JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ARMENIA: THERE’S NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE
ArmInfo
2009-02-11 16:17:00
ArmInfo. There’s no smoke without fire, representatives of the Jewish
community of Armenia said when commenting upon the controversial
information from Sumgait, Azerbaijan.
"Feb 10 night the editor of Gorskie.ru web-site got in touch with
one of the former natives of Baku, currently living in Israel. Some
time later he was told that Sumgait received a call from Israel
and the information about the attacks on the Jews of the town is
confirmed. They also said that such information is transmitted by
Israeli television. We think that this information would have unlikely
been disseminated in Israel so widely if it were only a rumor", –
the Jewish community of Armenia said.
According to the Jewish community representatives, the denial of
this information by the Azerbaijani Jewish community, particularly,
by the rabbi of Sumgait, is the result of pressure exerted on them
by the Azeri authorities, as well as by President Aliyev himself.
"It is not a secret that a similar scenario was carried out with
respect to Armenians in the same notorious town of Sumgait in 1988,
the authorities did their best to conceal the pogroms of Armenians,
however, the truth rose to the surface all the same",- the Jewish
community of Armenia said.
To note, on February 10 the Gorskie.ru web-site gave information
that Jewish families’ flats in a number of districts of Sumgait were
attacked for several times. About 12 people suffered, they were taken
to emergency hospital with various injury severity levels, including
knife injuries.
According to the information, several Jews with knife injuries were
taken to hospital of Baku.
To recall, the negative attitude to the Jews living in Azerbaijan
has been displayed since 2006 when the Jewish community of Azerbaijan
openly supported Israel’s actions in Lebanon. Imam of "Juma" Mosque
Ilgar Ibragimoglu made quite rough statements and even threatened
to the Jews with acts of revenge: "I promise that we’ll show our
solidarity with Palestinians and the Lebanese".