Month: April 2007

The Nation, Kenya
April 21 2007

Yes, I met Michuki, says Margaryan

Story by OWINO OPONDO and BERNARD NAMUNANE
Publication Date: 4/21/2007

One of the Artur brothers yesterday spoke of a secret hotel meeting
with Internal Security minister John Michuki but denied seeking
protection from him.

Mr Artur Margaryan outside his rented house in Runda, Nairobi, before
he and his alleged brother were kicked out of the country. Photo/FILE

However, Mr Michuki denied such a meeting took place and dared Ndhiwa
MP Orwa Ojodeh to repeat claims of the meeting outside Parliament so
that he (Mr Michuki) could take up the matter in a court of law.

The exchange over the Artur brothers saga continued as pressure
mounted on the Government to release the Kiruki Commission report so
that the truth about the two alleged businessmen could be known.

Yesterday, Mr Artur Margaryan claimed that the meeting took place at
Mr Michuki’s Windsor Golf and Country Club but it was "purely to
discuss business" and had nothing to do with a deal to get protection
from the minister.

"He (Michuki) called me to Windsor and showed me an open space next
to the golf club where he proposed I, together with my other
brothers, could built rental apartments. The entire project would
cost $3 million," Mr Margaryan said.

Business proposal

He went on: "There was nothing criminal with that. It was merely a
business proposal. I will tell you again, and put it in my statement:
Your MP (Ojodeh) is telling a lie. My life is not that cheap so as to
be protected at a cost of $3 million. I have protection from God."

Mr Ojodeh had on Thursday told Parliament that Mr Michuki had sought
$3 million (Sh210 million) as protection fee from the Armenians.

Yesterday, Mr Michuki denied knowing Mr Margaryan or his alleged
brother, Mr Artur Sargsyan.

But in a telephone interview with the Saturday Nation from a location
he claimed to be Colombia, the alleged Armenian said he was once
called by Mr Michuki to his Windsor Club to negotiate a business
deal.

Although Mr Margaryan said he recorded the conversation of the
alleged meeting with Mr Michuki, he denied giving a copy of the tape
to Mr Ojodeh.

"I even don’t know that MP (Ojodeh) and I have never met him. I don’t
know who gave him that CD. The full story of my meeting with Mr
Michuki will be in my book to be launched on May 14 in Dubai. I will
send you a copy," he said.

Mr Ojodeh on Thursday tabled a compact disc in Parliament, claiming
it contained a conversation of the Artur-Michuki meeting at Windsor.

Deputy Speaker David Musila directed the CD be placed in the custody
of the Clerk to the National Assembly, and that he will make a ruling
on it once its authenticity or otherwise is established.

Mr Ojodeh also tabled what he claimed to be a copy of the report of
the Commission of Inquiry appointed last June by President Kibaki to
investigate the activities of the Armenian brothers, but Mr Musila
rejected it, saying it was not signed.

MPs had extended the sitting of the House to discuss a question by Mr
Ojodeh seeking to know when the Government will release the Kiruki
Commission report.

It was the second time in as many weeks that the issue was being
discussed. When it was first raised, Internal Security assistant
minister Peter Munya told MPs that the Government will not release
the report because of security considerations.

Parliament was told that the report touched on security matters such
as the airport, the Kenya Revenue Authority, and Customs.

On Thursday, Mr Munya’s colleague in the ministry, Mr Joseph Kingi,
repeated the answer, and challenged MPs to go to court if they wanted
the report released. Several Opposition MPs demanded the release of
the report, arguing that public money had been spent on the Kiruki
Commission which held its meetings in public.

Chaired by former Police Commissioner Shedrack Kiruki, the team
conducted sessions at Nairobi’s Kenyatta International Conference
Centre and took testimonies from witnesses, including Mr Michuki and
top police officers and civil servants.

The commission later presented its report containing its findings and
recommendations to President Kibaki during a ceremony at the State
House on August 28 last year. The report has not been made public.

Yesterday, Mr Ojodeh dismissed Mr Michuki’s denials and threats to
sue, saying the CD recordings he tabled in Parliament should be
played in public to prove who was speaking the truth.

Mr Ojodeh said: "Why don’t we play the CD which I tabled in
Parliament and hear what Artur says. Mr Michuki should not be talking
about me; he should be focussing on the Armenians," said the MP.

