Month: May 2021

The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Union of Refugees, a non-governmental organization advocating for the plight of displaced persons, has written an open letter to relevant international bodies, as well as the Artsakh authorities, calling on them to urgently “provide adequate and sufficient humanitarian and medical assistance to Armenian refugees and displaced persons in Artsakh.”

The letter, authored by the organization’s chairman Saro Saryan, was provided to Asbarez for publication.

Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan and the Internally Displaced Persons living in the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh need your help

To: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
United Nations Special Representative for Internally Displaced Persons – International Organization for Migration
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
International Committee of the Red Cross
International Human Rights and Humanitarian organizations of the world
The authorities of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)

We write to alert you to the suffering of tens of thousands of people amidst the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Republic of Artsakh, due to the recent military aggression by the neighboring despotic regime of Azerbaijan and its military ally Turkey. As you are aware, Artsakh has been home to an indigenous ethnic Armenian population for several thousand years, despite numerous ethnic cleansing attempts by its hostile neighbors. In late 2020, Azerbaijan and Turkey occupied 80% of the territory of the Republic of Artsakh, including the entire Hadrut region and settlements of the Martuni, Askeran, Shushi and Mardakert regions. Moreover, their militaries captured Shushi, a strategically important and culturally significant city for Armenians, which was far from the actual frontline. Azerbaijan’s occupying forces expelled Armenian residents from these seven (7) regions in the days following the November 10, 2020 ceasefire. Tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children, were forced to flee, with no opportunity to take their personal belongings or property. Many of them were not strangers to deportation; having been expelled from their homes in 1988-1994 due to Azerbaijani aggression, and now have again been subjected to persecution, becoming internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The displaced also include ethnic Armenians who escaped from the cities of Sumgait, Kirovobad (Ganja), and Baku, from the Armenian settlements of Khanlar, Shahumyan, Dashkesan, Shamkhor and Getabek regions of Northern Artsakh, as well as from dozens of other settlements in Azerbaijan, during the brutal anti-Armenian massacres inflicted on the civilian population in response to the Republic of Artsakh’s peaceful calls for self-determination in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In addition to the existing unresolved issues of thousands of refugees and deported ethnic Armenians in Artsakh that were left homeless and ignored by the international community for 30 years, the streets of Artsakh’s capital, Stepanakert, and nearby villages are again filled with displaced persons from the territories recently occupied by Azerbaijan. Fearing they will be brutally killed or subjected to torture after their capture, including beheadings as documented to those who did not have time to escape, these Armenian civilians left their homes where their families had lived for generations. They now suffer from immense grief, trauma, separation and loss of loved ones, as well as from economic loss such as lack of dwelling, jobs, food, drinking water, land for agriculture, clothing, schooling for children, and other basic human rights.

Azerbaijan’s hostility further aggravates the fate of the refugees and IDPs, including by blocking access to humanitarian aid in route to Artsakh and by taking captive and torturing civilians. It is an undeniable fact that civilian and military Armenian POWs are still being held by Azerbaijan months after the military aggression and that nineteen (19) ethnic Armenians who were last documented in Azerbaijani captivity have been recently found dead; this both demonstrates our plight and exasperates the peace processes. Many families are waiting to learn the fate of their loved ones, and Azerbaijan refuses to provide basic information as to their status, in violation of a current order by the European Court of Human Rights; moreover, many of the captives include people who were captured well after the November 10, 2020 ceasefire. As such, the international community must be proactive and must mediate to ensure basic social and humanitarian rights for Artsakh’s refugees and IDPs.

We call on the listed organizations, in particular the UNHCR, to include Armenian IDPs in their humanitarian assistance initiatives and focus. The people of Artsakh require the same protection afforded to the refugees in other regions and conflicts. For example, for three decades, Azerbaijani refugees have received internationally recognized refugee status and its corresponding privileges in terms of humanitarian aid. This dichotomy runs counter to the Charter of the United Nations and the Resolution of its General Assembly of December 10, 1988, as well as the provisions of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to the applicable law, internally displaced persons, as citizens who were forced to leave their places of permanent residence and are now living under the jurisdiction of their state, should enjoy the same protection from the international community as the refugees who have not yet received their status.

