It has been alleged that the BBC has 'whitewashed' a film sponsored by BP with an emphasis on autocratic Azerbaijan
LONDON (Opendemocracy.net) - The BBC has been accused of "whitewashing" the Azerbaijani dictatorship after airing a film made with the backing of the country's controversial ruling family - and sponsored by British oil and gas giant BP.
Audiences watching BBC World News in August were promised they would find out 'how Azerbaijan's oil wealth has allowed the capital Baku to prosper' and 'will earn a reputation as the 'Paris of the East "in BP-sponsored 'Wonders of Azerbaijan'" film.
BP spent £300,000 ($356,000) on the film, which was made by
British production company SandStone Global with backing from a foundation and
media center run by members of the Aliyev family in power in Azerbaijan.
Presenter and historian Bettany Hughes, who co-founded SandStone, introduced
the film.
Emin Huseynov, an Azerbaijani journalist who fled political
persecution in Azerbaijan in 2015, accused the BBC of "whitewashing a
dictatorship" because of the film.
The BBC has undergone "a shameful transformation,
giving voice to one of the most bloody and corrupt regimes in the world",
according to Husyenov, the subject of an award-winning BBC documentary in 2006
on young Azeri democracy activists."
He questioned the lack of investigation into BP's
connections to the Aliyev administration and accused the BBC of being
"passive" in its coverage of the human rights crisis in Azerbaijan.
OpenDemocracy was informed by the BBC that "Azerbaijan
Wonders" "is not a current affairs show."
A spokeswoman added, "BBC News services have
extensively covered the region's broader geopolitical situation.
According to Chris Garrard of the arts advocacy group
Culture Unstained, media sponsorship partnerships with fossil fuel companies
like BP "legitimize" their continued investment in new oil and gas
infrastructure rather than focusing on net zero objectives.
Given the Azerbaijani regime's history of violating human
rights, Garrard claimed that the BBC movie's "positive cultural stance on
Azerbaijan" benefited BP.
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The film also implicitly promoted Azerbaijan's claims to
Shusha, a town in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh that Azerbaijan
seized from Armenian forces in the 2020 Second Karabakh War. Azerbaijan now
wants to transform the region into a "green energy zone" with BP. to
help.
Under its so-called "deal of the century", BP is
the biggest foreign private investor in resource-rich Azerbaijan.
He has long faced criticism from human rights and climate
activists for his ties to the ruling Aliyev regime, accused of 'election
fraud', silencing dissenting voices, and profiteering disproportionate to
Azerbaijan's oil and gas wealth.
“BP needs to keep the [Azerbaijani] government on its side
and this [film] is a cheap way to do that,” said campaigner James Marriott,
co-writer of Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation.
BP told openDemocracy of its goal to work for the
"efficient and responsible" development of energy resources in the
Caspian Sea for the benefit of Azerbaijan and the company.
He added that he has a net zero ambition and is working to
decarbonize operations and develop renewable energy in Azerbaijan.
A BP representative told openDemocracy, "We do not fund
people or political organizations in any country.
A BBC spokesperson said: 'Hosting advertising and
sponsorship outside the UK, which is clearly labeled as such and is completely
separate from our editorial output, allows us to invest in class journalism BBC
World, which provides independent and unbiased news in all areas. topics such
as climate change, the energy crisis, and geopolitics.
BBC World News aired the two-part program to its viewers
outside the UK for a week in August - the same week UK audiences saw the BBC
broadcast extensive coverage of the energy crisis and soaring bills for
household fuel.
Advertisements aimed at the "curious and
environmentally conscious traveler" ran alongside the BP-sponsored film,
as part of a branding deal between BBC Global News (one of the BBC's commercial
affiliates) and the official tourist board of Azerbaijan.
“Wonders of Azerbaijan” is part of a larger editorial
series, also presented by Bettany Hughes, which explores areas of natural,
artistic, and cultural interest around the world.
The BBC has licensed content for the two-part program from
Hughes' production company SandStone Global. The BBC edited the material, but
the copyright remains with SandStone. The production itself was funded by BP,
whose sponsorship was clearly stated on screen when the show aired.
Each of the two episodes aired five times worldwide in late
August, along with travel advertisements for Azerbaijan. It was not released in
the UK.
A SandStone Global representative told openDemocracy that
it's "standard practice" for production companies to enlist support
from "local organizations" for on-site services.
Baku Media Center provided logistical support to SandStone,
while the Heydar Aliyev Foundation helped the British company secure filming
permits and access unique heritage sites, the representative said.
The Baku Media Center is headed by the youngest daughter of
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Arzu Aliyeva. She works closely with the
family foundation.