In a two-page statement signed by Internal Security public relations
officer Kariuki Kinyanjui, Mr Michuki was categorical that he had
never dealt with the Artur brothers.

"The minister never had any personal contact or meetings with the
Armenians during their controversial stay in the country," he stated.

He described as malicious the allegations by Mr Ojodeh that he
demanded Sh210 million ($3 million) as protection fee. It was wrong,
he said, for MPs to use parliamentary privilege to settle personal
scores and spread propaganda which in the due course injured the
reputations of their colleagues.

"The minister dares Hon. Ojodeh to repeat the malicious claims
outside Parliament and legal action would be taken against him
immediately. The information presented in Parliament yesterday
(Thursday) is not only grossly incorrect but also misleading and
cannot pass the lowest test of credibility. One can only conclude
that it was based on rumours and hearsay," the statement said.

Mr Michuki also dismissed claims that he was the minister at the
centre of an alleged plot to assassinate Baringo Central MP Gideon
Moi. He said police have launched investigations into the matter
published on Monday by sections of the media in order to unearth the
truth.

"Hon. Michuki takes great exception to claims that he was the
minister at the centre of an alleged plot to kidnap and possibly
assassinate Baringo Central MP Hon Gideon Moi," he said.

Yesterday, religious leaders and lawyers urged President Kibaki to
urgently release the Kiruki report to tame the tide of public anxiety
and allegations surrounding the Artur brothers saga.

The Law Society of Kenya asked the Government to make the report
public and end the stream of rumours.

LSK chairman Mr Eric Mogeni said: "The Government should release the
report in the spirit of free flow of information. It has become more
urgent in view of the rumours and allegations surrounding the
findings on the two Armenians."

Causing fear

In Mombasa, the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) and
the Muslims for Human Rights (Muhuri) lobby groups called for the
immediate release of the report, saying the continued withholding of
the report was causing fear and anxiety among Kenyans on the identity
of the so-called mercenaries and their mission in Kenya.

Sheikh Khalifa Mohammed, CIPK organising secretary, said Kenyans had
a right to know what the commission found out.

"This is an issue of national interest and people have been eagerly
awaiting for the report to know what exactly has been happening
concerning the Arturs," he said.

The Anglican Church of Kenya said millions of taxpayers’ money was
used to fund the Kiruki report in order to unearth the mystery behind
the two Armenians. It was wrong, said Bishop Lawrence Dena, for the
Government to seek refuge in State security and decline to make
public the findings.

Additional reporting by Abdulsamad Ali

The Nation, Kenya
April 21 2007

Minister asked for cash from Arturs: MP

Story by ODHIAMBO ORLALE and OWINO OPONDO
Publication Date: 4/21/2007

An MP on Thursday accused Internal Security minister John Michuki of
demanding Sh210 million as protection fees from the Artur brothers.

Mr Orwa Ojodeh (Ndhiwa, Narc) told Parliament that Mr Michuki met Mr
Artur Magaryan and Mr Artur Sagsyan at his Windsor Golf and Country
Club, where a plot to assassinate Baringo Central MP Gideon Moi was
allegedly discussed.

But an attempt by the MP to table a report purportedly withheld from
the public by the Government was rejected on the grounds that it was
not authenticated.

Mr Ojodeh said the Kiruki Commission of Inquiry report, like all
others, were never signed but were usually accompanied by a covering
letter which was signed. He presented a photocopy of a letter that he
said had accompanied the report.

But Deputy Speaker David Musila rejected the document after perusing
it saying parliamentary rules bar members from producing unsigned
documents.

Tabling CD

Mr Ojodeh was undeterred as he kicked off debate on the foreigners by
tabling a CD of the alleged conversation between the Internal
Security minister and the two Armenians. He was applauded by the
Opposition but jeered by the Government side.

Later, two Cabinet ministers rose on points of order to defend their
colleague and demanded that Mr Ojodeh be barred from breaking House
rules by imputing improper motives on their colleague without moving
a substantive motion.

Education minister George Saitoti and his Water counterpart, Mr Mutua
Katuku, were supported by Energy assistant minister Mwangi Kiunjuri,
who demanded that the rules be upheld.

Responding on behalf of the Government, Internal Security assistant
minister Joseph Kingi said the Kiruki report will not be released to
the public due to security considerations.

