Author: Andres-Papazian

ANC CRITICIZES PUBLIC TV FOR PARLIAMENTARY CENSORSHIP

hetq
17:15, September 13, 2012

The Armenian National Congress has issued a statement criticizing
Armenian Public TV for editing out certain segments of speeches
made by MP’s during yesterday’s parliamentary session critical of
the government.

The ANC says the omissions were made during a Public TV program called
“The Parliament” and that this violates a clause of RA Law 35 dealing
with the National Assembly Procedural Code”.

The ANC argues that this is yet another calculated step to keep the
opposition and the public in an information blackout.

The political group is demanding that the full speeches be broadcast
over the public airwaves.

From: A. Papazian

I DON’T IMAGINE CHESS OLYMPIAD WITHOUT ARMENIA’S TEAM – FIDE VICE PRESIDENT

news.am
September 13

Now, it is already clear that the three-time World Olympiad champions,
Armenian men’s national chess team, will not head to Azerbaijani
capital, Baku, World Chess Federation (FIDE) Vice President Ilya
Levitov stated.

He reflected on the 42nd World Chess Olympiad, which be held in 2016
in Baku.

“I very much like my Azerbaijani colleagues, who are investing
money to develop chess. But what shall we do with the [national]
team of three-time Olympiad champion Armenia? I don’t imagine the
chess Olympiad without Armenia’s team; that would be meaningless.

Now, it’s already clear that Armenia’s squad will not head to Baku.

This certainly is a serious problem whose solutions are not seen.

Let’s hope the political situation in that region changes in the
next three or four years,” Sport Express quotes FIDE Vice President
as saying.

From: A. Papazian

HARSNAKAR CASE HEARING DELAYED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 24

Panorama.am
13/09/2012

The hearing in Harsnakar case that took place today in the Court of
General Jurisdiction of Yerevan’s Avan and Nor Nork administrative
districts, presided over by judge David Harutyunyan, was delayed
until September 24, 3:00pm.

The reason for the delay is due to the fact that one of the suspects,
Arman Khachatryan, did not have a defender. The judge ruled that he
should be given time to hire a lawyer.

Larisa Alaverdyan, Garegin Chukaszyan, Zhirayr Sefilyan were present
at the court hearing.

From: A. Papazian

PAN-ARMENIAN DUDUK FESTIVAL TO KICK OFF TOMORROW

ARMRADIO.AM
13.09.2012 16:05

Opening of the Pan-Armenian Duduk festival will take place at Moscow
cinema tomorrow. It is organized within the framework of ~SMy Armenia~T
festival. Armenian duduk players from different countries of the
world will give concerts in Yerevan and other cities of Armenia.

For the first time the festival has brought together Armenian duduk
players from Armenia and Diaspora.

The festival will continue through September 18 and will feature 30
participants. According to Samvel Haroyan, director of ~SMy Armenia~T
festival, the event provides another opportunity to present Armenia
to the world with the help of duduk.

Head of the duduk festival Gevorg Dabaghyan says, in turn, there will
be a number of surprises. Concerts in Gyumri and Gavar are expected.

From: A. Papazian

HAYK KOTANJIAN: ALIYEV IS BECOMING A PROBLEM FOR DEMOCRACY IN AZERBAIJAN AND THE REGION

armradio.am
13.09.2012 16:12

Hayk Kotanjian, President of Political Science Association of
Armenia, Doctor of Political Science has commented on the statement
by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who was quoted by Regnum
Agency as saying that “Safarov pardon is the problem of the Armenian
President, not the region.”

“President Aliyev, to find an excuse for his order to pardon
and justify – without a judicial act – the citizen of Azerbaijan
sentenced to life imprisonment by the Hungarian court, the murderer
of a sleeping fellow student within the framework of NATO Partnership
for Peace Program, has falsified the juridical fact of pardoning
Varuzhan Karapetyan in 2001.

Varuzhan Karapetyan, a citizen of another state, after 17 years of
imprisonment was released from further serving a sentence in France
(not in Armenia, as stated by Aliyev) based on the law-governed legal
act of the French court (not by the decision of the President of
Armenia, as stated by Aliyev). Thus, Karapetyan was not extradited,
but being released he left for Armenia.

But the heart of the problem is that Aliyev and his entire family by
their dictatorial behavior manipulate the Constitution and the laws
of Azerbaijan. Illicit pardon and justification of the murderer are
symptoms of anti-democratic disdain of Aliyev’s regime for individual
and collective human rights, democratic principles and norms of
leading and governing state.

Keeping the society under the family’s total control and
suppressing any manifestations of civil and political freedoms, by
his sultanate-style verdicts Aliyev manipulates not only the law, but
also the justice. The anti-democtratism of the family’s authoritarian
is aggravated by the absolute absence of opposition in the Parliament.

