Author: Andres-Papazian

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
January 26, 2012 Thursday

Majority of Sarkozy`s UMP party seek constitutional refusal of
pro-Armenian Senate bill

Baku 26 January

The majority of French President Nicolas Sarkozy`s Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP) party are preparing to file a petition with the
country`s Constitutional Court to protest the Senate`s passing a bill
criminalizing the denial of the so-called Armenian genocide.

Jacques Myard, a member of UMP`s group at the National Assembly,
condemned the passage of the bill, saying it was a black spot in
France`s history.

He said the majority of his party colleagues protested the bill, and
added they were preparing to address an official letter to the
Constitutional Court urging it not to approve the draft law.

According to Myard, the appeal should be signed by 60 people before
being sent to the Court.

MP Michel Diefenbacher, President of the Franco-Turkish Friendship
Group, who initiated a Constitutional Court appeal, denounced the bill
as unconstitutional, adding its passage in France, which champions the
human rights, was a source of regret.

MPs Eric Ctroman and Jean-Philippe Maurer said they would also sign
the petition. They said that signed under the pressure of pro-Armenian
parliamentarians, the bill totally contradicted France`s constitution,
adding it was nothing but a pre-election game.

Lionnel Luca, a member of UMP`s group at the National Assembly, said
the bill did not reflect the will of the French people.

From: A. Papazian

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Jan 27 2012

Zizek: West also guilty for Armenian ‘genocide’

by CANSU ÇAMLIBEL
ISTANBUL – Hürriyet

Prominent philosopher Slavoj Zizek advised Turkey to `apologize for
the horrible things happened in 1915′ in an ironic way by saying `this
was part of us becoming a modern European nation state.’

`Why is it wrong for Turkey to apologize but also put the blame on
Europe? By apologizing, do not fall into the trap of apologizing to
Europe. These were wild times. What were the Western powers doing at
the same time in their colonies?’ said Zizek in an interview with
daily Hürriyet yesterday.

He said Turkey could admit that `something horrible happened to
Armenians’ without isolating itself.

He also said he did not like Europe stigmatizing Turkey as an
exception on these issues and the killings of Armenians in 1915 and
1916 were not the same as the Jewish Holocaust of World War II. `It
was a little-planned, chaotic operation, rather than an industrial
decision to clean out Armenians,’ he said.
Zizek also criticized the recent bill adopted by the French Senate
penalizing Armenian genocide denial for falling into the mistake of
political correctness, which only served to reproduce racism.

`The problem with political correctness is that if you legalize things
that are already in your habits […] it is counter-productive in the
long term. Even with the Holocaust it is problematic in this sense.
Some even wanted to regulate the numbers. Five million were killed,
but if you said 4,900,000 Jews were killed you would get penalized.
For me, this is the big fiasco of political correctness,’ said Zizek.

Ottoman model for Kurds

Ziziek also said the Ottoman model may be ideal for the situation of
the Kurds in Syria and Iraq.

`Wouldn’t it be an almost ideal solution to have an autonomous
Kurdistan containing part of northern Iraq, part of Syria and still a
part of Turkey?’ he asked, adding that the current situation would
only lead to permanent tensions.
January/27/2012

From: A. Papazian

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
Jan 27 2012

Clinton: We Are Never Going To Go Down That Path To Criminalize Speech

Friday, 27 January 2012 08:16 .

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said regarding the bill
adopted by French Senate to make it a crime to deny Armenian
allegations on the Ottoman era incidents of 1915 that she hoped that
they were never going to go down that path to criminalize speech.

Replying to a question on the United States’ stance regarding the
French bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian allegations, Clinton
said, “first, one of our great strengths is we do not criminalize
speech. People can say nearly anything they choose, and they do, in
our country. And so other countries, including close friends and
allies like France, have different standards, different histories, but
we are, I hope, never going to go down that path to criminalize
speech.”

“I think it’s fair to say that this has always been viewed, and I
think properly so, as a matter of historical debate and conclusions
rather than political. And I think that is the right posture for the
United States Government to be in, because whatever the terrible event
might be or the high emotions that it represents, to try to use
government power to resolve historical issues, I think, opens a door
that is a very dangerous one to go through,” she said.

