Armenia's Ombudsman: Large number of videos and photos about war crimes, atrocities sent to Armenian social network pages and private users from Azerbaijani social media sources

A large number of videos and photos about the war crimes and atrocities are sent to Armenian social network pages and private users from Azerbaijani social media sources, simultaneously spreading hatred against ethnic Armenians, Armenia's Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan says.

The alarming complaints sent to the Human Rights Defender of Armenia and their daily monitoring show that the mentioned videos and photos are sent in the form of separate/private messages, and are accompanied by exceptional cynicism and threats.

Moreover, the monitoring of social networks shows that Azerbaijani or Turkish accounts or pages are opened or activated with the specific purpose of distributing the videos and photos that show the killed soldiers or the process of the killing itself which is accompanied by atrocities.

At the same time, the inspections show that not all the materials of the atrocities contain soldiers of the Artsakh Defense Forces, however, they are presented with distorted and false information in such a way that it refers to the atrocities committed against members of the Artsakh Defense Forces by the members of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and refers to the hostilities that started on September 27th.

These videos are edited and processed, which evidences that they have undergone professional preparatory work, and this work has an organized and coordinated nature.

One of the salient features of the pages or accounts of the above-mentioned Azerbaijani social networks is that they are often prepared with the intention to misinform Armenian pages and users, giving the impression that they are prepared by Armenian sources or pages. Based on the above mentioned, the staff of the Human Rights Defender's Office has compiled video evidence, which confirms all of the above and will be sent to the relevant international bodies.

Moreover, all the atrocities and scenes of cruelty in these videos have to be presented by the Human Rights Defender without processing/editing, as they are sent to the Armenian pages and users so that our international partners will get informed of the real situation.