Trustworthy communications with my Azerbaijani colleagues again
and again convince me of the fact that there are many educated,
notable and democtratically oriented sons and daughters among the
Azerbaijani people, who cast doubt not only over the legality of the
genocidal axe murderer Safarov’s pardon, but also the Aliyev family’s
anti-democratic and corrupted policy in general. This disgraceful
fact regarding the glorification of a murder of a sleeping man –
an action which is despised both in the East and the West – is a
symptomatic evidence of the political corruption inherent in the
Aliyevs’ hereditary total power, as well as their cult, driven to
the absurdity in its manifestations. Taking into account the condemn
of Aliyev’s anti-democratism both by Azerbaijani democratic circles
and the international community – which was actualized in terms of
the justification of the butcher at a dictator’s whim, we have every
reason to believe that President Aliyev is becoming a problem both for
democracy and security of Azerbaijan, as well as the entire region.”

From: A. Papazian

DOES PM HAVE RIGHT TO RUN BUSINESS?
Naira Hayrumyan

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 13:26:20 – 11/09/2012

The activities of the Arstakh-based civil initiative called
Constitutional Artsakh should start with the assessment of the economic
policy of the government which has recently resigned. Within the next
10 days the new government will be appointed. Karabakh is actively
discussing now whether the young premier Ara Harutyunyan will be
re-appointed.

During five years of office Ara Harutyunyan has received a lot of
negative assessments. He is blamed for the economic failures and
injustice and not President Bako Sahakyan, though it is evident
that the young prime minister could hardly have a high level of
independence.

Anyway, the premier is accused of having appropriated real estate and
agricultural businesses, enterprises which are opened on ~Scharity
investments~T of Artsakh~Rs friends. Ara Harutyunyan gives himself the
reasons for such accusations: after the opening of the oil wringing
factory in summer, he said on television that he had proposed many
people to ~Stake~T the factory, but no one wanted, so he had to
take it.

Besides, at the summarizing press conference, Ara Harutyunyan,
answering the question of Radio Liberty that people complain about
the fact that the Prime Minister owns private business, he said that
he has always been a successful businessman and was surprised that
he was accused of running business. ~SPeople forget that before the
appointment as the Prime Minister, I was one of the largest business
taxpayers and landowners in Karabakh. These lands are handled today
too~T, he said.

He stated that for the next five years Artsakh will develop on account
of the mining industry. Mines in Tsaghkashen, Kovsakan and Shahumyan
are under development.

Is Karabakh happy with such economic perspective? To give the subsoil
to private owners and be satisfied with the taxes, which they will pay,
recognize the right of state officials to run business and ~Stale~T
the new enterprises. In exchange, they will have ~Scheap~T loans
in the banks to purchase elite apartments which have been built in
Stepanakert in abundance.

The issue is not Ara Harutyunyan, who could work in a completely
different way if the assignments were different. The issue is the
tasks and the economic course of the state.

Apparently, Artsakh people have refused the concept of state property.
The privatization of everything, has led to the situation when high
level of officials, public and military, became owners of real estate
and enterprises. The privatization was led for peanuts, selectively.
But this is in the past.

Now, this policy is continued in the most predatory way: state subsoil
is given to private people without tenders and other ~Sformalities~T
and the state does not even own assets. Enterprises, which are opened
on account of ~Scharity investments~T, somehow appeared in the hands
of individuals, again high level officials. In the result, the profit
from these enterprises goes to the pockets of private people, bypassing
the state budget.

The NKR parliament should give an assessment to these phenomena
and to adopt a law balancing the officials and the state, or to
defend national goods and state property. The initiative of such an
assessment should be assumed by the MPs of the Constitutional Artsakh
civil initiative. It~Rs good there are two MPs in this initiative.

From: A. Papazian

THE COUNTRY THAT COULD DID IT AGAIN COULD BECOME OLYMPIC CHAMPION: THE WASHINGTON TIMES

ARMENPRESS
13 September, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS: The team running for World Chess
Olympiad hosted in Istanbul could not fail and definitely did not
fail. As Armenpress reports Huffington Post dwelled on the victory
of our compatriots: ” Armenia won the gold medal at the 40th Chess
Olympiad in Istanbul. It is their third Olympic gold overall. They also
finished first at the World Team Championship last year in Ningbo,
China. Upon arrival in Yerevan on Monday, the jubilant Armenian
chess team was treated like national heroes by a cheering crowd and
the president of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan who is also the head of the
Armenian Chess Federation. Small countries do that. They cherish
their victories. The Czech national ice-hockey team, led by Dominik
Hasek and Jaromir Jagr, got a similar reception after they returned
to Prague from the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano with a gold medal”.

“The Little Country That Could did it again as tiny Armenia on Sunday
won its third gold medal in the past four years, nipping mighty Russia
on tiebreaks after the two chess powerhouses finished 9-1-1 at the
40th biennial Olympiad in Istanbul” Washington Times writes.

