Baku propagandist media presents Armenian civilian shooting range as terrorist training center

The Azerbaijani CBC TV company prepared a report on the ARM Tactical civilian shooting range operating in Armenia, claiming that “terrorists and militants are conducting training there.”

The propagandist media claimed that the identities of the instructors of the center and training participants are “kept strictly confidential,” using as evidence footage used in a video made for marketing purposes on the center’s social media. In the video, the trainees and instructors wear masks.

The Fact Investigation Platform visited the ARM Tactical Center, filmed the area, and spoke with the director and senior instructor of the center, Hrayr Avetisyan. The latter presented the center’s open and transparent activities, refuting the lies of the Azerbaijani propaganda machine.

Information on the activities of the center, types of services offered, and their values ​​can be obtained feom their Facebook and Instagram pages.

Terrorists in the Second Nagorno Karabakh War

The report claims that Armenia previously trained similar “terrorists” who participated in the Second Nagorno Karabakh War. The Azerbaijani side does not have any evidence that any terrorists were involved in the hostilities, in addition to the Armenian armed forces.

It should be noted that the use of mercenaries is a violation of international law under the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, adopted in 1990.

However, international organizations claim the opposite, namely, that it was Baku that involved mercenary terrorists in the hostilities, with the help of Turkey.

This fact has been confirmed by UN human rights experts, the Council of Europe, as well as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Moreover, two Syrian mercenaries who participated in the 44-day war, Muhrab Muhammad al-Shkhari and Yousef Alabed al-Hajji, were tried in Armenia on charges of international terrorism, gross violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts, and mercenary activities.

The claim about 10,000 deserters

The aforementioned media also claimed, without citing any specific source, that there were about 10,000 deserters on the Armenian side during the war. FIP.am has previously addressed this claim.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, announced on April 1, 2023, during the opening ceremony of the playground named after the deceased soldier David Shahnazaryan in the village of Acharkut, Tavush region, and then repeated it twice, that the Armenian side had 11 thousand deserters during the 44-day war.

Days before Anna Hakobyan’s statement, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had also voiced a similar thought. “There have been no deserters in our army. According to the latest data, there were not 10,000, but 11,000 deserters in the Armenian army,” he stated.

The Fact Investigation Platform sent an inquiry to the RA Prosecutor’s Office, asking for data on deserters during the war. According to the data they provided, as of then, 756 people had the status of defendants under the desertion article, of which only 64 had been sentenced. Thus, the claim about 10,000 or 11,000 deserters is groundless.

Nane Manasyan