If the problems of refugees and IDPs, who are among the most vulnerable and defenseless members of the population, are not resolved, the situation in the region will lead to disastrous consequences.

In addressing the local authorities, we would like to note that the citizens of Artsakh, who fall under the definition of IDPs, remain in the country of their citizenship and should enjoy its protection. At the same time, the de-occupation of their regions will greatly contribute both to the hope for a faster end to their plight and the statistics on the number of repatriates.

The NKR Union of Refugees NGO respectfully calls upon all applicable UN organizations and programs, and human rights organizations, to provide adequate and sufficient humanitarian and medical assistance to Armenian refugees and displaced persons in Artsakh in order to avoid further destabilization in the country and continued humanitarian disaster.

Saro Saryan, Chairman of the NKR Union of Refugees NGO
May 7, 2021

BY LALAI MANJIKIAN
Special to Asbarez

For more than 14 years, Saro Derbedrossian, who goes by the name of Saro D, has been diligently building one of the biggest music platforms on the internet today. This digital publication called HotNewHipHop (HNHH) has become an internationally recognized force in the hip-hop world and in the music industry at large.

Saro D was born in Beirut before the start of the Lebanese civil war and grew up against the backdrop of conflict, until he immigrated to Montreal, Canada. After completing an MBA degree in Montreal, he was eager to find opportunities to apply his entrepreneurial skills and relentless drive. With his love of the Internet and music colliding, he was able to take a simple website to new heights, as the growth of HNHH also coincided with hip-hop’s rise as the dominant music genre.

Today, HNHH is the place where millions of people around the world turn to for news, music, and trends, all linked to hip-hop culture. Currently, HNHH averages over 12 million unique visitors a month, with 80 percent of them from the United States & Canada and boasts a social media footprint of over 3.5 million followers across all channels. Though the company is based in Montreal, HNHH has an office in New York City and a creative space in Los Angeles.

Not only is Saro D a successful entrepreneur, but he also manages to stay active in the Armenian community, as a committed advocate for the Armenian Cause (Hay Tad). His Armenian background and his deep involvement in community activism, whether for genocide recognition or Artsakh, has only heightened his sensitivity vis-à-vis racism in general and the Black Lives Matter Movement.

I interviewed Saro D to learn more about how he developed and grew HNHH into the digital publication that it is today, and to find out more about his overlapping entrepreneurial and personal trajectories.

Saro is an example that Armenians are builders, whether that is building an online lifestyle publication from the ground up or (re)building a stronger Armenia.

LALAI MANJIKIAN: Can you take us back to when, and how, this start-up was born? Can you describe what your role has been in HNHH’s development over the years?

SARO DERBEDROSSIAN: It started as a personal thing. My entrepreneurial drive, the fire I had in me, pushed me to do something on my own. When I was thinking of “where” and “what” I wanted to do alone, at the time, I was fascinated by the Internet, we’re talking about 2007. The Internet was going crazy back then. It really didn’t matter what the project was, as long as I was working on a business involving the Internet. I came from a background of operations and manufacturing, which is pretty traditional. I was really looking forward to being in a very exciting venture. Once I knew that I wanted to start something on the Internet, the music aspect came later.

L.M: The start of your website happened to coincide with a time when music was transitioning from physical to digital. The way we consume music has changed drastically over the last decade, and it is precisely during these past ten years that HNHH has emerged and evolved.

S.D: Exactly! In the beginning, HNHH started by being a simple page where we curated music. It was a compilation of daily music that we, ourselves, liked. We said, you know what, instead of you going and looking everywhere for music, you can come here, where we are giving you a highly curated daily list of songs and we were rating them. So, there was an editorial element. We were saying, “this is HOTTTTT”, “this is VERY HOTTTTT” and this ranking system became an iconic thing for HNHH.

L.M: HNHH carved its place then, initially through music curation, but now it has expanded to tackle hip-hop news and other topics adjacent to the culture. How did this transition take place?

