CHAPTER 5: Incitement to Hatred

CONTENTS

I. Introduction

II. International Legal Framework

III. Key Findings

1. Official Incitement of Ethnic Hatred

2. Promoting Discrimination in State Policies and Programs

3. Ethnic Hatred in Historical Context

4. Ethnic Hatred during and after the 2020 War

IV. Conclusion

I. INTRODUCTION

Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh have been long-standing targets of hate speech and racial discrimination endemic in Azerbaijan. In November 2017, the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe stated that “an entire generation of Azerbaijanis has now been raised with a rhetoric of hate, hostility and victimhood, which may have an impact on prospects of future reconciliation.”¹ During and after the war in 2020, Azerbaijani racial animus towards Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenians has reached new heights.

The Azerbaijani government has fomented hatred against ethnic Armenians through genocidal hate speech. The Azerbaijani government has also promoted discrimination through state institutions and projects. Below we present an analysis of the relevant legal norms and obligations, followed by examples of incitement to hatred from UNHR's investigation of secondary sources and firsthand fact-finding

II. International Legal Framework

Various international instruments impart obligations on States regarding discrimination emanating from hate speech. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for instance, states, “All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.”² Thus, in order to protect all individuals, free speech may be limited when it poses a risk or threat to others, particularly those in protected groups.

Though there is no single, authoritative international legal definition of hate speech, the UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech defines it as “any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”³ It can be manifested in various forms of expression, including speech, images, cartoons, gestures, objects, and symbols.⁴ 

Various international instruments impart obligations on States regarding discrimination emanating from hate speech. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for instance, states, “All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.”⁵ Thus, in order to protect all individuals, free speech may be limited when it poses a risk or threat to others, particularly those in protected groups.

Other instruments to which Azerbaijan is a party provide further safeguards. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights prohibits “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”⁶ The Rabat Plan of Action, elaborated by experts from all around the world to clarify when such restrictions to freedom of expression can be imposed, further provides a test with six categories to assess the severity of hatred, namely: context, speaker, intent, content and form, extent of the speech act, and likelihood of harm.⁷

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) imparts an obligation on State parties to condemn all propaganda based on ideas of racial superiority or ethnic hatred. Furthermore, signatories must take measures to stop and punish propaganda activities that promote or incite racial discrimination.⁸ The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the body that monitors implementation of the ICERD by State parties, has emphasized that both direct and indirect hate speech must be condemned. The Committee states, “Racist hate speech can take many forms and is not confined to explicitly racial remarks…[S]peech attacking particular racial or ethnic groups may employ indirect language in order to disguise its targets and objectives.”⁹ Thus, Azerbaijani authorities must desist from employing direct and indirect hate speech and condemn hateful and discriminatory speech when used by others

III. Key Findings

1. Official Incitement of Ethnic Hatred

Hateful rhetoric has emanated from the highest levels of the Azerbaijani government. President Aliyev has referred to ethnic Armenians as “barbarians and vandals,” who are infected by a “virus” for which they “need to be treated.”¹⁰ Elnur Aslanov, head of the Political Analysis and Information Department of the Presidential Administration, referred to Armenia as a “cancerous tumor,” while Ziyafat Asgarov, First Deputy of Parliament reportedly called Armenians a “disease.”¹¹

  Genocidal and expansionist remarks by government officials reveal the aims of this degrading rhetoric. Elman Mammadov, former Azerbaijani parliamentarian, reportedly said, “Turkey and Azerbaijan could together wipe Armenia off the face of the Earth at a blow, and the Armenians should beware of that thought.”¹² Evidence presented by United States Congressman Joseph Knollenberg at a hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs in 2008 cites Baku’s former mayor, Hajibala Abutalybov, stating, “Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians,” while Aliyev claimed in 2018, “[Armenia’s capital] Erivan is our historical land and we, the Azerbaijanis, must return to these historical lands. This is our political and strategic goal, and we must gradually approach it.”¹³

Discourse from these high-level leaders has inevitably bled into popular Azerbaijani society. In a nationwide address during the hostilities in September 2020, President Aliyev described how “Azerbaijani soldiers drive [Armenians] away like dogs.”¹⁴ This phrase exploded across Azerbaijani social media and eventually became a popular hashtag. 