The bill penalizes denial of the Armenian allegations with a prison
term of one year and a fine of 45 thousand euros.

AA

From: A. Papazian

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Jan 27 2012

Racist Motives behind French Armenian Bill: Is Erdogan Right?

Friday, 27 January 2012
By Fatma Yilmaz-Elmas, USAK

Racism, in modern age, is no longer a phenomenon related to the
concepts of `race’ and `race relations’ through which `the others’ are
on target as biologically inferior. Anyway, already in 1950s and
1960s, following a series of researches and sessions, UNESCO refuted
the scientific basis of racism, namely biological racism, indicating
that there is no such difference between human races. However, this
fact does not, of course, mean that there is no racism and racist
behaviors or feelings all over the world. Rather, its current and
`modern’ version is a sort of covert/subtle racism, occurring in
different familiar forms of discrimination.

New racism refers to a social phenomenon and includes so many
different components mostly related to cultural differences and
welfare distribution. In concurrence with fast-truck changes in the
world system and social order, the tangible factors that racism is
based on have differentiated in times from the biological to the
economic one as well as sociological and cultural ones. In our day,
this is why racism is a complex issue and suffers from an exact
visibility and lack of data on racist crimes in order to create
awareness, especially throughout Europe. Moreover, this is why for
example, for some, Islamophobia is a new kind of racism as well as
expulsion of the Romas living in France as result of President
Sarkozy’s populist policies.

For me, literarily spoken `infra-racism’ is the most dangerous one
since it is mostly disguised under different behaviors and easy to
defend. Opinions and prejudice are more xenophobic and populist than
strictly speaking racist or no reference on racial doctrines.
Therefore it is not that much easy to figure out the problem. This is
why, for some, `widespread but often covert racism particularly
throughout Europe represents a glass wall that only a few could both
see and climb over’.

Sarkozy `the Brave’

French President Nicholas Sarkozy of Europe at the 21th century is the
one who fits the aforementioned profile via his populist policies in
practice which have led to a systemic differentiation of either
individuals or groups. Policies such as Roma expulsions and banning
the burqa are the results of Sarkozy’s populist mentality other than
ethno-cultural sense.

French bill criminalizing denial of the `so-called Armenian genocide’
is his last step including populist facts for the upcoming
presidential elections and, more importantly, ethno-centric or
cultural approach that Sarkozy is never at peace with the Ottoman
history. This approach has made Sarkozy search the historical
questions in the Parliament and also made him in violation of freedom
of expression by the French state itself in opposition to a European
Act, i.e. European Convention of Human Rights.

The common sense, e.g. ethicists, historians, and legislators in
Europe, have all expressed unease at seeing a parliament create
legally binding analyses and definitions of historical events. There
challenges to the bill with the view that it is not the business of
criminal law to clear the historical facts. This is also what said in
Turkey as a reaction to Sarkozy’s bill.

Can Sarkozy really be unaware of the fact that this is an historical
issue requiring historical researches on? Also is he so brave to bring
such an issue to European trial as a violation of freedom of
expression just for the sake of populism to get the votes of Armenian
electorates?

Not that simple. It is the xenophobic motives or Euro/Franco-cultural
centric approach behind Sarkozy’s bill. Moreover, that is also not
simple just to get the votes of Armenians. It is about to attract the
attention of overall far-right groups in France where xenophobia is in
rise once again due to several socio-economic reasons. This is an
emphasis also made by Etyen Mahcupyan, a Turkish-Armenian political
columnist.

Then, does Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s response to
Monday’s vote in France for the bill have reasonable enough? To a
great extent yes.

Just to remind, after the bill was passed in Senate, Erdogan addressed
French politicians, intellectuals and the French people saying that
`The vote in the Senate and the bill itself is openly discriminatory
and racist and a massacre of freedom of thought in an effort to win
votes by playing on anti-Turkish sentiment’.

One Note to Sarkozy

Such a populist approach and far-right tendency mostly serve the
French far-right, the real owner of the xenophobic votes. This
happened when Sarkozy opened a debate for national identity at the end
of 2009 with an effort of getting the vote of far-right supporters. In
contrast, in cantonal elections in March 2010, it was not Sarkozy, but
Le Pen who got the votes. In other words, the populist debates
emphasizing French nationalism brought in votes for Le Pen’s FN, the
real owner of this kind of rhetoric.

