Armenophobia in Azerbaijan

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 boy

).

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.

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.

<…> We had no other choice but to give everything up and head for the border. As we were leaving Balakan, we were intercepted by a state security car cutting in front of us and were escorted to the Office of Islam Rzayev, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of Balakan region. The indefatigable party leader kept pointing his finger at our book and finally asked: “Who is Adamia?” “A Georgian scientist”, we replied. He looked at Abbasov. “Georgian? Not Armenian?” asked Rzayev again with a dubious voice. “ADAMIA is a Mingrelian last name”, we all admitted in unison.

The first point is more or less clear; yet, in the remaining cases, a question stands: is it about the law or security?

Thus, Diana Markosyan, a photo correspondent of Bloomberg agency, a national of the United States and Russian Federation, was deported from Baku to Istanbul on the ground of her Armenian origin in June 2011.

The press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan confirmed the deportation of the Bloomberg photo correspondent because of her Armenian descent:

“Markosyan’s stay in Azerbaijan will raise issues related to securing her safety because of her Armenian origin”. It is hard to guess why an accredited journalist, a national of the United States and the Russian Federation may face the need to ensure her protection and security on the territory of a civilized and tolerant state. However, Ali Hasanov, the Head of the Department of Public and Political Issues of the Administration of the President of Azerbaijan, refers to violating a law, which does not exist: “This media company had sufficient other options and they could have sent another photo correspondent. Yet, insisting on the arrival of this specific correspondent is an affront to the laws of the country and is insulting to us. We cannot put up with this”.

After the scandal with the Russian citizen Sergey Gyurjian

the Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat made an attempt to figure out whether the entry ban for Armenian citizens and nationals of other countries with Armenian lineage was official, or the arrangement was enforced informally.

In October 2011, the representatives of Azerbaijani airlines (AZAL) at Domodedovo Airport prevented the representative of AVTOVAZ OJSC, Sergey Gyurjian, a Russian national, and his colleague Demitri Schuhmacher, an Israeli national and director of LADA International Limited company, from boarding the plane from Moscow to Baku where they went as a part of the delegation to strike a deal for shipment of LADA cars to Azerbaijan.

An officer of the airline company who handled the registration of boarding documents asked a question about his ethnicity: “What is your ethnicity? Armenian?” To that, Gyurjian replied that he was a citizen of the Russian Federation, and his ethnicity had no bearing on the flight registration. However, Elgar Aliyev, the representative of AZAL Company, refused to proceed with the registration referring to an instruction from his management: “Not to register passengers with Armenian names”.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan skirted around a blunt question from the newspapers, and the head of the AZAL press service, Mehriban Safarli stated that their company “only dealt with passenger transportation and not their citizenship”. In her turn, Svetlana Rodionova, the representative of the Domodedovo Airport, stated that “the management of the airport prohibits the registration of Russian citizens of Armenian origin for flights to Baku”.

Unlike the management of AZAL, the head of the press service of the Azerbaijani Railways, Nadir Azmamedov stated that “the entry of Armenian citizens and ethnic Armenians who are nationals of other countries is officially prohibited”.

In relation to the notorious incident with Sergey Gyurjian, a representative of the airline company, Magerram Safarli stated: “It is known that 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories

are occupied by Armenia. Therefore, a trip to Azerbaijan is considered undesirable for ethnic Armenians. For this reason, they can visit the country only as part of international events”, added Safarli.

Nevertheless, international events, too, are far from hassle-free. Thus, the Director of the Regional Studies Center Richard Giragosian was denied an Azerbaijani entry visa in March 2012 for participation in an international conference in Baku on the ground that the nomination of an Armenian expert was “unacceptable”.

The same lot was reserved for a citizen of Turkey

who had come to Baku as part of a Turkish delegation and a citizen of Latvia

who had arrived to Baku as part of the delegation of the Latvian President.

