The erasure of historical memory cannot be caused by short-term politics

A letter regarding the forced resignation of Gzoyan, director of HCTI

April 9, 2026

Committee on Academic Freedom

Armenia:

N.G. Nikol Pashinyan

Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia

Your Excellency,

We are writing to you on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) to express our concern regarding reports of the forced resignation of Dr. Edita Gzoyan, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation (AGMIF).

We urge his immediate reinstatement and demand that your office guarantee the academic integrity of the institute.

MESA was founded in 1966 with the goal of promoting scholarly research and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. As a leading organization in the field, MESA publishes the “International Journal of Middle East Studies” and has around 2,800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to promoting academic freedom and freedom of expression both in the region and in the context of research in the region in North America and elsewhere.

Dr. Gzoyan, who was elected to his position in 2024 by the HCTI Board of Trustees, has played a key leadership role in promoting new scholarly work on the Armenian Genocide, modernizing the museum, and integrating young Armenian scholars into the global community of Genocide scholars.

His own scientific works on the transportation of children during the Armenian Genocide were published in leading European and American periodicals. He drew positive international attention to HCTI.

Therefore, we are concerned about press releases and communications with Armenian colleagues, according to which Dr. Gzoyan was forced to resign on February 10, 2026, after the official visit of US Vice President JD Vance to HCTI.

During that visit, he presented several of the Institute’s publications, including a paper on early 20th-century American press coverage of massacres and attacks against Transcaucasian Armenians that mention Nagorno-Karabakh, and accompanied Mr. Vance and his wife, Usha Bala Vance, to the museum and Armenian Genocide Memorial.

During the press conference on March 12, 2026, you mentioned that you demanded his resignation due to the inclusion of the Institute’s books on Nagorno Karabakh, calling those books “provocative” and contrary to Armenia’s foreign policy. Then, you bypassed the established procedure and appointed one of your staff members to the position of director, and replaced the members of the independent board of trustees with political allies.

We understand that Armenia is in a difficult and difficult situation, striving to end the multi-year conflict with Azerbaijan and reach a normalization of relations. However, erasure of historical memory cannot be caused by short-term political needs.

One of the goals of the establishment of HCTI was to confront the denial of the Armenian Genocide.

Protecting the academic freedom of scientists associated with one of the world’s leading research institutions and an important scientific resource dedicated to the study of the history and memory of the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, HCTI, is essential.

We ask you to immediately restore Dr. Gzoyan to his position.

We urge the Government of Armenia to act quickly to remedy what appears to be an unjustified interference with scientific independence, and to restore the confidence of the international academic community in the institutional integrity of HCTI and Armenia’s commitment to academic freedom and fundamental human rights.

Հարգանքներով՝

Osama Makdisi

President of MESA

Professor, University of California, Berkeley

Judith E. Tucker

Chairman of the Committee on Academic Freedom

Professor Emeritus, Georgetown University

Պատճենը՝

Zhanna Andreasyan, RA Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports

Anahit Manasyan, RA Human Rights Defender

Michael O’Flaherty, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights

International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)

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