By Ivan Gharibyan

Today, Azerbaijani mass media are celebrating one of the most important dates. On August 6, 1998, on the threshold of presidential election scheduled for October, the “national leader” Heydar Aliev signed a decree lifting censorship.

Today’s reports by the state-run mass media are one more piece of striking evidence of the Aliev clan’s large-scale campaign aimed at brainwashing the Azeri public. The 1998 decree has been presented as an outstanding achievement, without a single word said about the fact that, besides the complete outsiders in terms of democracy and human rights -Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan – Azerbaijan had been the only post-Soviet state with censorship in effect.

This is not, however, the most important. Heydar Aliev’s decree lifting press censorship was just window dressing intended for the international community. The aim was to make some semblance of election campaign, to say nothing of Azerbaijan’s intention to be admitted to the Council of Europe simultaneously with Armenia, which happened in 2001.

True, the national Azeri mass media have made some progress. Specifically, the broadcasting of the Aztv channel is now less dependent on the Azeri President’s working schedule: the central national TV channel now provides 20-minute-long reports on the Azeri leader’s visits to the country’s regions or foreign states. At least it does not interrupt its programs because of live broadcasts about it. As regards the Public Television of Azerbaijan, ITV, created to meet the CE requirements, it “made great progress” in disseminating anti-Armenian propaganda.

But the fundamental principle of Azeri journalists’ style is: no reports critical of the developments in Azerbaijan – even mentioning any problems is out of the question. The “crown prince” Ilham Aliev, listening to the call of the times, decided to master Internet. The Azerbaijani state-run news agency, which releases regular reports on the President’s decrees and letters, is not considered a serious media outlet even inside Azerbaijan. So the Azerbaijani authorities decided to set up a number of news agencies and websites - APA, TREND, 1news.az and others - which would operate under their auspices.

Their main purpose was disseminating lies about the origin and development of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, telling tales about atrocities committed by Armenians – tales made up by the Azerbaijani administration.

Azerbaijani mass media are constantly under the Azeri President’s watchful eye. Take, for example, the recent presentation of awards and money prizes to the editors of media outlets. During the following ten days they were praising the Azeri leader to the skies for his consideration.

Let us face it! No wonder that the news agencies – to say nothing of TV and radio - do not report any information on the country’s domestic political life. The most important reports are the ones about the President and his wife Mehriban visiting the Square of National Flag, laying flowers at the tomb of the “national leader” Heydar Aliev, as well as about a new anti-Armenian booklet published by the Heydar Aliev Fund, etc.. This is the life and “prosperity” of “democratic” Azerbaijan, which has so far remained a CE-member.