Month: April 2007

GERMAN, TWO OTHERS KILLED AT CHRISTIAN PUBLISHER’S IN TURKEY

Agence France Presse — English
April 18, 2007 Wednesday 6:47 PM GMT

Assailants slit the throats of three people, one of them a German,
at a publishing house in eastern Turkey that had been threatened for
distributing Bibles and printing books on Christianity, officials
said Wednesday.

The gruesome murders in Malatya, 650 kilometres (400 miles) east
of Ankara, appeared to be the latest attack on minorities in Turkey
following the killings of a Roman Catholic priest last year and an
ethnic Armenian journalist in January.

Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu said five suspects, including a
man who jumped out of a window to escape capture, were taken into
custody over the killings.

"Four suspects were detained by police at the crime scene with the
murder weapons. The fifth suspect has been hospitalized," he told
reporters here, refusing to give further details citing the ongoing
investigation.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged to shed light on the
killings which he condemned as "brutality".

"There are suspects in custody, but the prosecutor’s office is
investigating the incident to reveal at once the real perpetrators,"
he said here.

The Anatolia news agency said the suspects were young men aged 19
and 20 years of age who were all found to be carrying a letter that
read: "We all five are brothers, we are going to our deaths and may
not return."

Malatya governor Halil Ibrahim Dasoz told the NTV news channel that
the victims were found with their hands and feets tied to chairs and
their throats slit.

The German embassy in Ankara confirmed that one of the dead was a
German citizen, without releasing any other details.

The Anatolia news agency identified the victims as 46-year-old Tilman
Ekkehart Geske and Turkish citizens Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel.

Dasoz said two of the victims were found dead in the third-storey
office of the Zirve (Summit) publishing house and the third died
in hospital.

Two of the dead were reportedly employees of the publishing house.

The Anatolia news agency identified the victims as 46-year-old Tilman
Ekkehart Geske and Turkish citizens Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel.

Zirve general manager Hamza Ozant told CNN Turk television that
the publishing house had received "certain threats," without giving
details.

An aide to the Malatya governor told AFP that Zirve "was engaged in
missionary activities."

The publishing house had been the target of protests by nationalists
accusing it of proselytizing, media reports said.

Proselytizing is generally viewed with suspicion in Turkey, whose
population is 99 percent Muslim. Small Greek Othodox, Catholic,
Armenian and Jewish communities are concentrated mainly in Istanbul.

Dasoz said the company had not sought any special police protection.

Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union, always prides
itself on religious tolerance, but a string of recent attacks has
raised concerns that nationalism and anti-Christian hostility is on
the rise.

In February 2006, an Italian Catholic priest was shot dead as he
prayed in his church in the northern city of Trabzon. A teenager was
convicted of the murder and jailed for nearly 19 years.

Five days after the murder, a Roman Catholic priest in Izmir, western
Turkey, said he was harassed by a group of young men and, in July,
another Catholic priest was stabbed and wounded by a man officials
described as "mentally disturbed" in the Black Sea port of Samsun.

In January, journalist Hrant Dink, a prominent member of Turkey’s
Armenian community, was gunned down in the street in Istanbul. A
17-year-old, detained along with 11 other suspected ultra-nationalists,
confessed to the killing.

IRAN SEIZES FOUR MILLION LITRES OF ILLICIT BOOZE

Agence France Presse — English
April 18, 2007 Wednesday 1:50 PM GMT

Iran on Wednesday said that it had seized four million litres of
illicit booze during the last Iranian year, ending March 2007, the
ISNA news agency reported.

"Last year we seized four million litres of alcohol. It is very
shocking, and this is only 25 to 30 percent of what is distributed
in the country," police commander General Esmaeel Ahmadi-Moghadam said.

Only recognised Christian minorities in Iran, such as the Armenians,
are allowed to produce and consume alcohol, discreetly and behind
closed doors so as not to offend Islamic sensibilities.

Production, sale or consumption of alcohol are otherwise punishable by
jail or the lash, although this has not stopped significant smuggling
from neighbouring countries.

Earlier this month, 12 people died after drinking homemade hooch in
a holy city of Qom in Iran and another 100 became sick.

Most of the alcohol that comes to Iran comes over its western border
from Iraqi Kurdistan.
From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH ENVOY REJECTS US PAPER EDITORIAL ON ARMENIAN "GENOCIDE"

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
April 17 2007

New York, 17 April: "Turkey has nothing to cover up. We are ready and
willing to face the history. We expect the same from the Armenian
side," Baki Ilkin, Turkish permanent representative to the United
Nations, said on Tuesday [17 April].

In response to an article in the New York Times daily advocating
so-called Armenian genocide, Ilkin said, "The editorial on ‘Turkey
and the United Nations’ cover-up’ which was published on 13 April
reflects only the Armenian version of the events of 1915. There
is no explanation as to how and why these sad events took place in
eastern Anatolia. There is also no reference to those Turks who were
mass-murdered by Armenian bands during that time. Those tragic events
took place in time of war, and both populations suffered extensively."

"As such, describing these events as ‘genocide’ is unacceptable.

