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UC Irvine ASA, AYF and ANCA Counter Azeri Propaganda
Friday, March 1st, 2013
Azeris had hired armed security guards during a college campus event
BY HASMIK PILIPOSYAN
On the night of February 25, the Azerbaijani Student Association
(AzSA) of UC Irvine, which formed in 2012, organized a film viewing by
Thomas Goltz, a war correspondent and professor at Montana State
University, which attempted to depict the events of Khojaly as ethnic
cleansing committed by Armenian soldiers against Azeri citizens. Many
Azeris as well as many Armenians showed up including the Orange
Country ARF, AYF, ANCA, and UC Irvine ASA in support of preventing
false statements and accusations from contaminating the true reality
of the conflict.
Before the audience was to view the film, one of the Azeri students
stood at the podium and shared her story of how she became a refugee
of Nagorno-Karabakh due to destruction of her town and home, which was
quite disheartening considering the hundreds of thousands of Armenian
and Azerbaijani refugees affected by the conflict. After, AzSA
president Jadiv Huseynov provided some statistics and history of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stressing the historical and cultural
significance of the region mainly to Azerbaijan, failing to mention
the presence of Armenians in the region for thousands of years that
lived in the ancient historical Kingdom of Artsakh. Today, much of
historical Artsakh extends into the region of Nagorno-Karabakh and is
controlled by the republic.
Huseynov went on to speak about the events of Khojaly, directly
announcing it as `ethnic cleansing' perpetrated by the Armenian
soldiers and the Russian 366th Motor Rifle Regiment on the night of
February 25-26, 1992. He claimed that `613 civilians including 106
women, 63 children, and 70 elders were tortured to death' and how the
Human Rights Watch called it the `largest atrocity of the conflict'.
Furthermore, with the increased tension quickly building in the room,
he alluded to Markar Melkonian's book about his brother, Monte
Melkonian's, life with an incorrect analysis of a statement Monte
wrote in his personal diary stating that by the morning of February
26th, 1992 the `refugees had made it to the eastern cusp of
Mountainous Karabakh...toward safety in the Azeri city of Agdam, about
six miles away' and how an Azeri refugee woman testified how the
Armenian soldiers `just shot and shot'. However, Azerbaijani president
at the time, Ayaz Mutalibov told Czech reporter Dana Mazalova `the
Armenians had, in any case, provided a corridor to let the civilians
escape. Why then would they shoot?' Huseynov unacknowledged the fact
that the Armenian soldiers had sent out warning via radio of the siege
of the city and how they had opened a corridor for Azeri civilians to
escape safely, but with the command of the Azeri mayor of Khojaly,
Elman Mammadov, the civilians were to not leave. The AzSA president
also declined in recognizing the pogroms against Armenians in Baku,
Sumgait, and Kirovabad perpetrated by Azeri soldiers and leaders, who
were later given higher ranks in government and parliament by
president Aliyev.
The night proceeded to the documentary by Thomas Goltz titled
`Azerbaijan Through Foreign Eyes'. The film was very poorly made and
failed to depict any factual and eye-witness evidence of the events of
Khojaly as Goltz himself was not witness to the events and merely
served as a sympathy show. Following the film was a question and
answer session that completely undermined Goltz' credibility.
One of the Armenian students questioned Goltz about Akram Aylisli's
treatment and book burning in Azerbaijan and the case of Ramil Safarov
as contradictory to Goltz' claim of `tolerance is embedded in Azeri
culture'. Goltz answered the student with merely a poem that was
absolutely irrelevant to the topic and then he sat down, while the
student remained dumbstruck by the `intellectual's' absurd and foolish
response. Another student asked about President Ilham Aliyev's
anti-Armenian campaign enforced throughout Azerbaijan and his
Organized Crime and Corruption Person of the Year award bestowed by
the OCCRP, in which the professor simply replied `I say he should
change his act'. During the Q&A session, Huseynov, would constantly
stand and answer the students' questions himself while Goltz simply
sat and listened. Many of the Azeris sitting in the audience rarely
made comments.
Perhaps the Azeris were not prepared enough to enforce their
propaganda and create an atmosphere of sympathy. They usually work
quite well in attempting to alter history but seem to always fail as
facts and the truth triumphs all.
