Later, this scene was perpetuated by an Azerbaijani artist Vagif Ujatay.
A one-man exhibition named ‘Behold, See and Don’t Forget!’ by the artist Vagif Ujatay was held in Baku and was dedicated to the “deeds of Armenian fascists”. “<…> In 1992, the Armenian fascists in the village of Baganis Ayrum of Ghazakh region skewered a 2-month-old infant on a ramrod and after roasting the body, offered the mother to eat it”. <…> The pinnacle of the exhibition was another work depicting another “appalling atrocity perpetrated by Armenians”: “In 1988, in the Armenian region of Gugark, the Armenian beasts filled tubes with 80 children. As they did so, 79 of them were still alive, and the 80th, who wouldn’t fit inside was torn into pieces. This enormity was later unveiled by foreigners; the bodies were found by specially trained French dogs. Ever since Armenians unleashed this nightmare, such works have become the core of my artistic activity,” said the artist.354
“Armenians infect, eat and torture Azerbaijanis”
“Cannibal Karine” <…> They brought this woman named Karine to the prison of Shushi where they kept the Azerbaijani prisoners of war. <…> She was a cannibal; she liked to eat human flesh, quite often the living flesh. She yanked chunks of flesh from bone with her teeth chewing, swallowing and feasting on human blood. They brought her to the prison where she visually chose her “living foodstuff”. <…>355
“HIV-positive Anzhela Petrosyan in Baku” <…> Armenia is now waging neither cold, nor information, but a biological war. <…> Angela Petrosyan contracted AIDS <…>. She started deliberately infecting Azerbaijani residents of Baku with AIDS. She received her instructions and acted strictly according to the plan…356
“Armenians are behind female sterility across CIS countries” The so-called “Armenian vaccine”, Gardasil and Cervarix, developed by an Armenian physician in the United States, has been freely imported and distributed at no charge since 2009 in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and in other CIS countries.357
“Armenians organize terrorist acts”. Fortunately, sometimes the Azerbaijanis themselves reveal disinformation and refute it.
Armenian trail in the terror act at the State Oil Academy of Baku on April 30, 2009. The indictment handed down by A. Yusifov said that the person who masterminded the mass shooting in the Oil Academy was Martin Grigoryevich Gumashyan, born in 1951, who lives with his spouse and sons in the village of Shulaver of Marneuli District of Georgia. M. Gumashyan and his sons are engaged in baking bread in the bakery built in the courtyard of their own house. The document also notes that in January-March 2009, Gumashyan entered into a criminal conspiracy with a resident of Dashtepe village of Marneuli District Farda Asad oglu Gadirov, his relative from the village of Shulaver Javidan Farman oglu Amirov and residents of Dashtepe village Najaf Novruz oglu Suleymanov, Nadir Shirkhan oglu Aliyev and other citizens, whose identity has not been established yet by the investigation, agreed to commit a terrorist act in the city of Baku against Azerbaijanis out of ethnic hatred. He promised to allot a sum of 50 thousand USD for the organization and execution of this crime and gave Farda Gadirov the initial sum of 5 thousand USD, with the outstanding sum to be paid after the terrorist act would be committed.358
The correspondent of the Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat traveled to the village of Shulaver and without any help from Interpol found the Armenian Gumashyan in the courtyard of his own house and recorded an interview with him that upset the course of the trial on the shooting of students at the State Oil Academy of Azerbaijan.359
It transpired that Martun Gumashyan was not even acquainted with Farda Gadirov who was the perpetrator of the bloodbath at the Oil Academy. Moreover, as soon as Gumashyan found out that the authorities of Azerbaijan declared him a “terrorist”, he turned to the Georgian General Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where he was told that the Azerbaijani side had taken no action to seek his arrest.360
The newspaper Zerkalo turned to the law enforcement authorities of Azerbaijan for clarification of the situation at hand. “We have turned to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. The Ministry’s officer on duty, Dmitri Botsulava stated to our correspondent that the Ministry received no motions concerning Martun Gumashyan. This means that the statements made by Gumashyan were truthful”, writes Zerkalo.361
“We have also turned to the Azerbaijani Office of Interpol as it was the organization which, according to the statement of the General Prosecutor’s Office, handled the search for Martun Gumashyan. We decided to inquire about the progress of a search for a person who had never thought of going into hiding and continued to live in his own house. The officer on duty, Hasanov suggested that we leave our telephone number, but the senior officials of Interpol never called back. Then, we called again. The organization’s officer suggested that we turned with our questions to the press service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We did as suggested. The officer of the Ministry’s press service, Ehsan Zahidov, stated to Zerkalo that he had no information concerning the search for Martun Gumashyan”, continues the newspaper.
“We have also turned to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan. The head of its press-service stated that necessary actions would be taken to arrest Martun Gumashyan in the future! He also noted that the law-enforcement authorities of Azerbaijan would establish the identities of all involved in the tragedy and would call them to account”.
Interestingly, after a while, the columnist of the newspaper Yeni Musavat, Tofig Yagublu, who had prepared the sensational report was arrested on trumped-up charges.362
Shocking is one of the centerpieces in demonizing an image. This method has been widely employed in shaping the image of an Armenian in documentary materials, social and political discourse, art and propaganda of today’s Azerbaijan.
A generation of children has grown up in Azerbaijan who have never seen Armenians, but form their judgment on hearsay. Targeting this group is the easiest task as there is no need to shatter the existing stereotypes based on knowledge, personal familiarity or own views. They not only fail to challenge such information, but re-circulate it reinforced with claims of personal involvement or somebody they know well.
A dialog between two young Azerbaijanis on a forum:
– Although our parents lived and were friends with them, they conspired against us behind our backs just the same. <…> Even if they do music, they can teach their Armenian ideology.
– And not only ideology. You might have seen it on the TV; one Armenian woman, who was a midwife in a maternity hospital, squeezed the testicles of new-born boys long before the Armenian-Azerbaijani events.363
11. Anti-Armenian paranoia
Paranoia is a variety of a thinking disorder. People who suffer from paranoia have exasperated distrust of people around them, susceptibility to offense, suspiciousness, jealousy, tendency to see conspiring ill-wishers in random occurrences, inability to forget and forgive grievances or to handle criticism. They may conceive obsessive ideas leading a paranoid person to develop intricate and logically coherent conspiracy theories against him/her.