In the Arturs’ case, MPs were told, some findings of the Kiruki team
could jeopardise State security.

That is the law

"That is the law, and we must live with it. You can change it if you
so wish," Mr Kingi said.

Reminded by nominated MP Mutula Kilonzo that there was a precedent
through a court ruling that compelled the findings of the Goldenberg
Commission to be made public, Mr Kingi said: "Yes, you may go to
court to get similar orders".

Earlier, Mr Ojodeh had caused uproar when he said he had a copy of
the Kiruki report.

He said: "When you read the report there is no security issue there
to bar it from being made public".

An attempt by Mr Kiunjuri to demand that the MP substantiates his
claim was in vain.

Mr Kiunjuri had also demanded to be told why Lang’ata MP Raila Odinga
(Narc) and his Mwingi North counterpart Kalonzo Musyoka did not give
evidence to the Kiruki Commission "yet the Arturs confessed they had
given them two millions shillings."

His comments invited boos from the Opposition side, and foot-thumping
on the Government benches.

The Daily Star, Bangladesh
April 22 2007

Dhaka’s Hidden Pearls-1
Ruplal House: Unique features in wholesale wreck

Precious motifs, cast iron grills, imperial columns and many more of
this unique structure are left to ruin
Durdana Ghias

Rows of grocery shops, godowns of onions, dried chilies, turmeric,
ginger, garlic, betel leaves and various spices, where vegetable
traders are bickering with the buyers under a big shed. This is the
portrait of Ruplal House, an edifice of colonial period, in
Farashganj in the city.

When this correspondent walked into the compound of the 150-year old
palatial residence of Ruplal Das, a merchant, the whole area was
buzzing with wholesale buyers and traders making the entire complex
look like a grimy and chaotic wholesale trade centre.

People and vehicles were coming in and going out of the place with
loads of supplies completely unaware of the historical value of the
house.

The architectural style of Ruplal House reflects that of the late
renaissance period. This is the only structure bearing this style in
the Dhaka region.

The magnificent towering colonnades of the main entrance is covered
by rows of warehouses. One walking by the entrance will not be able
to see or feel that a grand entrance is stifled behind the rows of
shops. The colonnades are visible only from the rooftops of the
multi-storeyed buildings nearby.

>>From the rooftops the Ruplal House looks splendid standing by the
river Buriganga. In spite of its dilapidated features it bears the
testimony of lavish expenditure and affluence of its times.

The House is divided into two uneven blocks in east-west and is
situated on Buckland bund. If seen from above the house is E-shaped.

It has three extending arms — one towards the north or to the city,
the second one on the southern side towards the river and the third
one is the biggest.

The upper floor of the building, located on a three-bigha land, is
inhabited by the non-commissioned personnel of the defence force.

Ruplal House was reconstructed by merchants Ruplal Das and Raghunath
Das, which they bought from Arratoon Stephen, an Armenian tycoon, in
1840. The extension and renovation was done by an architect of Martin
Company of Kolkata.

There are around 50 rooms in the house including a central hall in
the upper floor of the west wing of the building. The ceiling of the
hall contains elegantly decorative motif and the dance floor was made
of teak wood, which was pilfered over the years, said locals.

Ruplal House first came into limelight in 1886 when Ruplal Das threw
a ball dance party in the honour of Lord Dufferin. Ahsan Manjil was
the dominating building at that time.

A massive migration of Hindus and Muslims took place after the
partition in 1947. At that time the family of Ruplal Das left for
Kolkata. Through a formal deed of exchange in 1962, one Siddiq Jamal
took over the place.

Tawhid Amanullah, coordinator of Ruplal House conservation project of
Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology, said the floral
motif on the columns is the characteristics of classical Corinthian
fluted column.

On the northern and southern sides there are elongated verandahs with
grills made of cast iron. The motif of the grill is called art-deco,
which is found in the contemporary buildings like the ones in Panam
City, Tajhat Rajbari in Rangpur and Puthiya Rajbari in Rajshahi, he
said.

"The Ruplal House itself represents a goldmine in terms of
architectural and historical studies. It must be conserved at any
cost in the way we renovated the Nawab Bari," said an expert.

