Yerevan reminded Baku of half a million Armenian refugees from  Azerbaijan

ArmInfo.The representative of Azerbaijan visually demonstrated the degree of hatred towards Armenia and the Armenian society, which the Azerbaijani government sows in  its own society.

This was stated during the meeting of the 15th OSCE conference for  the South Caucasus media "Quality journalism for reliable and  reliable information" in Tbilisi, Head of the Department of  Information and Public Diplomacy of the Armenian Foreign Ministry  Helen Harutyunyan, reacting to the anti-Armenian statement of the  representative of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Khimket Hajiyev.

Since I was deprived of the right to reply to some accusations made  against Armenia yesterday by the representative of Azerbaijan, I take  this opportunity to respond and to set the record straight. And  indeed, since the session is about countering the have speech, it  seems to be the right setting to respond to the hate speech directed  against my country.  But before coming to the subject of the matter I  would like to express my concern at the continuous abuse of this  platform to disseminate anti Armenian propaganda, hatred and false  information under the inaction of the moderator. I would like to  strongly request the moderators of the sessions to be attentive and  to exercise their authority and prevent panelists from using this  format for conducting what should be called hostile information  directed against another country. I hope that the organizers will  draw necessary conclusions and we will not have the same situation  next year.

On the other hand, the representative of Azerbaijan vividly showed  the extent of hostility towards Armenia and the Armenians that the  Azerbaijani government is cultivating in the country. And with each  passing year this narrative is being enriched with new nuances.  Mr  Hajiyev went as far as to accuse Armenia of committing a holocaust,  uttering an allegation which relates to an extremely sensitive  subject for the people who survived the Genocide committed by the  Ottoman Empire. It seems, that you do not know the value of the word,  but we do. And firmly reject all your groundless accusations. And  when it comes to refugees, then we should speak about the almost half  a million Armenians that barely escaped with their lives from the  rampage of marauding gangs in the Armenian districts of the cities in  Azerbaijan, including the capital, escaped with nothing but the  clothes on their backs. But the Armenian government did not keep them  hostage of foreign policy games, since the rights of these people  were the ultimate value.    

It has become a good old tradition for the Azerbaijani authorities,  that whenever someone is speaking about the pitiful state of  democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Azerbaijan, they dodge  all the questions by diverting the attention towards Armenia and the  Nagorno Karabakh conflict. And by the way, the conflict is about the  right of the people of Artsakh to live in a free and democratic  country, which Azerbaijan is obviously not. And sooner Azerbaijan  comes to terms with it, the sooner we will be able to find a  sustainable peace.

Nagorno Karabakh, or I should say Republic of Artsakh is an  independent state with fully functioning democratic institutions,  where freedom of the media and pluralism of opinions is ensured and  respected, and well recognized by the international relevant  organisations. They do not put journalists in prison on bogus  charges, they do not shut down media outlets and they do not restrict  access of journalists and they do not put them in black lists. The  authorities of Artsakh believe in the right to information and the  freedom of media and ensure it both in law and in practice.

And the final observation. Mr Hajiyev has been complaining about the  revelations about the widespread corruption scheme targeting European  politicians, known as Azerbaijani Laundromat, which were made by the  Organised Crime and Corruption reporting project.  He called it  unfair ''cold-war type propaganda'' against Azerbaijan without any  hard evidence. But it seems, the evidence provided was enough for  Italian prosecutors, for Council of Europe and its Parliamentary  Assembly and others to take necessary legal actions. Instead of  spending millions trying to bribe European politicians to prevent  their criticism of the situation with democracy, human rights and  rule of law in Azerbaijan, I would strongly recommend to try and  build a genuine democratic modern state, believe me, it will be much  more economically efficient and much more beneficial for the  Azerbaijani people.