More examples of such vitriolic sentiments followed suit across Azerbaijani social media. Nurlan Ibrahimov, the public relations and media manager of the Azerbaijani football club Qarabağ, said, “We must kill Armenians. No matter whether a woman, a child, an old man. We must kill everyone we can and whoever happens (sic). We should not feel sorry; we should not feel pity. If we do not kill (them), our children will be killed.”¹⁵

Azerbaijani government leaders have employed subtler discursive strategies to foment animosity toward Armenians. Officials have regularly invoked the concepts of “Western Azerbaijan” and “Caucasian Albania” to deny the historical existence of autochthonous Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and present-day Armenia, as well as to overwrite evidence of the presence of Armenian culture and societies in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. In remarks published on his official webpage, Aliyev stated in 2022, “Armenia was never present in this region before. Present-day Armenia is our land.”¹⁶ He additionally asserted, “I am sure that there will come a time when our compatriots from Western Azerbaijan, their relatives, children and grandchildren will return to our historical land, to Western Azerbaijan.”¹⁷

2. Promoting Discrimination in State Policies and Programs

Deeply entrenched anti-Armenian hatred does not end with bigoted rhetoric by government figures and in official materials, but is effectuated in policies and programs. Azerbaijan opened a Military Trophy Park after its victory in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War featuring grotesque and degrading statues of defeated Armenians.¹⁸ Though the park was subsequently downsized after Armenia applied to the International Court of Justice to issue a provisional measure closing the park, it remains open to the public. In another example, Azerbaijan began producing a commemorative stamp showing a split-screen image of an Azerbaijani soldier and a man in a chemical biohazard suit standing over a map of Azerbaijan and fumigating the area of Nagorno-Karabakh.¹⁹ 

Ethnic hatred has underpinned much of the Azerbaijani forces' deliberate infliction of physical pain, emotional suffering, and public humiliation upon Armenians captured or executed both in wartime and peacetime. This is particularly apparent in the widely circulated videos of soldiers using discriminatory rhetoric as they exercise violence against Armenians, including the sexual mutilation of bodies of female combatants and other forms of extreme violence. The widespread regard for Armenians as a people to be eradicated from or supplanted in the region has underlain Azerbaijani soldiers’ practice, recounted in our interviews with victims and documented widely, of forcing captives to declare Nagorno-Karabakh to be Azerbaijan’s and Azerbaijan’s alone. These methods are consistent with the overarching pattern of ethnic discrimination that characterizes all the categories of rights violations analyzed in this report

3. Ethnic Hatred in Historical Context

Hate speech and discrimination against Armenians in Azerbaijan is not new, and has worsened during and following the 2020 war; as many of our older interviewees recalled from their own lives, pervasive hate speech and discrimination in Azerbaijan has been a major driver of violence against ethnic Armenians at least since the 1980s. 

Past tensions and conflicts between the State of Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians lend to this historical ethnic hatred within Azerbaijani society. The Armenian majority of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991 as an expression of national self-determination. This declaration came after massacres of ethnic Armenians and forced displacement from Azerbaijan. These events culminated in the first Nagorno-Karabakh War in the early 1990s.²⁰ Armenians have been accused of committing atrocity crimes against Azerbaijanis during this war. Reporting from that time period indicates that all sides committed grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.²¹ In the three decades of “frozen conflict” that followed the end of the first war, the minimum conditions necessary to initiate truth and reconciliation or a transitional justice process have not been in place. 

The most well-known act of genocide against Armenians was the killing and expulsion of 1.5 million Armenians from the eastern portion of the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Turkey and Azerbaijan, who identify as “brothers and sisters in line with the understanding 'one nation, two states',”²² do not recognize those events as genocide.²³

Other historical events likewise influence many Azerbaijanis’ perception of ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijanis frequently recall human rights abuses perpetrated by Armenians during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War, including the killings of civilians in Khojaly and forced displacement from Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, as well as Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijani territory outside the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region by Armenian forces.²⁴ 

The desire for revenge is manifested as much in action as in words. Several witnesses and victims described to the University Network how prisoners of war captured during the 44-Day War in 2020 were treated notably worse if they were elderly due to their presumed participation in the first Nagorno-Karabakh War. The latter conclusion is consistent with Amnesty International’s findings in its report “Last to Flee: Older People's Experience of War Crimes and Displacement in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict.”²⁵

Returned Armenian prisoners of war also described to University Network researchers how prison guards frequently brought up the Khojaly massacre from the first war. More recently, Azerbaijan has charged a 68-year-old Armenian detained when crossing the Azerbaijani checkpoint in an International Committee of the Red Cross medical convoy last June with war crimes he allegedly committed in 1991 during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War in the Khojaly district.²⁶