"To conserve the individual identity of the house the whole area
should be taken under the conservation project. The present
inhabitants of the house will have to be rehabilitated elsewhere. The
riverfront of the house can be highlighted. The road on the front and
on the riverside should be declared for pedestrians’ use only," said
Amanullah.

A museum, library and a cultural centre can be set up in the house to
attract tourists, he added.

Asked why Ruplal House is not taken care of even if it is a listed
heritage site, Md Shafiqul Alam, director, Department of Archaeology
said that they do not have the ownership or access into the house.

"We could not do land requisition for shortage of funds. We cannot
evict the occupiers by force," Alam said.

The helplessness of the top officials of the Ministry of Cultural
Affairs is to such an extent that when this correspondent asked
whether any step would be taken to save the house they expressed
surprise to know the name and asked where Ruplal House is located.

Haridas Banik, a trader with a shop in the Ruplal House and son of
the caretaker, said that the government requisitioned the house in
1974. There is a case pending in High Court over its ownership.

Judhajit Das, great great great grandson of Ruplal Das, now lives in
Mumbai working as a senior vice president of ICICI, an insurance
company.

Mira Das, great great granddaughter of Ruplal Das who lives in
Kolkata, told Star City over telephone about the cultural environment
of Ruplal House when she was only thirteen.

"We were a joint family. I was in Eden School [now Eden College]. I
was the only girl in the house. Instead of playing with dolls, I used
to play football and table tennis with my brothers who studied in the
St Gregory’s School," said Mira, now a septuagenarian.

"My father [Jogesh Chandra Das] was very careful about our education.

He was very fond of singing. My mother [Kanak Prabha Das] was an
active social worker. She was involved with Hindu Bidhoba (widow)
Asram and was the president of AIWC [All India Women’s Council]," she
said.

"Musical soirees, wedding receptions and gathering of the elite were
regular events at our house. I had lots of Muslim friends. We used to
visit each other’s house at parties. The family of Dr Hasan, the then
vice chancellor of Dhaka University, was very close to us," said
Mira.

"We left for Kolkata just a few days after the partition," she said.

"What I have heard about the present state of the house I do not wish
to see it. If I see it now it will break my heart," said Mira.

222501118.htm

Vatican condemns murder of Christians in Turkey as "act of madness"

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
April 20, 2007 Friday

The Vatican condemned Friday the murder of three Christians in
Turkey as "an act of madness and the monstrous invention of a fanatic
minority."

"Martyrdom is continuing in our times," said Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,
who is the Vatican’s secretary of state.

He stressed that the crime did not endanger the rapport reached during
the papal visit last December in Turkey.

The suspected murderers of three Christians in Turkey have confessed
to their attack on a Christian publishing house in the town

of Malatya, Turkish media reported Thursday.

Ten people had been arrested in connection with the stabbing murders
on Wednesday. Four of them were suspected of the killings.

According to Turkish media, the attackers had religious and nationalist
motives.

The stabbings are the latest in a string of attacks on Christians
in Turkey.

In February 2006, a teenager shot dead an Italian priest in the Black
Sea city of Trabzon and earlier this year Turkish nationalists killed
the Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

Apr 2007 1241 GMT

Turkish woman detained over Christian murders

Agence France Presse — English
April 20, 2007 Friday

Police have detained the girlfriend of the alleged leader of the
assailants who brutally killed three Protestants in eastern Turkey,
bringing the number of people in custody to 12, officials said
Saturday.

She is the girlfriend of Emre Gunaydin, 19, who remains in hospital
after jumping from the third-storey office of a Christian publishing
house in Malatya, where two Turks and a German were slain Wednesday,
Governor Halil Ibrahim Dasoz said in televised remarks.

The three victims, who belonged to the tiny Protestant community in
Malatya, were killed by knife-wielding assailants who tied the men
to chairs and tortured them before cutting their throats.

Four suspects were captured at the crime scene when police raided the
publishing house office, alerted by a member of the local Protestant
community who grew suspicious when he found the office door locked.

Gunaydin, who allegedly led the gang, jumped from the window in
an apparent bid to escape arrest and was hospitalised with serious
head injury.

He had reportedly made several visits beforehand to the publishing
house to gain the confidence of the people working there.

Doctors said Saturday his condition was improving and he might be
fit for questioning next week.

"We attempted to wake him up today, but he woke up a bit
aggressively… We will try again tomorrow (Sunday) or the following
day," Sezai Yilmaz, the head of the hospital treating the man, told
Anatolia news agency.

