BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 14. The public broadcasting entity Deutschlandfunk, representing the Federal Republic of Germany, disseminated a program replete with defamatory assertions regarding the Azerbaijani populace and state on January 12, 2025, the statement of the Western Azerbaijan Community said, Trend reports.
“The material's plot was based on an interview with scandalously famous Azerbaijaniphobe Tessa Hoffman. The program claimed that allegedly illegal actions were committed against Armenians in Azerbaijan in 1990, and the history of the conflict left in the past was presented following the concept of radical Armenian nationalism.
However, the program did not mention anything about the ethnic cleansing committed by Armenia against more than one million Azerbaijanis during the conflict, the occupation, and destruction of the territories of Azerbaijan, as well as the annihilation of its cultural heritage. Similarly, the facts of ethnic cleansing of 300,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia in 1987-1991 and the murder of 216 Azerbaijanis in Armenia are silenced,” the statement reads.
The statement also stresses that instead of broadcasting racist, hateful programming and creating tensions in the region, Deutschlandfunk should condemn Armenia's racist policies, including a recently revealed statement made by Armenia's first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan during his presidency in which he affirmed that ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis was a state policy.
“We, as the Western Azerbaijan Community, condemn the racial discrimination by the public radio station Deutschlandfunk and call on the management of the radio station to take appropriate measures against this unacceptable step,” the community's statement says.
To note, at the conclusion of the 1980s, a significant demographic shift occurred, resulting in the forced displacement of 300,000 Azerbaijani individuals from their residential territories within Armenia. Their coercive expulsion was coupled with extrajudicial executions, involuntary vanishings, the obliteration of assets, and looting.
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