To sum up, Sarkozy’s populist approach has once backfired in 2010 by
letting Le Pen to increase the votes. Most probably the same thing
will happen in the upcoming presidential elections. So the thing for
Sarkozy is that which one seems more profitable: to short-minded
populist idea to get the far-right support, though not exact, or to
deadlock French-Turkish relations at the expense of one of the basic
European human right values.

Friday, 27 January 2012

Fatma Yilmaz-Elmas, Pittsburgh

From: A. Papazian

Daily Herald, Utah
Jan 26 2012

Clinton sidesteps dispute over French genocide law

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday sidestepped a
delicate dispute between two allies over the World War I-era killing
of Armenians in Turkey.

Clinton was asked why the United States has not matched a move by
French lawmakers to criminalize denial that the killings were
genocide. The French legislation has enraged Turkey, which has
threatened sanctions if French President Nicolas Sarkozy signs the
bill.

The U.S. administration has avoided calling the killings genocide
despite support for recognition by both Clinton and President Barack
Obama when they were senators.

Clinton said the administration was wary of compromising free speech.
She said the issue was best left for scholars.

“To try to use government power to resolve historical issues, I think,
opens a door that is a very dangerous one to go through,” Clinton said
at an event with U.S. State Department employees.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed
by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies
that the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been
inflated and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

The issue has also previously roiled U.S.-Turkish relations. A move by
a U.S. congressional panel in 2010 to advance a resolution by the
House of Representatives recognizing the killings as genocide caused
Turkey to temporarily withdraw its ambassador to Washington. The
resolution was opposed by the Obama administration. Ultimately, the
full House of Representatives did not bring the measure up for a vote.

Clinton said Thursday that the issue should be debated, but not
settled by governments.

“We need to encourage anyone on any side of any contentious historical
debate to get out into the marketplace of ideas,” she said. “Muster
your evidence, put forth your arguments, and you know, be willing to
engage.”

From: A. Papazian

3,126 TREES ILLEGALLY CUT IN ARMENIA OVER LAST YEAR

news.am
January 27, 2012 | 20:49

YEREVAN. – Armenian Deputy PM, Minister of Territorial Administration
Armen Gevorgyan on Friday run the state monitoring council session
coordinating works of struggling against illegal tree cutting in
Armenia.

The council discussed the report of the state environmental committee
at the Armenian Ministry of Nature Protection regarding illegal tree
cutting. The report states that over 3,126 trees were illegally cut
last year in Armenia.

The monitoring was held by the German International Cooperation
(GIZ) within the Sustainable management of the biodiversity in
protected areas and forests, South Caucasus, project applying modern
technologies of distant probing. The monitoring registered 332,000
ha forest territories in Armenia.

From: A. Papazian

ANCA CONDEMNS CLINTON’S COMPLICITY IN GENOCIDE DENIAL

by Armenian Weekly
January 27, 2012

Secretary of State Dismisses Genocide as ‘Historical Debate’ in Public
Comments to State Department Staff

WASHINGTON, DC-The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
sharply criticized remarks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
who on Jan. 26 dismissed the murder of 1.5 million Armenians as a
“historical debate,” and argued that U.S. affirmation of this crime
would open a “dangerous door.”

“The Obama-Biden Administration-with Secretary Clinton’s latest
remarks-continues to dig itself deeper and deeper into a hole of
complicity in Turkey’s genocide denial,” said ANCA Executive Director
Aram Hamparian.

“It’s a sad spectacle to see Secretary Clinton hiding behind cynical
appeals to scholars-the overwhelming majority of whom have already
spoken forcefully against Turkey’s denials of the Armenian Genocide-to
divert attention from President Obama’s, Vice President Biden’s, or
her own promises to properly recognize this crime and, more broadly,
to divert attention from the White House’s failure to meet its moral
obligation to stand up against a foreign government’s veto of our
defense of human rights,” Hamparian said.

