HRC 47th Session: Statement delivered by the Delegation of Armenia during Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

01 July, 2021

July 1, 2021

HRC 47^th Session: Interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

Delivered by Mrs. Zoya Stepanyan, First Secretary

President,

Armenia congratulates the Special Rapporteur for her first ID with the Human Rights Council and thanks for presentation of her report.

In a rapidly evolving and complex reality of digital technologies there is growing need to strike a regulatory balance between protection of fundamental right to freedom of expression and countering misinformation. It is a delicate line that takes genuine democratic goverence, mature human rights institutions and freely functioning civil society to ensure that fight against misinformation would not serve as a smoke screen for crackdown on independant media and voices of discontent.

President,

Though the report didn’t elaborate deep into the issue of disinformation campaigns by States towards other nations, the recent aggression unfolded in our region demonstrated that the problem is acute. Azerbaijan, a country where internet shut downs, harassment, jailing and killing of journalists and bloggers, blackmailing them by private content and even abduction from the territories of the third states is a consistent practice, bred and widely utilized numerous troll farms to cover up the bloody war against indigenous population of Nagorno Karabakh. As per habitual policy, it attacked by precision weapons the representatives of international media operating in Nagorno Karabakh, which caused severe injuries to 7 journalists and death of one accompanying person.

Azerbaijan has been indulged in its impunity for far too long. It is our conviction that the UN Human Rights machinery should act decisively to hold accountable the gross violators of Human Rights.

I thank you.

Right of Reply

President,

We strongly reject all accusations voiced by Azerbaijan, a country that confuses this Council with its domestic public, and the one that has deprived its citizens from enjoyment of fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of expression.

According to the world press freedom index of the reporters without borders Azerbaijan ranks 167^th among 180 nations.

The Freedom House’s annual Freedom on the Net report rated Azerbaijan’s internet status as “not free.” It further reported that parliament expanded the legal definition of “prohibited information” in an effort to suppress more online speech in what was already a restrictive environment. One journalist was arrested and sentenced to 25 days in detention after police demanded that he remove social media posts on the social and economic impact of the pandemic. According to the committee on the protection of journalists “social media accounts of critics have also been targeted by hackers and legal complaints”.

The European Court of Human Rights has found Azerbaijani authorities guilty of torturing the blogger Aleksandr Lapshin and trying to kill him in a Baku prison.

In 2019 the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) Media Sustainability Index noted that “access to independent news sources in Azerbaijan gets more limited from year to year” and concluded that “there is no independent print media in the country.”

It further reported that in 2018 the number of websites blocked for some period of time reached 85, compared with 25 in 2017. The websites of the Voice of America, RFE/RL, and many Azerbaijani media outlets remaine blocked by authorities.

VOA, RFE/RL and the BBC have been prohibited from broadcasting in Azerbaijan on FM frequencies since 2009.

Authorities also ordered access to the website of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) to be blocked after the Sarajevo-based organization published "The Azerbaijan Laundromat" which implicated the government in various money laundering and lobbying schemes.

During the war in Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijan further severely restricted the media environment disseminating only the public propaganda. The social networks and numerous websites were blocked. State sponsored troll firms were spreading anti-Armenian hatred. When the international journalists were pointing at the gross violations of human rights the Azerbaijani authorities usually were calling it “a fake news”.

The Reporters without Borders alarted about the cases of attacks and intimidation of journalists by the armed forces of Azerbaijan both in Nagorno-Karabakh and the state border with Armenia.

I thank you

MFA RA
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