Statement by the Media and Broadcasting Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan
The approval of unified dress code rules for learners and teachers in Azerbaijan serves to ensure the principle of secular education, as well as a unified approach in the educational environment.
Nevertheless, attempts are being observed by certain circles to biasedly politicize the essence of the issue, to draw it into a religious plane, and to turn it into a subject of artificial public tension.
The activity carried out in a coordinated manner, especially on social media platforms, further increases this concern. The mass dissemination within short time intervals of posts with identical or similar content through separate accounts, including negative comments and reactions, as well as calls encouraging people to violate public order, draws attention. The consistent intervention of a limited number of identically named accounts in numerous posts and the intensification of activity within specific time intervals create serious grounds to believe that this process is of a coordinated nature, indicating a troll attack and information manipulation directed from a single center outside the country.
The main purpose of such interventions is to distort real public opinion, to create the appearance of mass discontent through the artificial activity of separate accounts, to divert attention from the essence of the issue, and to turn the topic into a tool for certain political purposes.
The Media and Broadcasting Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan calls on citizens, media entities, and social media users to be attentive to such cases, to take into account the coordinated activity of suspicious accounts, not to disseminate manipulative content without verification, and not to fall under the influence of artificially created information waves.