The SandStone rep said, "The organization's
involvement] does not equate to editorial influence, as all decisions relating
to our productions are made by the SandStone Global team." They noted that
Arzu Aliyeva was not a direct participant in the creation process.
The BBC alone has complete editorial control over everything
that is shown on its channel, following its strict editorial criteria,
according to the BBC spokesman, even though the initial program was not created
by the BBC.
In collaboration with the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, which
bears the former president's name and was in charge of the nation both before
and after it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, BP provided
funding for the initiative as a "gift to the global promotion of
Azerbaijan." After ten years in power, Heydar Aliyev was succeeded in 2003
by his son, the current dictatorial ruler Ilham Aliyev.
Mehriban Aliyeva, Ilham's wife and the nation's vice
president serve as the foundation's chair.
The Heydar Aliyev Foundation is responsible for promoting
Azerbaijan's image abroad, including advancing the government's position on
Nagorno-Karabakh. But critics of the government say the job is to distract from
the regime's relentless crackdown on dissent and its systemic corruption.
According to Arzu Geybullayeva, an exiled Azerbaijani journalist, "the organization was formed by the ruling family to sanitize the image of Azerbaijan." She added:
"He can in no way be described as independent of the state."
When contacted for comment, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation did
not provide one.
I don't comprehend history via politics, presenter Bettany
Hughes stated during the movie's presentation event in Baku in September. I
don't participate in politics at all. But I travel to locations that have great
cultural diversity. So it was exceptional for me to have access to places where
the last time I came, I couldn't go because there were too many conflicts
there.
Hughes was talking about Nagorno-Karabakh, which is
internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory – but which had been under
ethnic Armenian control since the early 1990s.
That was until 2020 when Azerbaijan started a 44-day war to
take over part of the disputed territory - as Ilham Aliyev himself recently
admitted. Thousands of people were killed in the fighting as Armenian forces
tried to protect it.
Indeed, the BBC series featured a segment where Bettany Hughes
traveled to the Nagorno-Karabakh town of Shusha. As part of its brutal military
offensive in November 2020, Azerbaijan seized the city. Previously, Shusha – known as Shushi to
Armenians – had been in the hands of ethnic Armenians since the first Nagorno-Karabakh
war three decades earlier.
Azerbaijan has now declared Shusha a "cultural
capital" and major efforts are underway to restore Azerbaijani culture to
the city. The Heydar Aliyev Foundation is leading restoration work at Shusha.
Some of these works featured in the BBC program, including a sequence shot
inside a reconstructed Soviet-era mausoleum about the 18th-century Azerbaijani
poet and statesman Vagif. The monument fell into disrepair when the city was
under Armenian control.
Speaking in Shusha in June 2022, BP regional chairman Gary Jones said Nagorno-Karabakh has the "best solar and geothermal resources" in the country, making it a
"perfect opportunity for a full net system. zero". BP is planning a solar power plant in the city of Jabrayil, which Azerbaijan regained control of during the 2020 war.
"Marvels of Azerbaijan", which did not address
Armenia's ties to Shusha or the bitterly disputed history of Nagorno-Karabakh,
aired the last week of August.
A fortnight later, Azerbaijani forces made further
incursions into Armenian territory – the worst escalation in the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the 2020 war.
BP's Jones took the stage at the film's premiere in Baku in
late September to hail the "unwavering support of the [Azerbaijani]
government" to his business and the operations of his joint venturers in
the country.
In addition, Jones mentioned the documentary was produced
with a "joint effort." He thanked the Heydar Aliyev Foundation for
its support and paid personal tribute to the president's daughter, Arzu
Aliyeva, and the Baku Media Center which she heads, "for their outstanding
technical support" in the production.
This is not the first time that BP has collaborated with the
Heydar Aliyev Foundation, or that the foundation has appeared on the BBC.
Last year, BBC StoryWorks, the in-house content studio of
commercial channel BBC Global News, ran a separate tourism-focused campaign for
Azerbaijan to mark the country's 30th anniversary of independence from screw
the Soviet Union.
The campaign included a paid infomercial that invited readers to "learn more" about Azerbaijan by following a link to an external website run by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. The "Azerbaijan" portal states that Ilham Aliyev, the country's current president,
"has always been focused on securing wider protection of human rights and liberties in the country,"among other things. It also includes details on the alleged "Armenian crisis."
According to the BBC in the UK, Azerbaijani officials have
long utilized demeaning language and images about Armenians, including creating
a "war park" last year with wax representations of Armenians and
weaponry, armor, and vehicles taken from Armenian soldiers.
The link was removed after openDemocracy contacted the BBC
for a response.
To undertake several of its social investment initiatives
together, BP and the Heydar Aliyev Foundation have signed a collaboration
agreement.
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