The cumulative political and social impacts of systemic anti-Armenian sentiment can be observed in moments prior to the 2020 war. In 2004, Azerbaijani Ramil Safarov murdered an Armenian, Gurgen Margaryan, at a NATO Partnership for Peace course in Hungary by bludgeoning him to death with an ax. Safarov received a life sentence in Hungary, but was subsequently extradited to Azerbaijan and pardoned. Revenge was apparently a key motivating factor behind the murder, with Safarov's parents reportedly detailing atrocities committed by Armenians against their relatives to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting following the murder: “Two of his cousins died from the bullets of Armenian aggressors – Ildirim Khudiev and Jabbar Yusifov. . . . What kind of attitude do you have to that?”²⁷

The actions of President Ilham Aliyev after Safarov's extradition demonstrate tolerance for violence against people of Armenian ethnicity and politicization of revenge at the highest level of government.²⁸ According to the facts laid out in the decision on a case brought to the European Court of Human Rights, “Upon his arrival in Azerbaijan, [Safarov] was informed that he had received a presidential pardon and was released. He was also promoted to the rank of major at a public ceremony, granted a flat and paid eight years of salary arrears.”²⁹ Amnesty International USA noted that Azerbaijan's actions after Safarov's extradition suggest that “[Margaryan's] brutal murder based on his ethnicity was, retroactively, a state-sponsored hate crime.”³⁰

4. Ethnic Hatred during and after the 2020 War 

During and following the 2020 war, the cruel and charged behavior and rhetoric levied by Azerbaijani perpetrators against victims of other atrocity crimes interviewed by UNHR demonstrates the pervasiveness of ethnic hatred against Armenians in Azerbaijani perception.

Azerbaijani forces filmed and/or photographed the bodies of civilians and combatants who had been extrajudicially killed or killed in action, including bodies that had been mutilated. Practices include chopping off limbs, carving messages across torsos, exposing victims’ genitals and breasts, inserting digits or foreign objects into victims’ mouths and empty eye sockets, severing victims’ heads, and placing severed heads onto the bodies of animals, among other forms of humiliation. (See Ch. 4: Killings and Mutilation of the Deceased).

Families of prisoners of war have described receiving video messages of their loved ones being forced to dance naked while in captivity. Videos of detainees being forced to repeat “Karabakh is Azerbaijan” and insult Armenian President Nikol Pashinyan abound (see this report's Torture chapter). Humiliation also takes the form of displaying victims in a state of helplessness. In one widely circulated video of the decapitation of an elderly man in Hadrut, he can be heard saying, “For the sake of Allah, I beg you,” to the Azerbaijani soldier who is holding him down as he takes his life (see this report's Extrajudicial Killings chapter). In another video, an elderly and disabled man captured in Shushi (Shusha in Azeri) is encircled by Azerbaijani soldiers, who restrain him while taunting and kicking him.

Subsequent to the killings, Azerbaijani authorities unjustifiably held onto the bodies of the victims for months before handing them over to Armenian authorities, prolonging and deepening the emotional suffering of victims' families. During that time, stickers, memes and emojis surfaced, displaying the victims in made-up degrading scenes. They were often sent by perpetrators to family members through their social media feeds and messages. The latter practice occurred in the case of soldiers killed in combat as well (see Extrajudicial Killings). Most recently, Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh received threatening, discriminatory and degrading messages on social media in the days leading up to September 2023's mass exodus (see this report's Final Chapter). These dehumanizing practices can have the effect of desensitizing the wider population, fostering an environment that condones and even celebrates expressing ethnic hatred through acts of violence

IV. Conclusion 

The Azerbaijani government has fomented hatred against ethnic Armenians through genocidal hate speech. It has also promoted discrimination in state programs and projects. This hate speech and discrimination against Armenians in Azerbaijan is not new (it has been a major driver of violence since the 1980s), but it has worsened during and following the 2020 War. Consistent with the overarching pattern of ethnic discrimination that characterizes all the categories of rights violations analyzed in this report, ethnic hatred has driven most of the egregious violations perpetrated against ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, in detention centers in Azerbaijan, and in the parts of Armenia that Azerbaijan forces have attacked and occupied over the past three years.

Endnotes:

1. Council of Europe. 2017. “ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF NATIONAL MINORITIES Fourth Opinion on Azerbaijan – adopt.” https: //rm. coe. int. https://rm.coe.int/4th-acfc-opinion-on-azerbaijan-english-language-version/1680923201.

2. UN General Assembly, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 7, 10 December 1948, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/translations/english [hereinafter “UDHR”]

3. Guterres, António. 2019. “United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.” The United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/advising-and-mobilizing/Action_plan_on_hate_speech_EN.pdf.