Officials have not revealed the details of the remaining six suspects,
who were detained Thursday and Friday, saying only that everyone in
custody is aged 19 and 20.

One of them, who was detained in Istanbul, was also brought to Malatya
for questioning, the governor said.

According to media reports, the killers are believed to be members of
a cell of nationalist-Islamist fanatics similar to one in the northern
city of Trabzon blamed for the January murder of Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink.

Before killing the victims, the assailants reportedly tortured them for
three hours as they interrogated them on their missionary activities.

The Zirve publishing house distributed Bibles and published Christian
literature.

Proselytizing is not banned in Muslim, secular Turkey, but is generally
viewed with suspicion.

Prosecutors are looking into whether there was an illegal organisation
or a mastermind behind the attack.

The murders were the latest attack on non-Muslim minorities in Turkey
following Dink’s killing and the shooting of Italian Roman Catholic
priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon in February 2006.

They were strongly condemned by the international community. Germany,
which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union which
Turkey is seeking to join, has urged Ankara to take measures to
protect religious freedom.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Steamy Cairo account unveils vigorous trade in basic instincts
by John Freeman

Weekend Australian
April 21, 2007 Saturday
Qld Review Edition

The Yacoubian Building

By Alaa Al Aswany

Translated by Humphrey Davies

Fourth Estate, 256pp, $45

ALL novels contain invisible cities, even those set in actual
metropolises. Ulysses does not unfold in Dublin but in James Joyce’s
mind. The same goes for the sprawling, heaving Cairo depicted in Alaa
Al Aswany’s tremendously likable novel, The Yacoubian Building. A
contentious bestseller in the Arab world, exposing the political
corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism and modern hopes of
Egypt, it was turned into the most expensive Egyptian movie yet made.

At the heart of the book is a once glamorous, now run-down apartment
complex built by an Armenian millionaire. Unlike in New York and
London, where higher floors come at a premium, the Yacoubian rooftop
bows under the weight of makeshift shanties that house the poor.

"The children run around all over the roof barefoot and half naked,"
Al Aswany writes, with a sweep of his narrative hand, "and the
women spend the day cooking, holding gossip sessions in the sun and,
frequently, quarrelling." The men return home from work, "exhausted
and in a hurry to partake of their small pleasures, tasty hot food
and a few pipes of tobacco (or hashish if they have the money)."

The third pleasure, of course, is sex and the vibrations from it rattle
through the rafters to the floorboards, from the poor down to the
rich, giving this book a deliciously lewd throb. There is Zaki Bey,
a 65-year-old cosmopolitan playboy who has enjoyed more lovers than
Casanova, and Taha el Shazli, an ambitious businessman who takes on
a second wife to slake his lust.

The women get by, too. Busyana uses her feminine charms to get a
little extra money out of her boss at work, then trades up by making
Zaki her lover. Souad, Taha’s new wife, retreats into memories of her
first husband when she is making love to her pompous new husband. In
such moments, it is hard to forget that she is essentially being paid
for her affections.

Everyone is scheming in The Yacoubian Building, giving this novel the
shape and tone of a soap opera. Zaki’s sister Dalwat tries to get him
declared incompetent so she will have his large apartment to herself.

Malak, a partially disabled shirt tailor, uses his customers’ pity
against them. Hatim Rasheed, the desiccated aristocrat editor of
Le Caire, a French Cairo weekly, goes to the gay bar downstairs and
lures men to his room with promises of riches.

Ranging widely around his Cairo, Al Aswany describes the many ways
his characters scrabble against one another in this struggle to be
human. Some of them renounce the living world, like a young man who
is tortured for participating in a political protest. The experience
drives him into the hands of radical Islamic sheiks, whose Wahhabi
interpretation of Islam is especially unkind to the fleshly urges.

If the novel makes any political point, it is that the restrictions
that such religious and cultural police put on the bodies of Cairo
residents are just another slight against their humanity. For all of
the compromises some of them make, Al Aswany argues that, for poor
women especially, sex gives them a chance to be alive. "They do not
love it simply as a way of quenching lust," he writes, "but because
sex, and their husbands’ greed for it, makes them feel that despite
all the misery they suffer they are still women, beautiful and desired
by their menfolk."

