open, even if there are those in both directly countries who would rather they didn’t exist at all," he wrote in an April 2009 blog entry.

Editor's Note: Giorgi Lomsadze is a freelance reporter based in Tbilisi.

http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav091809b.shtml

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

classic

Today.Az » Society » Azerbaijani historian: We should not be like Armenians

22 September 2009 [12:32] - Today.Az

Azerbaijani Member of Parliament and historian Fazail Ibrahimli spoke to Day.Az in an interview.

Day.Az: In recent times distortion of history in the pages of Wikipedia has become frequent. What, in your opinion, the purpose of distorting historical facts in this and other online resources?

Fazail Ibrahimli: Although there is a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia, an information war is going on. All of these conversations, speeches, distorted facts, false information posted on various websites, including those in Wikipedia show that Armenia is trying to be active in this war. I think all is done by the Armenian lobby that exists in various European countries, as well as in the United States.

Q: Why there is much false and provocative information about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the internet?

A: I believe that this is ideological war carried out by Armenia. It has been working intensively in this direction. But the world community knows that Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan, and this false information about the history of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, posted on internet, has lost influence and has no impact on world opinion.

Q: What steps should be taken to prevent the spread of false historical facts about Azerbaijan on Internet?

A: I think that we should always be on alert. I am sure that we do not have to come up with alternative actions, and act like Armenians, that is to spread false information about them. We must develop a strong information network in order to not allow the Armenians to mislead various countries and we should continue to tell the truth about what really happened.

Q: What steps Azerbaijan should take in order to withstand Armenian lies and provocations on Internet?

A: I believe that Azerbaijan should be more active than Armenia. But the Internet is a resource that can not be controlled by our country. Therefore, Azerbaijan must take more stringent and decisive steps to ensure that our attitude and our words have been more convincing. We must tell world public about history, culture, art, national customs and traditions of Azerbaijan with the help of Internet and through other media.

/Day.Az/

URL: http://www.today.az/news/society/55803.html

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

azeris keep out doing themselves:

Today.Az » Politics » Azerbaijani Humanist Party Chief: President of artificial state "Armenian Republic" is Dashnak to the backbone

23 September 2009 [15:11] - Today.Az

Azerbaijan Humanist Party Leader Ogtay Atakhan spoke to Day.Az in an interview.

Day.Az: Since Sept. 15, Supreme Body of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation has organized a number of promotional actions against Armenian-Turkish protocols initialed in Switzerland. What would be the outcome of these actions by Dashnaks?

Ogtay Atakhan: First, it should be noted that the main demand of Dashnaks in this situation is that Turkey will include an item on recognition of the so-called “genocide” in the agreement and in this sense Dashnaks indeed with even greater force will conduct propaganda attacks around the world until this agreement is signed. But in fact they are perfectly aware that the agreement is their great victory, a huge victory for all Armenians and that the agreement is actually de facto and unofficial recognition by Turkey of “genocide” of Armenians widely campaigned worldwide.

But despite this, as Dashnaks as real political artists and great political provocateurs and campaigners will be scolding and cursing them ostensibly because it compromises to Turkey and agrees without inclusion of item of "genocide" to the agreement. This is great political and geopolitical game, very smart, very productive for Dashnaks and for their Nazism in which, as it should be known to professionals, Armenians must be the best masters in the world.

Q: Will existence of ARF, whose ideology is the action for recognition of the so-called "Armenian genocide" in Ottoman Turkey in 1915, make any sense after the matter will be considered by historians of Turkey, Armenia and Switzerland?

A: We should clarify one very important fact, which will very easily put everything in its place. The so-called Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksutun) was created, as witnessed by Armenian historians themselves, “in July-August 1890 in Tbilisi.” Armenian historians refer start of the so-called “Armenian massacres” to “July-August 1894.” That is, as you can see, the party of Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksutun), founded four years before the official date of the so-called "genocide ", failed to put “the question of genocide” to basis of its ideology. Armenian Revolutionary Federation is a purely militant, terrorist, Nazi and racist in spirit, and in this sense a purely fascist which was ahead of fascism of the 20th century and even served it as a perfect example. The party since its inception raised questions of arming Armenian population, terrorist and military actions against local civilian population as well as representatives of the government of the Turkish state.