- See more at: http://asbarez.com/108608/uc-irvine-asa-ayf-and-anca-counter-azeri-propaganda/#sthash.coCeRSBI.dpuf
Friday, March 1st, 2013
Azeris had hired armed security guards during a college campus event
BY HASMIK PILIPOSYAN
On the night of February 25, the Azerbaijani Student Association
(AzSA) of UC Irvine, which formed in 2012, organized a film viewing by
Thomas Goltz, a war correspondent and professor at Montana State
University, which attempted to depict the events of Khojaly as ethnic
cleansing committed by Armenian soldiers against Azeri citizens. Many
Azeris as well as many Armenians showed up including the Orange
Country ARF, AYF, ANCA, and UC Irvine ASA in support of preventing
false statements and accusations from contaminating the true reality
of the conflict.
Before the audience was to view the film, one of the Azeri students
stood at the podium and shared her story of how she became a refugee
of Nagorno-Karabakh due to destruction of her town and home, which was
quite disheartening considering the hundreds of thousands of Armenian
and Azerbaijani refugees affected by the conflict. After, AzSA
president Jadiv Huseynov provided some statistics and history of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, stressing the historical and cultural
significance of the region mainly to Azerbaijan, failing to mention
the presence of Armenians in the region for thousands of years that
lived in the ancient historical Kingdom of Artsakh. Today, much of
historical Artsakh extends into the region of Nagorno-Karabakh and is
controlled by the republic.
Huseynov went on to speak about the events of Khojaly, directly
announcing it as `ethnic cleansing' perpetrated by the Armenian
soldiers and the Russian 366th Motor Rifle Regiment on the night of
February 25-26, 1992. He claimed that `613 civilians including 106
women, 63 children, and 70 elders were tortured to death' and how the
Human Rights Watch called it the `largest atrocity of the conflict'.
Furthermore, with the increased tension quickly building in the room,
he alluded to Markar Melkonian's book about his brother, Monte
Melkonian's, life with an incorrect analysis of a statement Monte
wrote in his personal diary stating that by the morning of February
26th, 1992 the `refugees had made it to the eastern cusp of
Mountainous Karabakh...toward safety in the Azeri city of Agdam, about
six miles away' and how an Azeri refugee woman testified how the
Armenian soldiers `just shot and shot'. However, Azerbaijani president
at the time, Ayaz Mutalibov told Czech reporter Dana Mazalova `the
Armenians had, in any case, provided a corridor to let the civilians
escape. Why then would they shoot?' Huseynov unacknowledged the fact
that the Armenian soldiers had sent out warning via radio of the siege
of the city and how they had opened a corridor for Azeri civilians to
escape safely, but with the command of the Azeri mayor of Khojaly,
Elman Mammadov, the civilians were to not leave. The AzSA president
also declined in recognizing the pogroms against Armenians in Baku,
Sumgait, and Kirovabad perpetrated by Azeri soldiers and leaders, who
were later given higher ranks in government and parliament by
president Aliyev.
The night proceeded to the documentary by Thomas Goltz titled
`Azerbaijan Through Foreign Eyes'. The film was very poorly made and
failed to depict any factual and eye-witness evidence of the events of
Khojaly as Goltz himself was not witness to the events and merely
served as a sympathy show. Following the film was a question and
answer session that completely undermined Goltz' credibility.
One of the Armenian students questioned Goltz about Akram Aylisli's
treatment and book burning in Azerbaijan and the case of Ramil Safarov
as contradictory to Goltz' claim of `tolerance is embedded in Azeri
culture'. Goltz answered the student with merely a poem that was
absolutely irrelevant to the topic and then he sat down, while the
student remained dumbstruck by the `intellectual's' absurd and foolish
response. Another student asked about President Ilham Aliyev's
anti-Armenian campaign enforced throughout Azerbaijan and his
Organized Crime and Corruption Person of the Year award bestowed by
the OCCRP, in which the professor simply replied `I say he should
change his act'. During the Q&A session, Huseynov, would constantly
stand and answer the students' questions himself while Goltz simply
sat and listened. Many of the Azeris sitting in the audience rarely
made comments.
Perhaps the Azeris were not prepared enough to enforce their
propaganda and create an atmosphere of sympathy. They usually work
quite well in attempting to alter history but seem to always fail as
facts and the truth triumphs all.
- See more at: http://asbarez.com/108608/uc-irvine-asa-ayf-and-anca-counter-azeri-propaganda/#sthash.coCeRSBI.dpuf