Thread by @HaigKayserian

THREAD! #RecognizeArtsakh #StopAliyev #StopErdogan #StopAzerbaijaniAggression #ArtsakhStrong

@SBSNews ran a story on its national news bulletin covering the reactions of the Armenian-Australian and Azerbaijani-Australian communities to the war in Nagorno Karabakh.

@Omar_Dehen

.@vache_k and I were given an opportunity to articulate the historical connection of Artsakh to its indigenous Armenians, as well as that the attacks by Azerbaijan and Turkey brought back memories of the Armenian Genocide, which we want to ensure never happens again.

However, the story continued Australian media's trend to provide a false equivalence to Azerbaijan's and Turkey's roles, and the roles of Armenia and Artsakh.

By constantly referring to Turkey's role in the fighting as "Armenian claims" – when these are also the evidence-backed "claims" of France, Canada, the United States, Russia, Iran and many others including BBC News, The Guardian, France24, etc – is disappointing.

Further disappointing was reference to the Ganja "attack on civilians" without qualifying it as an "Azerbaijani claim" and ignoring the counter-claim that the Artsakh Army struck the Ganja military airbase housing Turkish F-16s, which have been bombing Armenian civilians.

And if Ganja claims were good enough to be fact, why will there not be mention of Amnesty International's finding that Azerbaijan hit Artsakh's Stepanakert with a cluster bomb? Is a war crime, verified by an independent source, not newsworthy? Is Amnesty not credible?

The unqualified regurgitation of Azerbaijani propaganda about the deaths of civilians in Khojaly during the previous war as "fact", while not mentioning the independently documented anti-Armenian pogroms in Sumgait and Baku as well as the massacres in Maraga was disappointing.

It seems the report was keen on even providing false equivalence to genocide, and because the Armenian Genocide was discussed, the tragedy in Khojaly needed to be given airtime, which was never an attack by Armenians - something even Azerbaijani journalists have verified.

Azerbaijani Embassy was given the final denialist say on what France, US, France, Greece, Canada, the mass media and others have verified regarding Turkish involvement – in a story that was to cover the reactions of the Armenian-Australian and Azerbaijani-Australian communities.

If this trend of false equivalence was fair across the board, it should have meant a representative of the Armenian Foreign Ministry deserved the same airtime as the representative of a criminal and corrupt dictatorship.

All of the above, except Khojaly propaganda which we did not expect would be invoked by an Australian public broadcaster, were facts offered to @Omar_Dehen of @SBSNews, but disappointingly ignored.

While we are debunking the disappointing standard of journalism on this issue, can we ask why no Australian report has decided to characterise the nations involved in this?

Do Australians not deserve to know that Azerbaijan is a dictatorship, where their current president took over from his father and his wife is his vice-president? Where Armenia has come out of a period of a velvet revolution and democratic elections?

Do they not deserve to know that the twin dictatorships of Turkey and Azerbaijan have a combined 100 million population, while democratic Armenia and Artsakh are populated by 3 million Christians? Why is this context not important to Australian media?

Media are likely tired of hearing from us after three weeks of constant communications, protests, meetings, etc However, these three weeks have seen civilian towns in the Armenian homeland turned to rubble, genocidal threats, over 500 soldiers killed and thousands of casualties.

.@Omar_Dehen and @SBSNews, thank you for the opportunity of having our feelings aired, BUT WE DEMAND BETTER! WE WILL DEMAND BETTER!

Watch report at facebook.com/ancaustralia/v…

#RecognizeArtsakh #StopAliyev #StopErdogan #StopAzerbaijaniAggression #ArtsakhStrong