Al Aswany can manage these soapbox asides as his narrative style is
digressive and confident. Occasionally it seems as if an indiscreet
superintendent, jangling keys and all, is taking us around the
Yacoubian Building, whispering about secrets hushed up. This vision
of life connects high with low, rich with poor, through shared vices
and needs. The clandestine bars of Cairo attract the powerful and the
weak, for both desire the available women who serve the drinks. Cairo
— at least the one where Al Aswany is mayor — has a choice: to pay
homage to its cosmopolitan roots and respect its diversity or close
down and oppress its already suffering populations.

Happily, The Yacoubian Building does not attempt to fix these odds
by closing neatly. Some plot lines end abruptly, in tragedy, while
others simply vanish into the noise of the street. As in so many
Jane Austen novels, there is a wedding and a funeral, which bring
with them an appropriate mix of hope and despair.

The difference here is this book has shown us everything — and I
mean everything — that has led up to the wedding night.

John Freeman is president of the US’s National Book Critics Circle.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Slain evangelists were tortured: Turkish doctor
MALATYA, Turkey, April 20 2007

Agence France Presse — English
April 20, 2007 Friday 3:55 PM GMT

Three Protestants murdered at a Christian publishing house here were
tortured for three hours before their assailants slit their throats,
a press report said Friday, quoting one of the doctors involved in
the grisly case.

Dr. Murat Ugras, a spokesman for the Turgut Ozal Medical center, told
the daily Hurriyet of hospital surgeons’ fruitless efforts to save
Ugur Yuksel, one of the three victims of the massacre at the Zirve
(summit) publishing house, which distributed Christian literature.

"He had scores of knife cuts on his thighs, his testicles, his rectum
and his back," Ugras said. "His fingers were sliced to the bone.

"It is obvious that these wounds had been inflicted to torture him,"
he said.

The two others who were killed, Necati Aydin, pastor of Malatya’s tiny
Protestant community, and German Tilmann Geske, a Malatya resident
with his wife and three children since 2003, were also tortured,
press reports said.

The abuse lasted for three hours as the five men detained at the crime
scene interrogated the three on their missionary activities, they said.

"We tied their hands and feet and later gagged them," the mass daily
Sabah quoted one of the suspects as telling police.

"Emre slit their throats," said the youth, who was not named, referring
to Emre Gunaydin, the alleged leader of the gang, who is at the same
hospital in serious condition after jumping out of the publishers’
third floor office in a bid to flee police.

Gunaydin, 19, had reportedly made several visits beforehand to the
publishing house to gain the confidence of the people working there,
newspapers said.

The daily Radikal said the German was the first to die and the two
Turks were slaughtered only when police arrived at the door after
receiving a call from a member of the Protestant community who grew
suspicious when he found the office door locked.

Proselityzing is not banned in Muslim, secular Turkey, but is generally
viewed with suspicion.

Newspapers linked the Malatya massacre to other recent attacks against
minorities in Turkey, including the murder last year in Trabzon
of Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro and the assassination in
Istanbul in January of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

The reports said the killers were believed to be members of a cell of
nationalist-Islamist fanatics recently set up in Malatya and similar
to one based in Trabzon that has been blamed for the Dink murder.

Newspapers also said three of the five main suspects — police have
detained 10 people in all — were taken into custody two days before
the killings for shooting air guns in an empty lot, but were released
after paying a fine.

Geske’s wife Suzanna, meanwhile, told a television channel that she
"forgives" her husband’s killers and that she intends to stay on in
Malatya, where her husband will be buried.

The killings shocked Turkey and were strongly condemned by the
international community, prompting Germany, which holds the rotating
presidency of the European Union Turkey is seeking to join, to call
on Ankara to take greater measures to protect religious freedoms.

EU declares trivialising genocide a crime
by David Charter, Luxembourg

Weekend Australian
April 21, 2007 Saturday
NSW Country Edition

CONDONING or "grossly trivialising" genocide will become a crime
punishable by up to three years’ prison across Europe after justice
ministers agreed on a new law yesterday.

But they failed to agree on a specific ban on denying the Holocaust.

Germany used its presidency of the European Union to push through the
first Europe-wide race hate laws, seen by Berlin as a historic
obligation in the 50th anniversary year of the union, created to
preserve peace and prosperity after World War II.

