Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting/Day 2

The speech by PRWB legal expert Anna Melikyan at the OSCE/ODIHR Human Dimension Conference on March 18, 2025, dedicated to the topic: “The Role of the Media in Conflicts and Humanitarian Crises: Addressing International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law.”

• In many contexts we have polarized media landscape, and many of media outlets, not being self-sustainable, have to count on the funds coming from their founders or donors. This results in spreading particular narratives, not always accurate, aiming to manipulate public opinion. Here, the role of investigative journalists and open-source investigators and fact-checkers is vital. They help not only to verify facts, including war crimes but help collect evidence in corruption related investigations. In Armenia, broader public and human rights expert community appreciates the efforts of investigative journalists, such as Hetq and others for their efforts to shed light on corruption and prompt higher scrutiny and criminal investigations into these facts.
• Open-source investigations become more and more important in the context of armed conflicts as with the use of internet, a lot of footage with war crimes and other IHL violations are circulating over social media. Often, images are used repeatedly in different contexts to mislead the public. It is extremely important to verify the content, establish facts and accuracy and shed light in case the images were doctored or made with AI. So, they help to prove or disprove and by this help actual investigations. In our fact-finding missions in relation to Nagorno-Karabakh armed conflict we widely used techniques of open-source investigation. We had to process hundreds, if not thousands of videos taken reportedly by perpetrators and disseminated via social media. This helped us but also BBC and Bellingcat, among others, to establish facts in numerous war crime cases committed by Azerbaijani servicemen.
• For investigative journalists to carry out their role there should be financial sustainability and a legal framework not hindering their operations.

Recommendations: to continuously support media outlets doing investigative journalists to allow them carry out their vital function uninterrupted.

• Another important aspect is an interplay between ethical journalism and media propaganda tours organized by parties to armed conflict. Azerbaijan excels in organizing tightly-controlled propaganda tours. They invite group of journalists or social media influencers, show them around, promote particular narratives. Following hostilities in 2020, Azerbaijan banned access to independent media to Nagorno-Karabakh and its vicinity to create an informational vacuum and then to fill it with its narratives and state-controlled reporting. They even organized a media forum in Shushi in parallel to a blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, promoting their narratives while people few kilometers away were subject to starvation, and independent Azerbaijani journalists were arrested and send to prison on bogus charges. Azerbaijani authorities did not allow participants to access the roadblock and independently verify the facts. While it is for the journalists/media outlets to make an ethical judgement whether to participate in certain events or not, they should do that responsibly. Media has a vital role of informing the public but it should be careful not to become a tool for misinformation.
• Another aspect that we need to discuss here is access to information if marshal laws are in place, restricting the right to freedom of expression, and when access to internet is restricted during armed conflict. These are among tools used by parties to the conflict to control informational flows and public opinion.