<…> a few days ago, a Turkish singer Sertab Erener arrived in Baku. A musician named Burak Bedikyan, who came with the delegation of the Turkish singer and was a Turkish national of Armenian origin, was denied entry to Azerbaijan and had to return to where he came from. Upon his return to Turkey, Bedikyan made up his mind to give the local press a detailed tearjerker account of his stay at the airport of Baku. He insists that his denied entry to Azerbaijan related to his Armenian roots. Incidentally, this is not the first case when citizens of different countries who are ethnic Armenians are unable to gain entry into our country. On every such occasion, however, it is emphasized in Baku that they see no reason to give any clarification whatsoever as “authorizing or denying entry” is the right of every sovereign state.

<…> Another such incident happened during the visit of the Latvian President to Azerbaijan. Similarly, this time the Latvian delegation included an Armenian citizen of Latvia. “Despite the fact that he had arrived with the Latvian President, he was not allowed entry to our country and had to turn back.

In his commentary on the incident related to Mr. Bedikyan, who was a citizen of the “fraternal Turkey”, a department head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, T. Tagizadeh clarified: “He can even be a citizen of Vatican! Only we can decide who gets the visa and who doesn’t”.

The absence of a regulated line of conduct can lead to the fact that entry into the country may be barred at three different levels:

• By the attending staff level of airports, airlines, railways or hotels. They may claim to do so at the behest of their superiors.

• By the staff of consular services, embassies and visa departments of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan;

• By the staff of the border guard service.

Forms of denying entry:

• Straightforward communication;

• Procrastination in issuing an entry visa;

• Issuing an entry visa and canceling it upon arrival in Azerbaijan;

• Entering the person’s name into blacklists before arrival or after departure.

A few years ago, the practice of blacklisting was introduced in Azerbaijan. This practice is quite common worldwide and concerns, as a rule, terrorists, internationally wanted criminals, drug lords, persons who have repeatedly violated visa procedures and recently has come to include corrupted public officials (Magnitsky List). This practice involves procedures, parameters, techniques and legislative instruments that have long been elaborated and are perfectly intelligible. Azerbaijan, however, has such a list, but it lacks a principle for entering and removing names.

In the beginning, such blacklist targeted persons who had ever visited Nagorno-Karabakh. Further, such lists were extended to include persons of Armenian lineage (Svetlana Loboda,

Avraam Russo).

The impulsive and chaotic practice of blacklisting signals a lack of consistency, where people in identical situations may be penalized selectively.

On certain occasions, the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan issues threats to “investigate” and “keep in focus” numerous visits of international delegations to Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Frequently, the results of these investigations by the Azerbaijani foreign office never surface, thereby making the selection criteria for blacklisting a specific political figure or journalist completely unfathomable.

For instance, Joseph Simitian, the American Senator of Armenian origin, visited Baku as part of the Parliamentary Commission of the U.S. Senate. His Armenian descent was no secret in Baku, still, no issues occurred in relation to “securing his safety” or “flouting the law” as was the case with the representative of a leading Russian automaker Sergey Gyurjian or the reporter of the Bloomberg network Diana Markosyan. Moreover, as reported by Musavat newspaper,

the spiritual leader of Azerbaijan, Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshükür Pashazadeh, addressed to the Armenian Simitian a request to assist him with obtaining an entry visa for another trip to the United States.

After the Senator’s departure from Baku and his visit to Nagorno-Karabakh, he was immediately blacklisted, while other people who had been to Karabakh on numerous visits were spared this sanction.

In 2011, in the wake of a scandal over the visit to Karabakh by a journalist Sergey Buntman and his subsequent blacklisting, a fellow journalist from Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio station was invited to Baku; it was the first deputy of the editor-in-chief Vladimir Varfolomeyev

who had also been to Nagorno-Karabakh Republic back in 2003. Two years later, in 2013, after his visits to Stepanakert and Baku, Varfolomeyev too saw his name in the list.

The astronauts Charles Duke (USA) and Claude Nicollier (Switzerland), who set foot on Moon and in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, were also included in the blacklist of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan.

In case of the Washington Post reporter Will Englund,