AZERI, BRITISH STUDENTS PROTEST AT LOP-SIDED KARABAKH FILMS
AzerNews Weekly, Azerbaijan
May 18 2006
A series of films on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno
Karabakh screened in a British educational institution have stirred
a scandal.
According to AssA-Irada, the tension escalated after an influential
London-based university held an event on Tuesday dedicated to the
causes underlying the long-standing dispute and ways of solving it.
The attending Azeri, Armenian and European students were presented
with six films featuring the Karabakh war.
Half of the movies screened were acquired from Armenia and
the other three were presented as films directed by Azerbaijani
cinematographers. However, after the films were shown, it turned out
that all of them served Armenian interests.
The films authored by Armenians featured gruesome developments
and showed Azeri soldiers allegedly committing atrocities against
Armenians.
The films shot by Azerbaijanis, on the contrary, portrayed humanism
and tolerance of Azerbaijanis toward Armenians. It is astounding that
these films did not feature the devastated Azeri towns and villages,
destroyed historical monuments and mosques, as well as the vicious
Khojaly massacre committed by Armenians, and just showed the occupied
territories.
The Armenian-authored presentations described the development of
Karabakh and its forging ties with Europe.
Azerbaijani students, joined by their British classmates, protested at
the injustice. They further appealed to the university administration,
saying the films were one-sided and served propaganda purposes.
Nagorno Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of
Azerbaijan, has both Azeri and ethnic Armenian population. It was
occupied by Armenia in early 1990s, along with seven other Azerbaijani
districts, after large-scale hostilities that killed up to 30,000
people and forced over a million Azeris out of their homes.
The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks have been
fruitless so far and refugees remain stranded.