DEPUTY CHAIRMAN OF MOUNTAIN JEWS COMMUNITY IN AZERBAIJAN: "THE REPORTS THAT JEWS UNDERWENT VIOLENCE IN SUMGAYIT ARE FALSE"
APA
Feb 11 2009
Azerbaijan
Baku. Lachin Sultanova – APA. "The reports that Jews underwent violence
in Sumgayit are false," Deputy Chairman of Mountain Jews Community in
Azerbaijan Semyon Shaleyev told APA. He said that after the Internet
reports they had contacted the Jews living in Sumgaiyt. They were told
that no incident occurred there, Shaleyev said there were not many
Jews in Sumgayit. There was a small Jewish Community in Sumgayit,
all the members of the community know one another and everybody was
contacted. Shaleyev said the report caused anxiety in Israel and he
had contacted all the synagogues in Baku.
"No unpleasant incident occurred in connection with Jews in Sumgayit,
or any other part of Azerbaijan," he said.
Shaleyev said Chairman of Mountain Jews Community Semyon Ikhilov
was in Israel. He said Chairman of State Committee on Work with
Religious Associations Hidayat Orujov phoned Ikhilov and Ikhilov told
the state official that the community had not received information
about violence.
Chairman of DEVAMM Haji Ilgar Ibrahimoglu, who is mentioned in the
false news of Armenians, also made a statement. The statement says
that Armenian media made another provocation against Azerbaijan.
"There is no need to comment on the Armenian provocation. Armenians’
fancies are unlimited. They act in Goebbels’ technique: "The bigger
the lie, the more it will be believed". That’s why we could even not
react to their provocations. But as there are attempts to stir up
discord between Azerbaijanis and Jews, to show "Armenian oppression"
again, and cast shadow on Azerbaijanis’ fair position on the massacre
in Gaza, we decided not to keep silence.
As a member of civil and believing society, I deem it duty to remind
several simple truths. Azerbaijani People have a culture of tolerance,
for many centuries, based on Islamic ideology. The Jewish people, as
other peoples living in our country, are esteemed and dear people for
us. It was so for many centuries and will be so in future. Regarding
the developments in Gaza, it is a crime against humanity and not
related to the Jewish people. The Jews’ protest all over the world
against the crimes in Gaza could be an example for it. Today solidarity
with the Gaza victims is a work of all honest people in the world
and Jewish people are also among them".
Addressing the Azerbaijani media, Ibrahimoglu urged to give news
without comments and to demonstrate united position.
Armenia’s Panarmenian agency spread disinformation, quoting the
azertopnews, about the attacks against Jewish families in Sumgayit
and then other Armenian sources also spread this "information"
quoting Panarmenian.
Panarmenian’s continuous disinformation against Azerbaijan aims to
bring this subject to agenda on the eve of anniversary of the 1988
February events organized by Armenians. Of course, the Armenian special
services tried to introduce Azerbaijan as an intolerant country and to
show Sumgayit as a source of national-religious extremism. Undoubtedly,
the Armenians also aim to damage the high-level relations between
Azerbaijan and Israel and normal cooperation between the Azerbaijani
and Jewish Diasporas.
The Armenians’ attempts show that they try to take maximum advantage
form the disinformation policy like in 1988.
The site azertopnews created by the Armenian special services is shown
as a "Azerbaijani news portal". The site showed APA and several others
of Azerbaijani media organizations alongside with some separatist
Internet portals as its official source. APA officially denies these
claims and says that it faces with the plagiarism, which is impossible
to be prevented on Internet.