Banner: German PACE delegate Frank Schwabe challenges the credentials of the Azerbaijan delegation during the assembly’s winter 2024 gathering in Strasbourg, France. (Source: PACE)

Editor’s note: Special thanks to Azerbaijani independent media outlet Mikroskop Media for contributing to the research and publishing of this case study.

On January 22, 2024, the opening day of the 2024 winter plenary session of the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), German delegation member Frank Schwabe challenged the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation. Soon after, reports from Azerbaijani government-aligned media and a campaign on X spread narratives targeting PACE and members of different delegations. Two days later, Azerbaijan announced it would cease its engagement with PACE, and within a few hours, PACE formally declined to ratify the country’s credentials.

In questioning Azerbaijan’s credentials, Schwabe cited ongoing domestic political persecution, a military operation in Karabakh launched by Azerbaijan in September 2023 leading to the mass exodus of 120,000 ethnic Armenians, Azerbaijan being inaccessible to PACE during these 2023 events, and PACE not being invited to monitor the country’s February 2024 presidential election, one year ago. Previously, in 2018, PACE observed the early presidential elections in Azerbaijan, where the assembly’s ad hoc committee concluded the elections happened “within a restrictive political environment and under laws that curtail fundamental rights and freedoms, which are prerequisites for genuine democratic elections.”

The DFRLab observed symmetry between posts written in English on X, intended to reach an international audience, and Azerbaijani media reports, written for a domestic audience. Monitoring domestic media’s coverage of the PACE situation provides insight into the narratives used by the government to justify the suspension of its engagement with PACE. The narratives shifted focus away from Schwabe’s criticisms of Azerbaijan’s human rights record and alleged the existence of an “anti-Azerbaijan network.” Seventy-five X accounts that spread anti-PACE narratives mentioned the ruling New Azerbaijan Party (YAP) in their bios. Furthermore, 951 X accounts that were active in the anti-PACE campaign also engaged in another online campaign investigated by the DFRLab related to the spring 2024 protests in New Caledonia.

Monitoring Azerbaijani domestic media can provide an indicator of shifts in state policies. Independent outlet Mikroskop Media previously reported on how media outlets in Azerbaijan were directed on how to report on domestic policies. In a case similar to the anti-PACE campaign, Mikroskop Media reported on how pro-government media outlets spread accusations about the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). TV reports and government-backed publications accused USAID of “preparing a revolution in Georgia” and “funding local organizations to achieve it.”

The DFRLab manually reviewed at least one hundred articles from four pro-government media websites (APA.az, Trend.az, Report.az, and Oxu.az). Pro-government Azerbaijani media outlets published anti-PACE narratives ahead of the decision to suspend relations with PACE, laying the groundwork to justify the decision.  

Initial media reports accused PACE of being under the influence of the Armenian lobby. Later, narratives evolved to accuse PACE of housing an anti-Azerbaijan network “taking revenge” on Azerbaijan for “restoring its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Before Azerbaijan decided to suspend its engagement with PACE, pro-government media signaled two possible outcomes: the suspension of the delegation, which occurred shortly after, or a full withdrawal from PACE and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which did not.

A manual analysis of X posts using the hashtag #PACE between January 24-26, 2024, indicated that some accounts shared identical posts during the monitoring period. We applied a clustering method via Python (excluding retweets) to identify copypastas within the dataset. We assigned ID numbers to each unique post to identify how many X posts used the same text. This method revealed that 146 unique posts were shared 16,834 times by 1,619 users between January 24-26, 2024. Eleven identical texts were excluded as they were irrelevant to the Azerbaijan case.

One identical copypasta was shared 9,145 times using the same set of hashtags. The posts featured differing photos of PACE delegation members to accuse them of lobbying for Armenia. All the posts included the hashtag #ArmenianLobby.

Ninety-nine of the 146 copypastas shared the same link to a report from Azerbaijani state news agency Azertag announcing the PACE suspension.

The table below displays a randomly selected set of 100 posts from the top ten most shared copypastas, excluding the one shared 9,145 times. Text ID refers to the numbers assigned to each unique text using Python, and Text ID Count indicates how many times the corresponding text was posted on X within the dataset between January 24 and 26, 2024.

One of the posts that shared a link to the Azertag report revealed further details about the copypasta operation and potential instructions given to users. The post starts with an Azerbaijani phone number and a time stamp accompanied by “ÖS,” which means “P.M.” if the user’s language setting is Turkish. The post reads, “Azerbaijan joined the Council of Europe with hopes of support for justice. However, response by PACE has often felt biased and unequal.” At the end of the text, it repeats the same phone number and time stamp, then ends with the word “despite.”

Identical text—without the phone number—was shared sixty-six times on X. The post featured a photo of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the YAP logo, and YAP’s slogan in the previous presidential election. In addition, we found five copypastas within the dataset that started with the word “despite.” These were tweeted 494 times.

The phone number featured in the X post was shared in an Instagram post on July 21, 2023, related to the Shusha Global Media Forum. The Instagram account often promotes YAP and Aliyev.

Also, on July 21, 2023, the Twitter profile @zamir_huseynov and Instagram account @elizaminehmedzade shared the same photo and caption, except the tweet began with “[21.07 16:41] YAP. Aysel.:.” Aysel is an Azerbaijani female name. It is possible that the individual copied and pasted the text from another source.  

Further, the same X profile shared eight posts with different copy-pastas related to PACE; in total these copy-pastas were posted 9,586 times. Of these posts, seventy-five were made by accounts that mentioned YAP on their bio.

Manual analysis of the X accounts revealed that some of the anti-PACE accounts were also involved in an online hashtag campaign related to the New Caledonia protests in May 2024. Similar tactics, such as copy-pastas and hashtag hijacking, were detected in both campaigns. The DFRLab compared the dataset of accounts involved in the anti-PACE campaign to those involved in the New Caledonia campaign and found that 951 of the 1,619 accounts in the anti-PACE dataset were involved in both campaigns. Seventy-five of the 951 accounts mentioned YAP in their bio.

On January 25, 2024,  the pro-government Trend News Agency published an article with the headline, “Are they deputies or members of a criminal group who chose Azerbaijan as a target? – The REAL FACE of PACE.” The article suggests that PACE is a puppet of Germany and France. On the day the article was published, X accounts began publishing identical posts targeting French and German MPs with the graphic shown above

Other dominant narratives shared by monitored pro-government media from January 24-26 included:

X accounts amplified some of these domestic narratives. The table below displays the most shared posts, defined as those shared more than 150 times, on X between January 24 and 26, 2024. These posts amplified similar narratives, such as suggesting that “PACE never acted regarding Armenian occupation of Karabakh” and that PACE has “double standards” and is under “Armenian lobby.”

“Domestic and international campaigns targeted PACE during Azerbaijan’s 2024 suspension,” Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) and Mikroskop Media, February 12, 2025, https://dfrlab.org/2025/02/12/azerbaijan-pace-campaign/.