Propaganda at the Museum: how Azerbaijan whitewashed its crimes at the Quai Branly

The entire event was however allegedly dedicated to diplomatic strategies related to cultural heritage, as well as its promotion. The conference bringing together the two diplomats and Adela Naibova as moderator took place between 4:30 PM and 6:00 PM.

This conference, while intended to define the notion of “cultural diplomacy” from the perspectives of Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan, quickly became an opportunity for Nigar Huseynova to roll out the propaganda of Aliyev’s dictatorship on the crucial issue of cultural heritage. Its importance has indeed grown in the regime’s eyes following the annexation of Artsakh and the takeover of the Armenian cultural heritage found there.

Pro-regime Azerbaijani media published articles about the conference, praising the fact that “French students” had been “informed about Azerbaijan’s cultural diplomacy.” In reality, it obviously wasn’t just about cultural diplomacy.

We will endeavor here to comment on the statements of the representative of the Embassy of Azerbaijan, transcribed in the publications of Azertac and Xalq Qazeti. Three points have been noted:

Interreligious and Interethnic Relations in Azerbaijan

Nigar Huseynova declared that:

• “Representatives of all religions and ethnic groups live in harmony in Azerbaijan“
• “It was indicated during the roundtable that the ‘Baku Process’ initiative had been launched by President Ilham Aliyev to establish peace and dialogue between cultures in the world, and that it had become a global platform for strengthening and promoting intercultural and interreligious dialogue in the world.”
• “Azerbaijan’s contributions to interreligious and intercultural dialogue were also addressed.”

The idea that Azerbaijan is a country where tolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities reigns is a myth.

Already in 2007, media were denouncing the fact that converted Christians were harshly persecuted. As a general rule, the Azerbaijani state imposes severe control on religious practices, and in 2011, sources indicated that religious practices not possessing state permits were repressed. In 2015, the Norwegian NGO Norwegian Helsinki Committee published a report indicating that “the Azerbaijani government claims to support religious tolerance, but in reality, it seriously restricts freedom of religion or belief.” More recently, in January 2025, the NGO Open Doors International published another report in which the finding was quite similar:

“The Azerbaijani government closely monitors the activities of religious groups. Officially, the country is secular and religion is tolerated there. However, the level of surveillance is so high that Christians in Azerbaijan no longer know whom to trust. […] It must be kept in mind that Azerbaijani Christians are under strong pressure not to report persecution.”

Regarding ethnic minorities, numerous sources indicate violent repression of Azerbaijan’s minorities, particularly the Lezgins and Talysh, and notably personalities working on the development of their languages and cultures.

A BBC News article recounts that in 2012, the leader of the Talysh People’s Public Council, Gilal Mamedov, was arrested for “treason” and “incitement to racial hatred,” before being released in 2016. Less fortunate, the linguist and editor-in-chief of the Talysh-language newspaper “Tolishi Sado,” Novruzali Mamedov, was arrested in 2007 for “treason.” He was allegedly beaten and tortured and, despite requests for release from international organizations, died in prison in 2009. Another major figure in Talysh culture, Fahradin Aboszoda, was arrested in Russia and extradited to Azerbaijan in 2020, where he allegedly officially “committed suicide” in prison.

As for the Lezgins, a Minority Rights Group report reports that they complain of discrimination in Azerbaijan and “feel obliged to assimilate to Azeri identity to avoid economic and educational discrimination.” Their number would also be considerably underestimated in official data. In 2015, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization also denounced the “severe restriction of freedom of belief and religion” in Azerbaijan targeting the Lezgins.

The so-called “harmony” described by Nigar Huseynova, as well as her promotion of the “Baku Process” initiated by dictator Aliyev are therefore just smoke and mirrors, faced with a reality of control and discrimination by the regime toward minorities.

COP29 Results

Nigar Huseynova declared that:

• “It was emphasized that Azerbaijan had succeeded in achieving historic results in climate negotiations despite a large-scale campaign of defamation and slander“

It should be noted first that the mention of COP29 during a conference dedicated to cultural diplomacy is surprising. This reinforces the feeling that this speech was more of an influence communication platform than a lesson on cultural diplomacy.

If we were to comment on the reality of COP29’s results, however, multiple sources clearly contradict the above statement.

