Azerbaijani pro-government media has launched new attacks on the BBC, coinciding with US President Donald Trump’s spat with the media organisation.
An article with the headline ‘The Trump Factor exposed by the BBC — Azerbaijan’s rightful position was confirmed’, was recently published by the prominent pro-government media outlets APA and Qafqazinfo, as well as others.
APA’s article included Trump’s dispute with the BBC over its decision to misleadingly edit a speech he had made in 2021, which was revealed by the Telegraph earlier in November.
Since then, pro-government Azerbaijani media have used the revelations as a pretext to continue their own attacks on the BBC, which Baku has long accused of biased reporting.
BBC Azerbaijan was forced to close its offices in February and suspend its operations.
In the article, APA wrote that the BBC’s ‘biased editorial policy’ was ‘not accidental’, referring to its coverage of events during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
‘BBC reports clearly showed that Azerbaijan’s position was either softened or completely ignored’, APA wrote, claiming that the civilian deaths caused by Armenian rocket attacks on Ganja, Barda, and Tartar were presented ‘incompletely’ and ‘treated as secondary topics’.
Qafqazinfo also published APA’s article along with another piece by Mushfig Alasgarli, a member of the Media Council and the chair of the Trade Union of Journalists.
‘The myth of objectivity has been dispelled and the BBC’s true face has been revealed’, Alasgarli’s article read. He claimed that the BBC creates an impression of ‘objectivity’ in the reporting of statistical news, but has demonstrated ‘a clearly biased position’ on matters of fundamental national policy.
‘All the disinformation spread by Armenia was published on the BBC and disseminated worldwide. BBC News, BBC World Service, and BBC Azerbaijan Service repeatedly used Armenia’s manipulative information as the basis for their coverage. Azerbaijan’s position was either underreported or completely ignored’, Alasgarli wrote.
However, articles published by the BBC about shelling in Ganja, Barda, and Tatar contradict Azerbaijan pro-government media’s claims, notably in an October 2020 article titled: ‘Nagorno-Karabakh conflict: Major cities hit as heavy fighting continues’. In the same month the BBC provided in-depth coverage of Armenia’s shelling of Barda.
Alasgarli also declined to mention the arrests of journalists, instead repeating the government line that BBC Azerbaijan had been ordered to shutter because of the ‘BBC’s unacceptable approach to Azerbaijan’.
Despite being formally closed, the Azerbaijani government has accused former employees of BBC Azerbaijan of continuing their journalistic work in the country illegally.
Aytan Farhadova
According to the Media Development Agency (MDA), there is no international agreement authorising the BBC to operate in Azerbaijan.
‘BBC has been removed from the register, and the staff members’ accreditation has been revoked. This means that any information gathering by the BBC is contrary to national law’, Okhu.az reported, citing the MDA.
The closure of BBC Azerbaijan took place against the backdrop of a crackdown on media ongoing since November 2023. Azerbaijan’s campaign against independent media began with Abzas Media, seven of whose journalists have been given lengthy prison sentences on charges of smuggling. One of those journalists, Hafiz Babali, was an employee of Turan, the oldest independent media outlet in Azerbaijan.
In March 2024, the offices of Toplum TV and the Institute for Democratic Initiatives (IDI) were raided, and three journalists and three IDI members were detained.
More recently, in December 2024, six Meydan TV journalists were detained and their houses raided.
The last detentions related to independent media took place on 5 February 2025, when Meydan TV’s Shamshad Agha and Shahnaz Baylargizi were detained and accused of smuggling as part of the Toplum and Meydan TV cases. Several others, including Nurlan Gahramanli (Libre), Fatima Movlamli, and Ulviyya Gulieva (Ali) have since been detained as part of the same case.
Aytan Farhadova