Clinton’s comments came in response to a question, posed at a Jan. 26
“Town Hall Meeting on the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development
Review,” regarding U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide in the
context of the recent French Senate adoption of anti-genocide denial
legislation.

Clinton explained, “I think it’s fair to say that this has always
been viewed, and I think properly so, as a matter of historical debate
and conclusions rather than political. And I think that is the right
posture for the United States government to be in, because whatever
the terrible event might be or the high emotions that it represents,
to try to use government power to resolve historical issues, I think,
opens a door that is a very dangerous one to go through.” Clinton
argued, “we need to encourage anyone on any side of any contentious
historical debate to get out into the marketplace of ideas.”

“The Secretary’s unfounded and offensive reference to ‘historical
debate’ in regards to the Armenian Genocide only emboldens the denials
of the Turkish government-which, just today, again took steps toward
deporting Armenians,” said Hamparian, referencing news emanating from
Turkey of plans for a revisions to its immigration policy that would
effectively target Armenian immigrants for expulsion from the country.

Clinton: ‘As president, I will recognize the Armenian Genocide’

Clinton’s remarks are diametrically opposed to her statement issued
almost four years ago, to the day, as a Senator. In this statement,
she boasted that she was “alone among the presidential candidates”
to have been a co-sponsor of the Armenian Genocide Resolution and
pledged “as president, I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.” The
statement went on to stress, “Our common morality and our nation’s
credibility as a voice for human rights challenge us to ensure that
the Armenian Genocide be recognized and remembered by the Congress
and the president of the United States.”

Obama and Biden made equally clear and unequivocal statements regarding
the U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide during their years in
the Senate and as candidates for the White House. “America deserves a
leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds
forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president,” said Obama
in a Jan. 19, 2008 campaign statement. Biden explained his support for
pending Armenian Genocide legislation to the LA Times Editorial Board
in May 2007, as follows: “I support it, and the reason is simple: I
have found in my experience that you cannot have a solid relationship
with a country based on fiction. It occurred. It occurred.”

Clinton a phone call away for Turkish lobby

During her tenure as secretary of state, public records show
that Clinton has discussed State Department policy on Turkey and
specifically on the Armenian Genocide on several occasions with former
Democratic House Minority Leader and current Turkish government
lobbyist Richard Gephardt. According to the Department of Justice
Foreign Agent Registration filings, Gephardt spoke to Clinton just days
prior to a pending House vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution on
Dec. 17, 2010, and had a series of calls with her as well as Biden,
Secretary of Defense Gates, and National Security Advisor James Jones
on “U.S.-Turkey relations” and “Transcaucasus relations” on the days
leading up Obama’s trip to Turkey in 2009.

In September 2011, Gephardt, who supported Armenian Genocide
affirmation during his years in the House, renewed a lucrative $1.3
million contract for continued representation of the government of
Turkey through July, 2012. That sum includes payment to subcontracting
lobby firms including Dickstein Shapiro, which has former Speaker of
the House Dennis Hastert on staff representing Turkey’s concerns. In
December 2011, an additional $100,000 was added to the annual
contract-the increase signed on the day of House approval of the
“Return of Churches” resolution (H.Res.306), calling on Turkey to
return thousands of confiscated Christian Churches to their rightful
owners.

Clinton has not yet met with representatives of the Armenian American
community, despite repeated calls by the ANCA and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for her to meet with a broad-based and
representative leadership group to discuss a range of community
concerns, including affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.

From: A. Papazian

SPOKESMAN SAYS DINK WAS BAIT, AK PARTY TARGET

TODAYSZAMAN.COM
27 January 2012

Turkish ruling party spokesman has said killing of a prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist in 2007 was a bait to target the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and to foment chaos in the
country. A man who was believed to be behind the 2007 killing of
prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was sentenced to
life in prison recently in a verdict that drew criticism from rights
groups for failing to explore alleged complicity of state officials.

Editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and Turkey’s
best known Armenian voice abroad, Dink was shot in broad daylight in
a busy Ä°stanbul street as he left his office.

Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with articles on Armenian
identity and references to a Turkish “genocide” of Christian Armenians
in 1915 — which the Turkish state strenuously denies. The case
was seen as a test for democracy and human rights in European Union
candidate Turkey.