S.D: We decided that HotNewHipHop has to be a publication, as opposed to just a website, or a blog page. I don’t have any background in publication, and I don’t have editorial experience, but because I had worked in operations, I had a lot of experience in how to operate a business. I started realizing that we should have an editorial team. We should have someone writing news, someone who’s writing features. That’s when I started hiring journalists, who know exactly how things are done, people who have writing skills. We started putting these people together, who also have a lot of knowledge in hip hop, referred to as “hip hop heads.” As much as I love music, there are people who really know this stuff, they know it by date, the history, etc. So, that is how we started growing the content type. We realized, instead of focusing on the content let’s focus on the audience.

L.M: Can you address who your target audience is on HNHH?

S.M.: Our audience is made predominantly of millennials, who are 18-34 years old. The majority of people visiting the site are 21, 22, 23-year-olds. These are people who not only love to hear hip hop music, they are also active within the culture. A lot of current aspects of pop culture are influenced by hip hop. We went from being the “underdog” of music genres, to really a worldwide cultural phenomenon. We realized that we should cover other aspects of the culture, besides just the music. If you are coming to listen to the music or coming to know what are the top songs of that day, you also come to see what happened that day in the world of professional basketball, like did something funny happen yesterday during the Laker’s game?

L.M.: Can you give us a sense of the role HNHH plays in introducing and determining trends in hip hop culture? To some degree you are calling the shots, by telling your audience what’s hot and what’s not.

S.D.: I am not going to call it our forte, our specialty, but I guess the name of the game is creating content. Most of the news that we break is through interviews. That’s the type of news we like to break.

We also focus on finding new talent.

We focus a lot on new artists. We have a team taking care of that, we have music submission systems, and we also go and look for artists.

We try to stay true to our name. The content has to be “hot”, in the sense that, we want to serve it to our audience quickly, but it also has to be culturally relevant and important. We want to be the first ones to break the news, and then also, when something interests us, we report it. We publish anywhere between 100-125 articles, pieces of news, information a day. We have different segments on YouTube weekly. We also have a social media team who creates content specifically for our social media channels, Facebook, and Instagram. The content is not necessarily the same, they don’t intersect. Our audience on Instagram consumes news differently than our audience on the website.

L.M: HNHH has been instrumental particularly in featuring new, as well as established hip hop artists. Can you describe the role HNHH has played and continues to play in launching new artists’ careers?

S.D.: I wouldn’t credit ourselves saying we launch artists’ careers. We give them the platform; it is up to them to make the most out of it.

Many artists have gone through HNHH, but one or two that became really big via our exclusive support early on, would be Tory Lanez, Canadian R&B/Hip-Hop artist. Tyga would be another one. Wiz Khalifa would be another one. We’ve launched his first mixtape. The Weeknd also is another one. We have a good relationship with The Weeknd’s management team and have premiered exclusive singles from him.

L.M: I would like to address the #BlackLivesMatter movement and how it too connects to HNHH. How has HNHH addressed anti-Black racism over the years and particularly now, with the rise of racist rhetoric and with systemic racism becoming more exposed?

S.D: It all comes from the internal culture. Every time something big happens, we have covered it. We are not a political website, true. However, anything that happens in the world that affects the culture, we definitely are there, we cover it. Personally, I am very sensitive to these issues. Sometimes, I am the one pushing, because I am an activist as a person, as an Armenian. I feel like anytime a community, a population is going through a crisis, something is activated in me and tells me that we have to do something, we have to talk about it.
Obviously, I am not black, but sometimes, I really feel what they go through. For the past 14 years, I have been working day in and day out with people of all races.

L.M: HNHH has plans to open a creative space in Los Angeles, can you talk to us about this project, what the space will encompass and where this project currently stands?

