Another Azerbaijani provocation prevented at media forum in Kyiv

December 9, 2010 - 20:57 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - RIA Novosti organized an exhibition of CIS, Baltic states and Georgia-presented photos within the framework of the Forum of European and Asian Media (FEAM) held in Kyiv on December 7-10.

Unique works authored by Armenian photographer Ruben Mangasaryan were featured at the exhibition, entitled: Photography. The works included two photos taken by Mangasaryan in Martakert region of Karabakh.

The two photos had the following captions: “Abandoned cemetery in a village of Martakert region, Armenia, 1993” and “Abandoned village in Martakert region, Armenia, 1993.”

On December 8, the second day of the forum, in several hours after the exhibition opening, representatives of the Armenian delegation participating in the media forum fixed that the captions had been torn down.

In response to indignation of the Armenian delegation, the exhibition organizers promised to restore the captions and replace the word Armenia by Karabakh in them. Later the captions were restored, as agreed with the organizers, while Mangasaryan’s collection was completely presented to the public. It should be noted that the developments around the works of the Armenian photographer have caused a great interest of the exhibition participants.

The Azerbaijani participants of the event were rather nervous and from time to time made attempts to remove the works of the Armenian photographer from the exhibition. The Azerbaijanis even invited the Azerbaijani Ambassador to Ukraine. However, all the attempts have yielded no result. Despite this, the Azerbaijani media traditionally disseminated false information that allegedly the photos, around which the clamor was raised, have been removed from the exhibition, while the organizers apologized for the incident.

Besides, Ruben Mangasaryan was presented as Baghdasaryan in reports of the Azerbaijani media.

The exhibition organizers assured that information provided by the Azerbaijani media is untrue and photos of Mangasaryan were not removed from the exhibition. Besides, nobody offered apologies.

We would like to note that the aforementioned photos remained at their places from the exhibition start to finish.