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Hatred against ethnic Armenians is deep-rooted in Azerbaijan and enjoys state support, Armenian Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan said in a statement on Friday. Below is the full text of the statement.

"Azerbaijani military air and artillery strikes and shelling of the civilian population of Artsakh and Armenia since September 27 continue in parallel with an immense volume of hate speech against ethnic Armenians.

1. Calls for hatred and violence, including killings are being disseminated through mass media, especially by social media platforms, by Turkish and Azerbaijani sources.

There is a large number of aggressive web pages and groups, which spread video materials and texts inciting hatred and violence, containing materials illustrating cruel treatment of living or deceased people, killings, and destruction.  There is also a significant number of fake profiles with false Armenian names and last names, which send threats and intimidating messages to actual Armenian users.

2. All aforementioned materials are being disseminated through Facebook, Twitter, and other  social networks.

3. This has all been confirmed by the evidence collected within the framework of the independent monitoring of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia. This includes mainly objective evidence, such as photographs, screenshots of the social network pages, and video materials.

4. I hereby emphasize that hatred against ethnic Armenians has deep roots and enjoys state support.  From the first day of the military attacks the dissemination of hatred and calls for cruel treatment and killings have become more coordinated – culminating into excessively dangerous volumes.

5. I call firmly upon the international community to draw attention over this extremely dangerous circumstance. There is need to take urgent and effective measures, which will stop and prevent this appalling phenomenon. It is being accompanied with violation of international requirements and is a real threat to information security and peace in the whole region. 

6. I call upon parents to be exceptionally cautious with regards to the use of social networks, and in case of minors, exclude their access to social networks.

I call upon children to stay away from accessing and following unknown pages,  and in any circumstance stay away from opening and reading messages from unknown social network pages.

7. All evidence on dangerous incidents collected via screenshots will be sent to international partners and embassies in appropriate formats.

8. The Human Rights Defender continues to work in 24 hour emergency working regime.

9. Close cooperation with the Human Rights Defender of Artsakh is ensured."