Indeed, if it had been a ‘genocide’, how was it possible for the
Armenians living in other parts of the Ottoman Empire to survive? In
fact, there is still a large Armenian Turkish minority in Istanbul
that enriches our cultural diversity," he stressed.

Ilkin noted, "If the Armenian authorities are certain of their
accusations, then they should be able to accept Turkey’s proposal to
set up a joint historians’ commission, including those from third
countries, to examine all the available documents and to reach a
public decision on what really happened."

"Turkey has nothing to cover up. We are ready and willing to face the
history. We expect the same from the Armenian side," Ilkin concluded.

"ARSHILE GORKY, HOMMAGE" UN CHANT DE LA TERRE
Par Jean-Louis Pinte

Le Figaro, France
18 avril 2007

Centre Pompidou :

place Georges-Pompidou (IV e), tlj sf mar. de 11 h a 21 h, tel. :
01 44 78 12 33. Jusqu ‘au 20 août

Centre culturel Calouste Gulbenkian :

51, av. d ‘Iena (XVI e), tlj sf sam. et dim. de 9 h a 17 h 30. Jusqu
‘au 4 juin

Catalogue. :

Coedition Centre Pompidou/Fondation Calouste Gulbenkian, 19,90 eur

Ne en Armenie,

Arshile Gorky emigre aux Etats-Unis en 1920, a l ‘âge de 16 ans.

Voulant devenir peintre, il forme son regard dans les revues d ‘art
où sont reproduites les oeuvres de Cezanne, Picasso, Braque et se
decouvre une veritable passion pour De Chirico. Mais c ‘est Miro et
Kandinsky qui vont decider de son style. Dans les annees 1930, il se
lie avec De Kooning et adopte très vite une manière particulière de
peindre pour l ‘epoque : des lignes sinueuses, des formes organiques
qui sans etre totalement abstraites evoquent par moments une certaine
figuration evanescente. Ce style nouveau etonne les surrealistes en
exil a New York pendant la guerre et ils l ‘adoptent d ’emblee.

Malade, pourtant en pleine possession de ses moyens, Arshile Gorky
se suicidera en 1948. Si le centre Gulbenkian insiste plus sur les
dessins, le Centre Pompidou met en valeur une peinture qui surprend
toujours.

CRITIQUE ++

Chez Arshile Gorky, il y a d ‘abord la seduction et le charme des
couleurs presque transparentes. Elles sont autant de formes qui
evoquent des elements de la nature : un champ de maïs, une cascade
ou encore un jardin. Les tableaux de l ‘artiste rayonnent d ‘une
joie ludique. Ses dessins ou ses travaux en noir et blanc sont plus
graves, plus ancres dans une demarche presque psychologique. Par
les elements polymorphes qu ‘il imagine, Arshile Gorky va donner
naissance a toute une esthetique moderne qui sera reprise par bon
nombre d ‘artistes. Mais elle n ‘aura pas le lyrisme qui donne a ses
oeuvres la dimension d ‘un chant de la terre, d ‘une symphonie de la
nature. Une musique des formes et des signes qui enchante.

–Boundary_(ID_jzU7Z6ozKAvuN3l3RvItVA)- –

CHRISTIANS AT BIBLE PUBLISHERS HAVE THEIR THROATS CUT
Suna Erdem In Istanbul

The Times/UK
Source: Turkish News, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Asia News
April 19, 2007

Knife-wielding attackers slit the throats of three people at a
Christian publishing house in conservative eastern Turkey yesterday.

One of the dead men was of German origin, the local governor said. Two
other men were taken to hospital, one with knife wounds to his throat,
back and stomach, the other with a head injury after jumping from
a third-floor window to escape. The hospital in the town of Malatya
said that both were in a critical condition.

Police have detained four men for the attack, which took place in the
early afternoon. Television footage showed a policeman tackling one
man while another man covered in blood was carried to an ambulance
on a stretcher.

The killings came less than three months after the murder of a
prominent Armenian journalist.

The Zirve publishing house, which the Turkish media says is owned
by two South Africans, Gert Martinus de Lange and Stephen Smithdorf,
had been the target of nationalist protests for allegedly distributing
Bibles and proselytising.

Halil Ibrahim Dasoz, the Governor of Malatya, said the authorities
were also investigating possible Islamist links, because the method of
killing was reminiscent of attacks by the Turkish arm of the militant
Islamist group Hezbollah.

Officials from Zirve say they had been the target of threats for
some time and had been intending to ask for protection. They deny
any missionary aims.

Martin de Langue, a former official, reportedly said two years ago
that the public in Malatya was being provoked against Christians and
foreigners. The small community of Turkish Protestant Christians, as
opposed to Greek and Armenian minorities, comprises eager converts
with a missionary bent. Although proselytising is not illegal in
mainly Muslim Turkey it is regarded with hostility.

The attack came as two Turkish evangelical Christians in Istanbul
attended a hearing of their trial under the notorious article 301 of
the penal code, which the West condemns as a restriction on expression,
after being accused by nationalists of insulting Turkey and Islam.

The European Commission has condemned the attack as "horrendous". The
EC has long called on Turkey to offer better protection and rights
for its minorities.

