{"id":24964,"date":"2020-11-06T15:07:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T15:07:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/media.am\/?p=24964"},"modified":"2020-11-07T09:41:47","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T09:41:47","slug":"information-attack-on-the-social-network-accounts-of-the-prisoners-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/verified\/2020\/11\/06\/24964\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cInformation Attack On The Social Network Accounts Of The Prisoners Of War\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Human Rights Defender of Armenia <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ombuds.am\/am\/site\/ViewNews\/1357\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">shared information<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> on November 3 that objective evidence had been obtained that the social media accounts of the captives of the Armenian side have been illegally seized in Azerbaijan. From these pages, they spread materials that provoke hatred, internal enmity, tension, panic and anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Posts from Azerbaijani IP addresses under these accounts used were published as evidence. The ombudsman&#8217;s statement said that &#8220;extreme caution should be exercised when using or disseminating material shared on social networks&#8221; even if we personally know the user of the page.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Media.am decided to follow in the footsteps of the ombudsman&#8217;s statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was discovered?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As of November 5, according to the Investigative Committee of Armenia, 21 Armenian prisoners of war <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Vrm-qiHcOTU&amp;ab_channel=NEWSAM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">are now in<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Azerbaijan (information on another 2 people is being verified).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We managed to find the accounts of some of them. After studying them, we can add the following to the ombudsman&#8217;s message:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Using these accounts, the claims of the President of Azerbaijan, Aliyev, about capturing new territories, are spread,<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They publish videos with the participation of the user, in which Azerbaijani propaganda narratives are voiced.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Through them, the extensive conversation of the Azerbaijani CBC TV channel with some of the prisoners of war was spread.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who are the owners of CBC Azerbaijan?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CBC Azerbaijan TV creates content in several languages, including Armenian. It <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20201106123952\/https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cbctvaz\/about\/?ref=page_internal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">is presented<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as the first international TV channel in Azerbaijan. And although it is said that &#8220;they present facts, people make conclusions,&#8221; but the cases of state anti-Armenian propaganda on the channel outnumber the facts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u201cSOCAR Media Public Union\u201d NGO <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20201106100001\/http:\/\/socar.az\/socar\/en\/news-and-media\/news-archives\/news-archives\/2013\/04\/10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bought<\/a> the TV company and renamed it CBC (Caspian Broadcasting Company) in 2013. This NGO is founded by SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, the profits of which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.occrp.org\/en\/corruptistan\/azerbaijan\/2015\/09\/01\/aliyev-family-friends-cruise-aboard-socar-super-yachts.en.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">are also used<\/a> by Aliyev\u2019s family and close circle.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Information attack with the participation of prisoners of war<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the CBC interview, the prisoners of war are neatly dressed (in Armenian Armed Forces uniform) and shaved. The interviewer pours water for them. Gives them the opportunity to speak in Armenian.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 45-minute video, which has more than 981 thousand views (as of 6:00 PM on November 6), the prisoners of war say that despite the stereotypes, Azerbaijan treats prisoners of war with respect and do not humiliate them. The journalist asks to emphasize that if others surrender, they will not be treated &#8220;like a beast.&#8221; Or that they can just drop their weapons and go home.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They are asked internal political questions about the authorities, whether Armenia is pro-Russian or pro-Western.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The boys say they only want peace. They appeal to the Prime Minister of Armenia that we do not need this fight, we need peace, and for that, we must take a step to stop all this. There is no chance to win.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of the soft and seemingly sincere conversation, the interviewer quotes the words of the President of Azerbaijan that the war will end in case of withdrawal of Armenian forces from Artsakh.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with footage of Azeri UAV attacking Armenian forces with the Russian text that these captured boys, fighting in Karabakh, realized that they had been deceived and forced to fight for land that was not theirs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the same captives who, a few days before this interview, under the control of the Azerbaijani military, were forced to say in Russian &#8220;Karabakh is Azerbaijan.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In all the spread videos, the Armenian prisoners of war in Azerbaijan from the second Karabakh war are forced to say this phrase.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Verified content, testimonies and recorded data prove that prisoners are mistreated in Azerbaijan<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The materials that supposedly break the stereotypical bad attitude of Azerbaijanis towards Armenians are counterbalanced by facts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? On October 15, two videos of the humiliation and murder of two Armenian prisoners of war appeared on Azerbaijani Telegram channels. Later, the material was removed from some channels, instead, the Ministry of Defense of the country spread an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.az\/en\/frontline-news\/MoD-Armenians-are-spreading-fake-videos-on-social-networks-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-an-Azerbaijani-soldier-333000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">announcement<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that they had nothing to do with those videos and that it was staged by Armenians. The open-source investigation of three international platforms (<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/dfrlab\/evidence-emerges-of-azeri-soldiers-executing-armenian-pows-bf7b28a95f16?source=social.tw&amp;_branch_match_id=766641644155597562&amp;fbclid=IwAR2Mv7DBkvT_NB6N0Bv7Mq0CoeCoxvHlo10yY3rk613Krj6R_8yhY1lIqqE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">DFRLab<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bellingcat.com\/news\/rest-of-world\/2020\/10\/15\/an-execution-in-hadrut-karabakh\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bellingcat<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-54645254\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">BBC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) proved the opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? The civilian who had repatriated to Armenia on October 29 <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/investigative.am\/news\/view\/tarec-knoj-harcaqnnutyun.html#.X5xwnFNGVaA.facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spoke<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> about the attitude and torture of Azerbaijan towards her and Armenian prisoners of war. The other elderly citizen, whose repatriation was delayed due to his health condition, died the next day in Azerbaijan.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The data we collected on the repatriations in 2001-2019 <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/media.am\/hy\/verified\/2020\/07\/25\/23411\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">prove<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that two people from the Armenian side died in the Azerbaijani prison during these years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? Many other videos of torturing bodies and killing prisoners are appearing online. According to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ombuds.am\/am\/site\/ViewNews\/1345?mc_phishing_protection_id=28047-buc128idu81876v7uor0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ombudsman<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of Armenia, they are sent to Armenian pages and private users from Azerbaijani sources.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">? Other videos released with the participation of prisoners of war legitimize the narratives regarding Turkish-Azerbaijani propaganda. For example, Kurdish mercenaries are fighting on the Armenian side, for which there is no proof.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the previously known cases of using prisoners of war for propaganda, Artsakh ombudsman Artak Beglaryan <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shantnews.am\/news\/view\/789351.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">said<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, &#8220;It is obvious that they are using pressure on the prisoners of war, most likely both physically and psychologically, to use them in the context of presenting the narratives of the Azerbaijani propaganda, which is strictly unacceptable, it violates the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In order to protect the personal data of the captives so as not to harm them, media.am did not publish evidence identifying the persons of the verified content, photos, videos with the participation of prisoners of war. In this regard, we apologize to the readers and thank them for understanding.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right\"><b>Arshaluys Barseghyan<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Human Rights Defender of Armenia shared information on November 3 that objective evidence had been obtained that the social media accounts of the captives of the Armenian side have been illegally seized in Azerbaijan. From these pages, they spread materials that provoke hatred, internal enmity, tension, panic and anxiety. Posts from Azerbaijani IP addresses<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/verified\/2020\/11\/06\/24964\/\"> Read the full article&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-verified","author_posts-arshaluys-barseghyan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24964"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24975,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24964\/revisions\/24975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}