4. United Nations. 2019. “What is hate speech?” The United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/what-is-hate-speech.

5. UN General Assembly, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 7, 10 December 1948, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/universal-declaration/translations/english [hereinafter “UDHR”]

6. UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, art. 20 (2), 16 December 1966, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights [hereinafter ICCPR].

7. UN Human Rights Council, Rabat Plan of Action on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, 11 January 2013, A/HRC/22/17/Add.4 /Appendix, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/outcome-documents/rabat-plan-action. See further, “OHCHR and Freedom of Expression vs Incitement to Hatred: The Rabat Plan of Action,” OHCHR, accessed December 18, 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/freedom-of-expression.

8. UN General Assembly, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, art. 4, 21 December 1965, United Nations, available at: https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-convention-elimination-all-forms-racial [hereinafter ICERD]

9. UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), General recommendation No. 35 : Combating racist hate speech, 26 September 2013, CERD/C/GC/35, available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G13/471/38/PDF/G1347138.pdf?OpenElement

10. Aliyev, Ilham. 2014. “Ilham Aliyev on X: "The Armenian barbarians and vandals have razed the city of Agdam to the ground. he ruins of the city of Agdam are clearly visible from here."” X.com. https://twitter.com/presidentaz/status/497364584743718913.; Aliyev, Ilham. 2021. “Opening speech by Ilham Aliyev at the 7th Congress of New Azerbaijan Party » Official web-site of President of Azerbaijan Republic.” President.az. https://president.az/en/articles/view/50805.

11. Day.az. 2013. “Elnur Aslanov: "Armenia is a cancerous tumor of the South Caucasus" - UPDATED.” Day.az. https://news.day.az/politics/402615.html.; Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Artsakh, 2018. “Armenophobia in Azerbaijan: Organized Hate Speech & Animosity Towards Armenians.” AGBU Europe. https://agbueurope.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2017/02/Armenophobia-in-Azerbaijan-1.00-Interactive-25.09.2018.pdf.

12. Horizon Weekly. 2015. “Azerbaijani MP urges Turkish government to expel all Armenians.” Horizon Weekly Newspaper. https://horizonweekly.ca/am/66568-2/. The original interview appears to have been removed.

13. Zakayev, Akhmed. 2008. “The Caucasus: Frozen Conflicts and Closed Borders Hearing Comittee on Foreign Affairs House of Representatives. pg. 50. GovInfo. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg43066/pdf/CHRG-110hhrg43066.pdf.; Aliyev, Ilham. 2018. “Speech by Ilham Aliyev at the 6th Congress of New Azerbaijan Party » Official web-site of President of Azerbaijan Republic.” President.az. https://president.az/en/articles/view/26998.

14. Aliyev, Ilham. 2020. “Ilham Aliyev addressed the nation » Official web-site of President of Azerbaijan Republic.” President.az. https://president.az/en/articles/view/41713.

15. Oborne, Peter, and Tom Mutch. 2021. “How the Murderous Past of Armenian Genocide Flourishes Today in Denial – Byline Times.” Byline Times. https://bylinetimes.com/2021/02/03/how-the-murderous-past-of-armenian-genocide-flourishes-today-in-denial/.

16. Aliyev, Ilham. 2022. “Ilham Aliyev viewed conditions created at administrative building of Western Azerbaijan Community » Official web-site of President of Azerbaijan Republic.” President.az. https://president.az/en/articles/view/58330.

17. Ibid.

18. Rahimli, Shahana. 2021. “"We tried to have as realistic images as possible" - they made models of Armenian soldiers - Photos.” Azvision. https://azvision.az/news/257089/-calisdiq-ki,-mumkun-qeder-realist-obrazlar-olsun--ermeni-herbcilerin-maketlerini-onlar-hazirlayib--fotolar--.html.

19. Aztv. 2021. “Postage Stamps Dedicated to Azerbaijani Heroes Issued.” Aztv.az. https://aztv.az/en/news/11015/postage-stamps-dedicated-to-azerbaijani-heroes-issued.

20. Robert Kushen and Aryeh Neier, Conflict in the Soviet Union: Black January in Azerbaidzhan, A Helsinki Watch/Memorial Report (New York : Moscow: Human Rights Watch ; Inter-Republic Memorial Society, 1991).

21. Cartner, Holly. 1997. “Response to Armenian Government Letter on the town of Khojaly, Nagorno-Karabakh.” Human Rights Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/1997/03/23/response-armenian-government-letter-town-khojaly-nagorno-karabakh.