“Death to the Armenians!” was shouted during Baku demonstration, Russian TV journalist recalls
During the 1990 demonstration in Baku, a column appeared rallying from the university to the city centre with the slogan, “Death to the Armenians,” Roman Babayan, a TV journalist and the host of the programme “The right of voice” on the channel TV Centre, told Ekspress Gazeta, a Russian newspaper.
“It was when I realised that as a person with Armenian surname, it would not be an easy job for me to deal with those people,” he said.
As for the situation in Azerbaijan, Babayan said that after almost a quarter of a century, he is still not allowed to enter Azerbaijan, even as a member of high-ranking delegations with Vladimir Shumeyko, Pavel Grachev, Lyudmila Putina.
“Even during the phase of preparing documents, the Azerbaijani Embassy has each time sent a letter to the editorial board saying that they do not guarantee my safety,” Babayan added.
Since then, he has only once been to Baku, when the plane from Afghanistan landed there for refuelling. “If I were told about it earlier, I would still think whether I should get on it or not. Most probably, I wouldn’t take the risk. Still it happened. I got out to the ladder, looked at my home city, breathed the air absorbed with smell of oil, wormwood and sea, and went back to my seat with a squeezing heart,” the journalist recalled.
People with Armenian surnames or surnames resembling to Armenian ones are not allowed to enter Azerbaijan. In 2010, because of illegal actions of the "Aeroflot" representation of Azerbaijan the Armenian delegation was not able to leave Moscow to Baku for the 64th General Assembly of the European Broadcasting Union.
In June 2011, a photojournalist of the Bloomberg agency, a citizen of the United States and Russia Diana Markosian was deported from Baku to Istanbul because of her Armenian origin. MFA of Azerbaijan confirmed that the Armenian origin of the photojournalist of Bloomberg agency has served a reason for her deportation: "During her stay in Azerbaijan Markosian will face security problems because of her Armenian origin."
In July 2011, two players of Russian "Torpedo" club from Armavir were deported from Azerbaijan immediately after arriving at the airport of Ganja.
In October 2011, representatives of “Azerbaijan Airlines” (AZAL), at the airport "Domodedovo" the representative of "AvtoVAZ" citizen of Russian federation Sergei Gyurjian was removed from Moscow - Baku flight, together with his Israeli colleague Shuhmahera Demitra, the Director of “LADA International Limited”, who were involved in the delegation in Baku for committing a deal to import LADA cars to the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The head of the press service of "Azerbaijani Railways" Nadir Azmammadov stated that "the entry of those having Armenia nationality, as well as citizens of other countries of Armenian origin is officially banned in Azerbaijan." Zafer Noyan, a Turkish athlete who had arrived in Baku to take part in Europe championship of arm-wrestling, was also deported back to his country. According to Sportbox.az, the reason was that Noyan was taken as an Armenian. In December 2012, at the Baku airport, a Russian journalist from Kabardino-Balkaria, Sufyan Zhemukhova, was detained. The cause of the almost failed deportation was the name of the journalist, Sufyan, that reminded the Azerbaijani border guards the ending of the Armenian surnames.