S.D: The whole idea is about creating content. As a digital publication, besides text-based content, we also need to produce video content, visuals, photos and audio. Initially, we were very successful in creating a creative space in NYC. However, while we wanted to go to NYC because of its deep history with hip-hop, we realized many rappers had moved to LA. With all the talent that LA and Hollywood both have, as well as the visual creation industry that is based there, we felt like we would be in a good position to move out there. So we kept our offices in NYC, and we went out and got a space in LA as well. We signed the lease in February, and unfortunately everything was closed down in March, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s a beautiful space in Burbank, it is near other visual creators, musical studios, Disney and all that. The idea is to have many small studios, each one catering to a different video series for our YouTube channel. We also plan to have a recording studio – I also own a record label called Nomad Music. We manage artists, we sign artists for record deals. So, the idea is to have our own artists go there as well, to produce, and record songs in that space.

L.M: Can you tell us a bit about your personal trajectory, both in life and in business?
Have you always had entrepreneurial ambitions?

S.D: I was born in Beirut, and I grew up in Beirut. I was born just before the (Lebanese civil) war, and I came to Canada shortly after the war ended. So, I have seen it all in Lebanon. I went to Neshan Palandjian Djereman in Beirut, and I also attended university in Lebanon, Université St-Joseph, majoring in Economics. After graduating, I wanted to come to Canada, but I had a year in between, waiting for immigration acceptance. During that year, I taught Math at Djemaran. After finally arriving in Canada, I did my MBA at Concordia University and then found a job.
So, the entrepreneurial thing, I don’t know exactly, is it genetic? Or is it my personality? My father was a businessman, and I always went to his office. I was inspired by my father, he was a very creative businessman, he was a “big ideas” man. “Big ideas” which we have to be able to do, make them concrete. My father inspired me to think big, to dream big. But I think my personality also plays a role. The war, and the fact that we did not have a normal childhood. We grew up around bombardments, military cannons and army bases, it was chaotic. Nonetheless, I had a great childhood, I was born into a great family, but the environment was so rough, so tough, and violent.
On top of the war, there was this Armenian education, to remain Armenian, I am not going to say indoctrinated, but we were brought up being “very Armenian.” We are talking a period of time that was post-genocide, pre-Artaskh. As an Armenian, there was a struggle, as a Lebanese, there was a struggle, as a student, as a person, there was always a struggle, to try to make up for what we lost.

L.M: I think it is safe to say that you were in survival mode but wanted to go into “thrive mode.”

S.D: Exactly. So, when I came to Canada, my thinking was that, you know what, I have to prove to myself that I am able to achieve something. Basically, we went through all that, and, now, are we good for something? Can we do something?

L.M: Besides being a successful entrepreneur, you have also been a relentless advocate for the Armenian Cause (Hay Tad) for several years. Can you talk about this aspect and what the Armenian Cause means to you, particularly in light of the recent war that took place in Artsakh?

S.D: Hay Tad is on a personal level. It’s my life. Hay Tad is the most important thing we have outside of Armenia. It is advocating for Armenia in the diaspora. I feel like it’s the most important mission any Armenian should be devoted to, outside of Armenia. Besides educating our kids and keeping the culture, we need to make sure that Armenia, as a country, as a state, becomes stronger. Hay Tad is important, it means activism outside of Armenia.

As for the war, not only did we lose the war, but we are going through turmoil within the country. Armenia should have never gone to war. Armenia should have defended Artsakh, Artsakh is the cornerstone of everything we have, we lost it. I am very worried.

We went to war; the loss of life is tremendous. I don’t know how to put it. It ruins you from the inside. The aftermath is also very ugly. There is no loss without an aftermath of sorrow, of sadness, people not understanding, of political turmoil. However, I also feel that we have the strength as a nation to stand on our feet again.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—The Armenian government is continuing its efforts to gain direct control of three of the country’s leading state universities two weeks after President Armen Sarkissian blocked a relevant bill pushed by it through the parliament.

The bill passed by the National Assembly in late March would empower the government to appoint most members of the boards of trustees that elect university rectors and make other key decisions.

Yerevan State University (YSU) and the National Academy of Sciences strongly opposed these changes, saying that they would violate a clause in the Armenian constitution which entitles state-funded colleges to a high degree of autonomy.