According to a summary report by the energy transition association CITEPA, the COP29 assessment was “mixed,” far from the “historic results” mentioned by Azerbaijani diplomacy. The publication also indicates that “many observers and several Parties vigorously criticized the ‘chaotic’ management and leadership by the Azerbaijani Presidency during the 2nd week – linked notably to their very limited experience in climate diplomacy.” According to the association, COP29’s conclusions sparked a feeling of injustice from Southern countries “on the divisive subject of climate financing and the unambitious final result.” The article concludes that “Baku’s final result satisfies no one: it’s an unsatisfactory compromise.”

Climate Action Network states that COP29 was a failure for civil society, with a new financing objective that is “insufficient and incomplete.” Similarly, the European NGOs Europa Nostra and European Heritage Hub noted disappointing results regarding culture and heritage issues. A BBC article even highlighted the fact that “the host country, Azerbaijan, was a controversial choice for climate negotiations. This country claims it wants to increase its gas production by up to one-third over the next decade.”

Once again, the statements of Azerbaijani diplomacy are clearly contradicted by the facts.

The Destruction of Cultural Heritage

Nigar Huseynova declared that:

• “Regarding the effectiveness of UNESCO conventions in the field of cultural heritage protection, it was noted that despite the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, ‘our historical and cultural monuments in these regions were destroyed during the Armenian occupation and the convention was not respected‘.”

Here, the advisor to the Embassy of Azerbaijan is guilty of a classic rhetorical device regularly used by Azerbaijan’s representatives: accusatory inversion.

Indeed, like the previous points, numerous sources clearly state that in the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, it is indeed the latter that is driven by an intention of cultural genocide against Armenians, and this for several decades.

In 2019, even before the scandal of the destruction of Armenian heritage in Artsakh, The Guardian published an article stating that “the Azerbaijani government has engaged, over the past 30 years, in a systematic erasure of the country’s Armenian historical heritage.” It has indeed been documented that between 1920 and the early 2000s, Azerbaijan destroyed an Armenian cemetery located in Nakhchivan consisting of nearly 10,000 khachkars (crosses carved in stone, typical of Armenian art), which had even provoked UNESCO’s concern, in vain. The Azerbaijani writer Akram Aylisli, persecuted by the Azerbaijani dictatorship for having written about the massacres of Armenians by Azerbaijanis, also qualified the destruction perpetrated by the regime as “diabolical vandalism.”

With Azerbaijan’s annexation of Artsakh, begun with the 44-Day War in 2020, and the ethnic cleansing perpetrated against its Armenian population in 2023, the entirety of the millennial Armenian heritage found itself at the mercy of the Azerbaijani dictatorship. The European Centre for Law and Justice published in 2024 a very detailed report titled “The Systematic Erasure of Armenian Christian Heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh” (we invite you to consult it). Supported by satellite photos and testimonies, the report lists the hundreds of monuments, churches, cemeteries, sacred places, and other heritage elements, destroyed by Azerbaijan since 2020.

Others have been vandalized, and have seen all proof of belonging to Armenian heritage erased, in order to correspond to a new revisionist narrative put in place by the dictatorship: that of the Albanian-Udi Christians. The Azerbaijani regime indeed strives to claim that Artsakh’s Christian heritage is actually that of this Christian community. In 2022, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Culture had even announced its “intention to erase Armenian inscriptions on religious sites” located in Artsakh, claiming “that the churches were actually originally the heritage of Caucasian Albania.”

Here again, Nigar Huseynova’s statements are totally disconnected from reality, and actually fit into a strategy of parasitism of the debate by Azerbaijan which, by declaring itself a victim of Armenian “barbarism” regarding Azerbaijani heritage in Artsakh, attenuates in the public’s eyes the gravity of the erasure of Armenian presence in the region.

It is surprising, given the hypocrisy and cynicism of Nigar Huseynova’s statements in the face of a very different reality described by numerous international observers, that the Musée du Quai Branly could have authorized the holding of such an event.

This type of event, like the one organized in November 2024 at Salle Cortot for “Victory Day,” contributes to the whitewashing of the crimes of the Azerbaijani dictatorship, and to the dissemination of its revisionist theses. Allowing the holding of such propaganda moments for the benefit of Aliyev’s regime also amounts to legitimizing, indirectly, its future claims, because it gives it a feeling of impunity despite the crimes committed in recent years and their media coverage.

The conclusion of such an event? It is possible to perpetrate ethnic cleansing, to destroy the millennial cultural heritage of a region, to falsify history then to come declare at the Musée du Quai Branly that the victim is the executioner, and that Azerbaijan is an actor in “defending cultural heritage.” The cynicism of this dictatorship is unbearable, and must be exposed, as well as the laissez-faire attitude of the Musée du Quai Branly.