Azerbaijan seeks to censor Argentinian media covering Nagorno Karabakh Republic

The journalist and the editor-in-chief of the international policy section of the Argentinian daily Clarín, Marcelo Cantelmi, having visited Nagorno Karabakh published an article covering the history of the struggle of the country for independence and the current political situation. The article was followed by the letter of the Azerbaijani ambassador to Argentina, Mammad Ahmadzada, published in the same outlet. The ambassador accused the journalist of “again illegally visiting” Karabakh violating the Azerbaijani law.

The Argentinian-Armenian news agency Prensa Armenia writes that Cantelmi responded to the accusations of the Azerbaijani government. “Never in my visits to Nagorno Karabakh have I entered into those territories illegally. On the contrary, I got my visa at the border checkpoint at Agavno where I paid all the necessary customs duties. Besides, my passport was presented to the Foreign Ministry of Nagorno Karabakh in Stepanakert. Today those are the proceedings for the entry to Nagorno Karabakh,” the journalist noted.

As regards the decision of the Azerbaijani government to include him in the “black list” and ban his entry to the country, Cantelmi said that the journalists must have the freedom to go to the places where important events take place and carry out their professional duties without any pressure. He added that it was a “barbarian act” and a “harsh discrimination” with which the Azerbaijani government tries to sanction the dissent as the tyrants and dictators historically did, Cantelmi said according to Prensa Armenia.

As the article has it, the Azerbaijani embassy in Argentina responded to this with a press release published on its website. It said that their disagreement was connected with his visit to the territories rather than his freedom of journalistic work, although they did not share his position.

“The Azerbaijani government has a long history of persecuting the media, and recently, the Argentinian media,” Prensa Armenia writes reminding that in March 2015 the Argentinian state news agency Télam removed María Laura Carpineta’s article from its website at the request of the Azerbaijani government. This came after the Azerbaijani FM included the journalist in the “black list” and published information about her in the official outlets of the country as “Escrache.”

According to the article, the Télam journalist was one of those media representatives, including Argentinian, who arrived in Armenia ahead of the Genocide Centennial and also visited Nagorno Karabakh, on whose border the Azerbaijani side scarcely observes the ceasefire.

As the article reads, the Azerbaijani state news agency AzerTAc reported that the Azerbaijani MFA turned to the Argentinian agency via its embassy in Argentina with the request to censor the article despite the fact that it provided with unbiased information reflecting both the Armenian and the Azerbaijani positions. Télam fulfilled the request apologizing to them and removing the article which can be still retrieved in the web search engines.

A few days later, Azerbaijan declared about excluding the editor of the international section of the outlet Tiempo Argentino, Luis Faraoni, who had also visited Karabakh, from the “black list” after he said that he respected the “sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders” of Azerbaijan.

In March 2015 Luis Faraoni published an article titled “Nagorno Karabakh: the nation that seeks to find its place in the world” in the outlet Tiempo Argentino. It covered Karabakh’s struggle for independence and international recognition.

Further the agency writes that the journalist of the Argentinian outlet PERFIL, Santiago Farrell, also fell into the list of undesirable persons of Azerbaijan because of visiting Nagorno Karabakh.