The judge at an Ä°stanbul court sentenced Yasin Hayal to life
imprisonment and acquitted 19 defendants of a charge of being part
of a terrorist group. A juvenile court sentenced Dink’s assassin,
Ogun Samast, to 22 years and 10 months in jail last July. He was 17
when the killing took place.

“Dink was chosen as a bait, the real target in AK Party,” Huseyin
Celik, who is also AK Party deputy chairman, said in a news conference.

Celik added that the prosecutor of the Dink case said the murder is a
work of an organization, referring to the killing to be an organized
crime. He said that he believes it was not only several people who
assassinated Dink and there is evidence that makes him and public
believe otherwise.

Celik said those who killed Dink wanted to foment chaos in Turkey
and instigate instability in the country.

He also ruled out claims that six outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) terrorists were also killed in a botched military strike, which
claimed the lives of 34 civilians in southeast Turkey in December,
describing such allegations as “a conspiracy theory.”

“The government has no such information. These [allegations] are a
conspiracy theory. The state admitted that it made a mistake,” he said.

Claims have recently emerged suggesting, according to wiretap records
of conversations seized by intelligence units, that six members of the
outlawed PKK were also killed by the military airstrike in Å~^ırnak’s
Uludere. According to the conversation, the PKK took the corpses to
a PKK camp in Haftanin. Celik also said the PKK might from time to
time try to use civilians as human shields. In the meantime, Celik
also announced on Friday that citizenship of Anter Anter, son of Musa
Anter, a Kurdish author who was assassinated in 1992, will be restored.

Anter Anter left Turkey in 1991, a year before his father, a prominent
Kurdish intellectual and peace activist, fell victim to what remains
one of many unsolved assassinations that took place at the time. Anter
appealed to the Turkish authorities to end the ban last year and was
allowed to enter the country on Tuesday, Jan. 24, after receiving
special permission from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

From: A. Papazian

BALIKCI CO-SERVICEMAN SAYS ARMENIAN-BORN SOLDIER’S MURDER DELIBERATE

PanARMENIAN.Net
January 27, 2012 – 17:16 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The co-serviceman of the murdered ethnic Armenian
Sevag Å~^ahin Balıkcı and murder suspect Kivanc Agaoglu confessed
to having given false evidence at court.

As Halil EkÅ~_i stated, before his court testimony, he got a telephone
call from a person named Bulent Kaya, telling him to testify in
Agaoglu’s favour.

“Sevag wasn’t killed by chance, as Agaoglu claims. Agaoglu loaded
his weapon before pulling the trigger,” Turkish media quoted EkÅ~_i
as saying.

Sevag Å~^ahin Balıkcı, 25, was killed in a Turkish military
unit on April 24, 2011. The Armenian was killed after the gunshot
wound he received while reportedly playing a practical joke with
his co-serviceman, who was later allowed to walk free despite
the indictment stipulating for 9 years behind bars for murder by
negligence.

From: A. Papazian

LET GO OF FRANCE, WRITER IS TRIED IN TURKEY FOR SAYING “GENOCIDE” – TURKISH DAILY

news.am
January 26, 2012 | 11:14

Turkey is accusing France for its bill that criminalizes the denial
of genocides, including the Armenian Genocide, stressing that this
is a violation of the freedom of speech, but it disregards the fact
that renowned Turkish writer Temel Demirer is currently being tried
for saying “genocide” in Turkey.

In its article entitled, “Let go of France, look at Turkey,” Taraf
daily of Turkey informs that the trial of Demirer is still continuing,
and that he is being tried with the Turkish Criminal Code’s infamous
Article 301.

On the first-year anniversary of the murder of Hrant Dink-the founder
and former chief editor of Istanbul’s Agos Armenian weekly, who was
killed in 2007-Temel Demirer had stated that Dink was killed because
he had said genocide was committed in this country (Turkey).

“Yes, genocide was committed in this country,” the Turkish writer
had said, and subsequently Prosecutor Levent Savas brought a case
against him on charges of “denying Turkish arguments.”

What is more, Turkey’s Justice Minister asserted that Demirer will
continue to be tried with Article 301, on charges of “degrading the
Republic of Turkey.”

From: A. Papazian