Sarkissian likewise suggested that they are “contentious in terms of constitutionality” when he announced on April 22 his decision not to sign the bill into law. He also asked the Constitutional Court to rule on its conformity with the constitution.

Nevertheless, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government pressed ahead with the same changes through an executive order issued earlier this week.

The order stipulates that YSU, the Armenian State Pedagogical University and Gyumri State University will have new governing boards consisting of 20 members. Thirteen of them are to be appointed by the government and the Ministry of Education, while the seven others will be chosen by their faculties and students.

All four parties have been equally represented in the boards until now.

A senior Ministry of Education official defended on Friday the changes sought by the government, saying that they are needed to address a “management vacuum” within the universities. She claimed that their current boards have failed to properly perform their duties.

The official argued that the current YSU board is paralyzed and even unable to formally accept the resignation of the university’s acting rector.

Critics countered that the government itself engineered the paralysis by recalling its appointees from the board earlier this year.

Vahe Hovannisyan, an YSU professor, deplored the “abrupt” decision made by the government after Sarkissian’s appeal to the Constitutional Court. He warned that the three universities will be thrust into deeper turmoil if the court declares the controversial bill unconstitutional.
Hovannisian also said: “Taking the universities under control or changing their boards of trustees does not serve any development purpose.”

Armenia’s human rights ombudsman, Arman Tatoyan, also condemned the government’s executive order, pledging to challenge its legality in the Constitutional Court.

“I believe that this initiative by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports is disrespectful towards the president of the republic and the Constitutional Court,” he said on Thursday, adding that the problems cited by ministry officials are “artificial.”

“I have grounds to presume that the government caused a problem and is now trying to solve it at the expense of university autonomy,” said Tatoyan. “I believe this is unacceptable.”
Pashinyan and his associates, among them young scholars, pledged to give universities more freedom from the government right after they swept to power three years ago.

A Grant Agreement for the “Support to Conflict Affected Families” project was signed Friday by Sylvie Bossoutrot, World Bank Country Manager for Armenia, and Atom Janjughazyan, Acting Minister of Finance of Armenia. Funds for the project are provided by the multi-donor State and Peacebuilding Fund, through a one-year grant of $3.72 million.

The Government of Armenia has developed a broader social protection response package with support from development partners and non-governmental organizations. This project will be implemented by Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia, through its subordinated agency — the Unified Social Service –  and aims to improve the resilience of conflict affected people and reduce the financial burden of host families, with a particular focus on women and vulnerable members of the population.

“We are pleased to sign this timely Agreement supported by the State and Peacebuilding Fund Grant,” says Sylvie Bossoutrot, World Bank Country Manager for Armenia. “This project is of extreme importance and the assistance granted to displaced individuals and their host families will help to improve the resilience of families affected by the conflict.”

The proposed project will contribute to select social protection and employment support programs, which are part of a larger support package targeting displaced people and their host families, from the Government of Armenia.

Specifically, the project aims to:

• Reach around 11,530 displaced persons with a monthly cash benefit equal to the minimum wage (68,000 AMD) per adult/child for up to four months in Armenia.
• Provide cash assistance/income support to 3,975 families in Armenia hosting displaced people to help meet basic consumption needs.
• Temporarily subsidize an employment program for 936 displaced people who are looking to gain work experience in Armenia and facilitate their labor market participation and economic inclusion.
• Support 115 displaced individuals through the public works program (cash-for-work).

“The project is designed to especially benefit women affected by the conflict,” says Maddalena Honorati, World Bank Task Team Leader. “According to the rapid multi-sector needs assessment conducted last December, women represent 70 percent of the adult displaced population. The cash transfers will help them meet their basic needs on a day-to-day basis. More importantly, the project will improve the resilience of the displaced families and promote the social cohesion in their host communities.”

The State and Peacebuilding Fund is a global fund administered by the World Bank to finance critical development operations and analysis in situations of fragility, conflict, and violence. The SPF is supported by Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, The United Kingdom, as well as the World Bank.