Q: Is it possible in this case to say that the leadership of the ARF is concerned first of all not about the actions that could benefit Armenia, but it his personal, mercantile profit, which consists in squeezing money from the Armenian diaspora for the action to get recognition of the "Armenian genocide"?

A: Of course, individuals in any of the Nazi political movements have always been guided by mercantile motives. But in general, of course, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation is a kind of secular ideological and strategic think tank of Armenians, though similar in this respect, but in origin secondary after Armenian church, which carries out a mission of a constant generator and catalyst for the ideological and combat readiness of Armenians and Armenian state to fulfill their "sacred mission" – cleaninga living space for their nation at the cost of ethnic cleansing.

Q: How far current Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has moved aside in his views from the Dashnaks given the fact that under his administration Armenia voted against the resolution proposed by Georgia on the Georgian refugees from Abkhazia and South Ossetia at the UN General Assembly and openly declared there is need to give status of regional language to Armenian language in Georgia?

A: In this sense, the current president of the artificial state and so-called "Armenian Republic” is Dashnak to the backbone. He grew up in Dashnak ideology and was nourished by Dashnak propaganda. And, of course, his stance on the other Caucasian states and territories is a direct reflection and an expression of ideology, strategy and tactics of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaksutun) and the gradual usurping others' lands and territories accompanied by ethnic cleansing of indigenous population from their lands and territories.

Q: Simple analysis of history shows that Armenians raise questions related to their "right" to certain territory of the state, residents of which they were when these states were experiencing the most difficult periods in their development. Remember the Ottoman Empire and look at the modern-day Georgia. Can one expect Armenians who now live, particularly the U.S., Russia, France will take similar treacherous acts when these states will experience a very difficult period in its history?

A: The fact is that, firstly, work on attribution of a particular territory to themselves, to their nation, they do in a permanent and constant manner although not always explicitly and openly, but always with the same activity, initiative and enthusiasm. Secondly, they understand that the shortest path to victory in politics lays through not morality, generosity but rather through immorality, through the perfidy, meanness, cunning, duplicity, lies and lack of principle.

Therefore in any convenient and favorable to them a minute they are prepared to bring their hidden, underground work on the implementation of Nazi goals to the level of open, explicit expansion. What is the most opportune moment for this? Clearly, when their enemy suffers any domestic or foreign difficulties and problems, and even better if all the difficulties and challenges initiated and instigated by Armenians themselves. So all that is happening today in Georgia might happen in any other country with Armenian community.

/Day.Az/

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/55828.html

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Armenia and the information war

Today.Az » Politics » MagicJack makes gross error related to Azerbaijan – Photo

23 September 2009 [16:47] - Today.Az

MagicJack has made a gross error related to Azerbaijan.

The company manufactures a compact network adapters that enable to call anywhere in the world at discounted prices while connecting to a computer.

The list of foreign countries lists (http://www.magicjack.com/international/) Nagorno-Karabakh as a region ... of Armenia which is a gross mistake. In other words, MagicJack considers that Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Armenia. Moreover, the company not only presents a legitimate part of Azerbaijan’s territory separate from the country, but also provides communications services in the occupied territories.

Interestingly, MagicJack was named "product of year 2008" according to the PC Magazine, what the company is very proud of as can be seen by the sweeping title on the home page (http://www.magicjack.com/). All this, of course, very good for the company, but the interests of other countries must also be taken into account.

We urge our readers to send a letter of protest as in the sample below to [email protected]. We hope that this misunderstanding will be corrected as soon as possible.

To the attention of MagicJack executives!

You list Armenia as well as Nagorno-Karabakh region as places where your services are available. This is a gross mistake since Nagorno Karabakh is an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan and therefore cannot belong to Armenia in any way.

We state with full responsibility that Nagorno-Karabakh is an integral part of Azerbaijan as evidenced by international acts. We also believe these errors are not deliberate and urge you to correct them as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance

/Name, Surname/

/Day.Az/



URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/55834.html