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Baku. 2 May. REPORT.AZ/ Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev attended the meeting of the UN General Assembly Committee on Information on May 1-2 in New York.
Report was told in the Foreign Ministry, the UN General Assembly Committee on Information was established on 1979. The mandate of the Committee on Information covers examining United Nations public information policies and activities, evaluating and following up the efforts made and the progress achieved by the United Nations system in the field of information and communications; and promoting the establishment of a new, more just and more effective world information and communication order intended to strengthen peace and international understanding.
Speaking at the meeting, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev said propaganda, “fake news’ and the dissemination of disinformation through traditional and online media, as well as the social network platforms seriously undermine freedom of expression. In the context of armed conflicts, as integral components of propaganda, "ideological aggression", "information war" constitutes serious threats to international peace and security.
“As we all know well, propaganda is not only problem of contemporary world and it is also not an alien topic to the agenda of the United Nations. The UN General Assembly, in one of its earlier resolutions, adopted on November 3, 1947 under the title “Measures to be taken against propaganda” gave a rather clear definition to war propaganda by saying that it “condemns all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”, H. Hajiyev said.
“I regret to stress that since the late 80s and early years of its independence Azerbaijan encountered with the mass wave of orchestrated and planned “information aggression" and "information war", which accompanied the physical war unleashed by Armenia against Azerbaijan. With the sole purpose of disguising its responsibility for illegal use of force and occupation of Azerbaijan’s territories and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijani people from the seized lands, Armenia resorted to 4D propaganda - “Deceive, Disform, Distort and Disorient” the international community. In the form of “hybrid war” Armenia’s policy of propaganda and disinformation supported by Armenian lobby groups still continues against Azerbaijan in order to maintain status-quo of occupation and undermine peaceful settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict on the basis of relevant UN Security Council Resolutions”.
It is also matter of serious concern that Armenia with a view of propagating the illegal regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan tries to misuse international media platforms under various pretexts. We do respect the professional interest of international media outlets to reach out the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as a war zone. But such professional interest should not come at the expense of violating foreign media accreditation rules, border and passport control regime of Azerbaijan. Balanced, fair and objective coverage of realities of armed conflicts, respecting the accreditation rules of respective countries is extremely important to avoid elements of propaganda and disinformation and biased reporting.
H. Hajiyev noted that, Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not the only source of propaganda and disinformation against Azerbaijan. For example, in 2015, Azerbaijan in the spirit of Olympic Movement and UN’s policy of Sport for peace and development successfully hosted the First European Games. However, our good will intention to contribute to the Olympic spirit at the continental level has faced with the massive and orchestrated smear campaign and disinformation, at some point reaching to the level of physiological warfare. We have witnessed continuation of same tendency in fall 2017 under the fake news campaign called “laundromat”. It is regrettable that some influential media outlets without providing the possibility for right of response and checking facts engaged in this campaign against my country.
According to Foreign Ministry Spokesman media self-regulation, where it is effective, remains also an important instrument in addressing propaganda for war, hatred and discrimination. There are specific tools that already exist in the area of media regulation for dealing with biased and misleading information. These include rules on balance and accuracy in broadcasting; prominence of public service broadcasting with a special mission to include all viewpoints; a clear distinction between fact and opinion in journalism; transparency of media ownership, etc.
He touched upon the importance of increasing the UN role in this field.
“First of all, I would also like to extend our appreciation for the hard of work of UN Department of Public Information for preparing the reports on the implementation of UN strategic communication.
We support the United Nations strategic communication policy at the national level. Regular TV and radio programs are organized to raise awareness of society about UN’s core missions and especially Sustainable Development Goals in the context of national action program.
We also support multilingualism, but multilingualism is also about multiculturalism. Therefore, we suggest of putting more emphasis of the issues of multiculturalism in future activities of UN Department of Public Information along with the Dialogue of Civilizations.
However, as the universal organization, expectations from the United Nations on the issues of maintenance of international peace and security are also high. As we are aware, effectiveness of every communication strategy is directly dependent on our deliveries. For instance, failure to implement demands of four UN SC resolutions on immediate, unconditional and full withdrawal of occupying troops from the seized lands of Azerbaijan raises fair questions and legitimate concerns of wider public.