Under pressure from nations worried about freedom of speech, led by
Britain, Germany scaled back ambitions to replicate its strict laws
of Holocaust denial and dropped plans to outlaw the display of Nazi
symbols at an EU level. Holocaust denial was outlawed in Germany in
1985 and Nazi insignia are forbidden.

All 27 EU nations will be obliged to criminalise "publicly
condoning, denying or grossly trivialising crimes of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes" but the test for prosecution was
set deliberately high to secure agreement in Luxembourg. Cases will
succeed only where "the conduct is carried out in a manner likely to
incite violence or hatred".

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries hailed the decision as "an
important political signal" following failures in 2003 and 2005 to
reach such a deal.

The definition of genocide will be that set at the Nuremberg trials
and by the International Criminal Court, meaning it will include Nazi
crimes and those in Rwanda and Yugoslavia but not the Armenian
genocide — a definition disputed by Turkey.

Poland, Slovenia and the Baltic states lobbied hard for — but failed
to win — the inclusion of a crime of denying, condoning or
trivialising atrocities committed in the name of Joseph Stalin.

But they secured a pledge that the commission would prepare a green
paper on 20th-century genocidal crimes and carry out a review within
two years on whether denying these should come under the race hate
law.

Britain pushed successfully to ensure religious attacks would be
covered only if they were of a racist or xenophobic nature, so that
criticism of Islam or other faiths would not automatically fall under
the new measures.

Russian Medical School Imposes Curfew for Hitler’s Birthday
by Peter Finn; Washington Post Foreign Service

The Washington Post
April 21, 2007 Saturday
Suburban Edition

One of Russia’s leading medical schools has advised its many foreign
students to stay in their dormitories for three days, fearing they
could be attacked by neo-Nazis and skinheads marking the anniversary
of Adolf Hitler’s birth, which fell on Friday.

The warning issued by the almost 250-year-old IM Sechenov Moscow
Medical Academy, which suspended classes for its 1,940 foreign
students, was a reminder of the xenophobic and racist violence here
targeting students and migrant workers.

On Monday, a street cleaner from Tajikistan was stabbed 35 times
outside an apartment building in eastern Moscow. Surveillance cameras
on a nearby building captured two skinheads carrying out the murder,
according to news reports here. Five suspects have been arrested. On
the same day a 46-year-old Armenian businessman was stabbed 20 times
and later died in hospital. Three men were later arrested.

"It’s no secret that some extremist young people, and not just in
Russia, try to celebrate the 20th of April by attacking others," said
Sergei Baranov, acting dean of the Sechenov Academy department that
deals with foreign students. "For us, it’s better to take preventative
measures than deal with the consequences." The curfew ends Saturday.

Students in a dormitory near the academy’s main building took the
measure in stride, saying they had stocked up on food and were using
the three-day hiatus to study for final exams next month. Some said
they welcomed the concern for their well-being. "Security is very
high, and we have very good protection," said Pari Vallal, 22, an
Indian student who is in his fourth year at the academy.

Students interviewed at the school said they are constantly on alert,
especially when traveling on the Moscow Metro, where a number of
racist murders and attacks have occurred. "One person grabbed me in
the Metro and was very threatening," said Ha Quy Duong, 27, a student
from Vietnam. "I’ve been followed in this area, and you experience
verbal abuse out on the street."

Baranov said there have been no serious attacks on students attending
the academy.

US Fed News
April 20, 2007 Friday 6:48 AM EST

WISCONSIN: Sen. Plale Introduces Bill Regarding Special Observance
Days

by RAJESH SWAIN US Fed News

MADISON, Wis.

MADISON, Wis., April 20 — Sen. Jeffrey Plale, D-South Milwaukee, has
introduced a bill (S.B. 149) that would add April 24 to the special
observance days list.

The Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau provided the following
analysis:

"Current law requires school boards to observe certain dates (special
observance days), such as January 15 for the birthday of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. This bill adds April 24 to the list of special
observance days, for the Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1923."

The bill, introduced on April 18, has 11 co-sponsors.

The measure was referred to the Wisconsin State Senate Education
Committee.

The full text of the legislation can be accessed at:
pdf

For more information about this report, contact US Fed News through
its Washington, D.C.-area office, 703/304-1897 or by e-mail at
[email protected].