The fact of burning the Azerbaijani flag in Yerevan during the opening of the European Weightlifting Championship has caused intense discussions on social networks.
Some of the Armenian users are excited about the démarch made by the famous stylist Aram Nikolyan, noting that similar actions, as a form of protest, take place in different corners of the world, the other part has the diametrically opposite point of view and claims that burning a flag is embarrassing our country. the country’s sports reputation, implies sanctions by international sports structures and that will additionally inflame the anger of Azerbaijanis, endangering the lives of Armenian soldiers standing on the border.
Leaving aside the fairness and reasonableness of both opinions, let’s talk about some facts.
First of all, since years, by virtue of a sad tradition, in Azerbaijan or Turkey, as well as in important international sports competitions with the participation of athletes from those countries, as a rule, Armenian athletes have been subjected to various humiliations, they have been attacked, insulted, stones thrown, etc. For example, in 2011 During the World Boxing Championship held in Baku in October, a group of Azeris attacked Armenian athletes. Gassed Azeris one by one entered the sports complex intended for holding competitions and, occupying places as close as possible to the ring, waited for the performance of the Armenian athlete. When our boxer and trainers appeared near the ring, the Azeris hit them with stones, shouting: “Armenians, leave, shame on the inviters, Karabakh or death” etc… The fight was stopped, the Armenians left the hall.
The head of “Karabakh Liberation Organization” Akif Naghy stated. “We have been preparing for several days and knowing that Armenians will enter the ring today, we decided to stone them. Our goal is to prevent Armenians from participating in competitions. If our voice is not heard, more extreme measures will be taken.”
In 2015, after the victory of Karabakh athlete Ashot Danielyan at the Sambo World Cup held in Moscow, the Azerbaijani athlete ostentatiously bowed during the playing of the Armenian national anthem.
It was due to the racist, anti-Armenian propaganda prevailing in Azerbaijan and Baku’s failure to provide sufficient security guarantees that in May 2019, a decision was made in London that Henrikh Mkhitaryan will not participate in the final match of the Europa League as part of “Arsenal”, which will take place in Baku.
In 2022, the representative of Turkey caused a scandal at the European U20 weightlifting championship in Durres, Albania. He refused to shake the hand of declared champion Garik Karapetyan (96 kg) after the playing of the Armenian national anthem.
In March of this year, during the under-23 European wrestling championship in Bucharest, Karapet Manvelyan, competing in the 55 kg weight category, defeated Rahim Hasanov from Azerbaijan with a score of 7:1. After losing, the representative of the neighboring country showed dirty behavior by hitting the Armenian wrestler, after which he was disqualified.
As for the protest actions that took place in major championships at the international level, they are so numerous and multi-layered that it is impossible to summarize them all in one publication. But let’s remember a few.
In 2016 A representative of the Belarusian delegation to the Paralympic Games was stripped of accreditation for demonstratively carrying the Russian flag during the opening ceremony of the Games. The International Paralympic Committee officially announced that the athlete violated the ban on making political gestures.
In 2022 In March, the Kosovo Athletics Federation expressed its dismay at the absence of the flag of the team’s only representative, 1500 meter runner Gresa Bakraki, at the World Winter Championships in Belgrade. Due to security reasons, the organizers of the tournament decided not to fly the flag of Kosovo, including not to reproduce it in the protocols of the official website of World Athletics. Serbia (like Russia and more than 70 countries) does not recognize the independence of Kosovo. The organizers noted that displaying the symbols of that territorial unit could provoke riots in the capital of Serbia.
During the live broadcast of the 4th round of the final match between the Russian Tamara Tansikkuzyna and the Polish Natalya Sadovskaya at the 2021 World Chess Championship in Poland, one of the employees of the organizing committee of the tournament removed the Russian flag and the sign with the name of the athlete representing the Russian Federation from the table. Let’s remind that Russian athletes cannot perform under the national flag in the world, European and Olympic championships, and the national anthem cannot be played in their honor. The employee who removed the flag was Jacek Pawlicki, the former president of the European Chess Federation.
The given examples are not at all to promote or justify them, moreover, there is no desire to condemn, because the concepts and manifestations of human freedoms, democracy, free speech, etc. are always contrary to the accepted rules of the sports world. As in big sports, we are dealing with small and large human outbursts and spontaneous actions everywhere.
Do Aloya
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