The attack comes at a time of great tension in Turkey over secularist
worries that the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a former
Islamist firebrand who now says he is a conservative democrat, will
announce he is running for President in next month’s elections. This
would cement the grip of his Justice and Development Party (AKP)
on the top jobs in the land. Hundreds of thousands of secularists
marched at the weekend to prevent what they believe would result in
an assault on the secular nature of the state.

The AKP MP for Malatya said the attack in his constituency could have
been an act of provocation aimed at creating greater turmoil.

"There are people within Turkey who want extraordinary tension to
reign in the country," the MP. Munir Erkal, said.

Threat to faith

There are 100,000 Christians in Turkey. Last year two employees
of a Bible correspondence course were charged with insulting
Turkishness". It was alleged they were bribing Muslims to convert,
promoting promiscuity and denigrating the Turkish army. Odemis
Protestant Church in Izmir was attacked with Molotov cocktails in
November.

REFUSAL OF ARMENIAN DELEGATION TO PARTICIPATE IN PACE MEETING IS RESPONSE TO AZERIS’ ACTIVITIES

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 15:27 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Meetings should make sense. Empty and fruitless
meetings are avail and we cannot pretend as if we are holding
talks," Tigran Torosian, the RA NA Speaker and head of the Armenian
parliamentary delegation to the CoE, said when commenting on the
refusal of the Armenian delegation to participate in the sitting
of the PACE subcommittee on Nagorno Karabakh. In his opinion, it’s
a proper response to the activities of the Azeri parliamentarians
who used the absence of the Armenian delegation over the funeral
of PM Andranik Margaryan for an attempt to push forth their own
proposals. "The Azeri delegation misled people by proposing some
wordings on fulfillment of their commitments," Torosian said adding
that such conduct is not only disrespect for moral rules but also
unavailability to any dialogue or cooperation.

Tigran Torosian said that Subcommittee head, Lord Russell Johnston,
was supposed to be informed of the refusal to take part in the
meeting. "Let them clarify why his secretary was not informed of
the refusal," he said adding he is not going to comment on Azeri
deputy Samed Seyidov’s statement on "Armenia’s political weakness",
RFE/RL reports.

58 PERCENT OF ARMENIA’S POPULATION DISTRUST U.S.

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 15:59 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ According to a survey conducted by the Chicago
Council on Global Affairs and WorldPublicOpinion.org, most of world’s
population think the U.S. fails to perform the role of the world
leader. The survey includes 17 countries-China, India, the United
States, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Poland, Iran, Mexico,
South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Argentina, Peru, Israel,
Armenia-and the Palestinian territories. These represent more than
55 percent of the world population. Majority turns down the idea
that the United States, as the only super power, should dominate in
resolution of world problems and offer the U.S. cooperation with the
other countries for the purpose.

38 percent of Russians and 34 percent of Ukrainians think that the
U.S. should abandon the idea of solving the problems alone. This
index shows a high degree of aversion to U.S. foreign policy that
was earlier so vividly demonstrated by Argentineans and Palestinians
only. In the U.S. 10 percent stand for total leadership of their
country, 75 percent offer to share the burden of responsibility with
other states, 12 percent propose to focus on domestic problems.

58 percent of the Armenian population do not trust the U.S. Extremely
high index of distrust was fixed in Russia (73 percent) and France
(72 percent).

Majority of population of 13 out of 15 states think that the
U.S. abuses the role of a "world policeman", Washington ProFile
reports.

PACE PRESIDENT GOING TO VISIT KARABAKH

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 17:05 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Meetings between the Armenian and Azeri delegations
in PACE with the purpose to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
are worth appraisal, PACE Rene van der Linden said. The sides’
persistence in their stance pushes the process into complexities,
according to him. "Both delegations arrived to an agreement to visit
the conflict region. I am also going to pay a visit to Karabakh in
the second half of the year. Everything depends on the developments,"
he said, APA reports.

AZERBAIJAN, GEORGIA AND TURKEY GOING TO UNIFY ENERGY SYSTEMS

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 17:28 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Energy departments of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey
are discussing the expedience of elaborating a project for unifying
the energy systems of three states, Azerenergy Vice President Marlen
Askerov said. "We are analyzing the advisability of the project. If
the energy systems are unified we will be able to sell and exchange
energy with Georgia and Turkey," he said. Implementation of the
project may take several years, according to him, APA reports.

RA LEADER VOICED HOPE FOR SOONEST RESOLUTION OF CONFLICTS IN MIDDLE EAST

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 17:51 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenia supports the stance of Arab states in all
international institutions, RA President Robert Kocharian said during
a visit to Egypt. He also voiced hope for soonest resolution of the
conflicts in the Middle East. When representing Armenia’s position
on the Iraqi problem, President Kocharian noted that activities
should be carried out in three main directions: gradual reduction of
foreign military contingent, establishment of dialogue between local
ethnic groups, engagement of interested states into establishment
of stability. Armenia is also interested in soonest settlement of
the Lebanese problem, Robert Kocharian said, the Armenian Public
Television reports.