Armenia’s men chess team for the third time bacame Olympic champion.

From: A. Papazian

VAHAN HOVHANNESYAN’S LETTER TO EP: OUR EUROPEAN COLLEAGUES SHOULD HAVE EXPLAINED TO THEIR AZERI COUNTERPARTS THIS DIFFERENCE

Panorama.am
13/09/2012

Elkhan Suleymanov, Head of the Azerbaijani Delegation to the Euronest
PA, recently addressed a letter to the European Parliament and members
of Euronest PA, trying to mitigate the impression of the European
community over Ramil Safarov’s pardon.

Vahan Hovhannesyan, member of the Bureau of the Euronest PA,
Vice-President of the Euronest PA, addressed a letter to the European
Parliament in response.

“Dear Colleagues,

I have to admit that I was a little perplexed when I saw the letter
of Mr. Elkhan Suleymanov, Head of the Azerbaijani Delegation to the
Euronest PA, addressed to the President and the members of the European
Parliament, as well as the members of the Euronest PA. In that letter
Mr. Suleymanov tried to convince that the transfer of the sadistic
murderer Ramil Safarov by Hungarian authorities to Azerbaijan, his
immediate release, and further heroization were absolutely normal
and judicially explainable developments. I’m not going to dwell on
the legal aspects of this sequence of shameful acts.

As we can see any kind of legal disagreement with Azerbaijani position
can be dismissed by Mr.Suleymanov as purely emotional. As for the
members of the Azerbaijani Euronest Delegation, whose opinion has
been expressed in Suleymanov’s letter, no wonder that we see their
smiling, happy faces on the photos with Ramil Safarov. Obviously,
they consider as normal not only the above mentioned chain of the
last events, but also the deed itself that triggered all the turmoil:
the cold-blooded murder, which they even do not see as a crime,
because the victim was an Armenian.

I’m sure that the legal experts who had worked on the Strasbourg
Convention could never imagine that their creation would be used as
a mean to deliberately set a criminal free.

But I think that the problem lies not in the differences between the
European and Azerbaijani perceptions of justice and law, but in the
field of mentality. In his letter Mr. Suleymanov is stressing the
Azerbaijani casualties of the armed conflict between Azerbaijan and
Mountainous Karabagh. He only fails to mention that no Azerbaijani
fighter was ever axe hacked by Armenian soldiers in the sleep.

So, what is the most surprising, not only in Mr. Suleymanov’s letter,
but in the general attitude of the Azerbaijani elite is that they
never distinguish between the honest soldier and the night murderer.

Maybe there are exceptions in Azerbaijani society, however,
unfortunately, nobody has ever heard their voice.

I think, before it will become possible to discuss with Azerbaijan the
issues of the legal approximation with EU, our European colleagues
should have explained to their Azerbaijani counterparts this
difference.”

From: A. Papazian

THE CHIEF FORESTER EXPLAINS WHY 40% OF GOVERNMENT INVESTMENTS IN THE FIELD ARE INEFFICIENT (RECORDING)

September 12, 2012 16:58

“The work to preserve, restore and use forests has been implemented
with substantial deviations from the plans of forest management that
have been approved,” this is one of the

violations in the field of forest management discovered by the Control
Chamber in 2011 and made public yesterday.

It was also mentioned in the report made by the Control Chamber
that 38.169ha of forest lands have been used for non-forest purposes
and they were included in the administrative and cadastral maps of
communities as non-forest lands. “…The corrections are under way. It
is not the violation discovered by the chamber, it is a violation
discovered by us. It is well-known and I have always talked about it –
it is just a complex procedure to bring it back, because when they
give it to the community, they give it based on a decision and if
they take it back from the community, there must be a decision of the
community council etc. There had been such deviations 7 years before
drawing up the temporary diagrams of communities and it was discovered
when a forest management project was under way,” Ruben Petrosyan,
the chief forester of the Hayantar state non-profit organization,
made clarifications of the violations during a conversation with

As for another violation revealed by the Control Chamber that the
amount of wood stored in accordance with the types of lumbering has
exceeded the amount provided for by the forest management plans, Mr.

Petrosyan explained that besides the annual lumbering plan approved
by the Minister of Nature Protection, the necessity of lumbering
arose in the process and was implemented also by the minister’s
permission, “Additional lumbering is when, for example, trees under
the power supply line must be cut, on which there is a decision of
the government, it is mandatory… that is why there is an excess.”

The Control Chamber also discovered that because of noncompliance
with the requirements in nurseries, 40% of government investments in
the field were inefficient. Mr. Petrosyan clarified this saying that
the year 2010 had been a tough year for agriculture and couldn’t but
have an impact on forest management.

Details in the recording.

From: A. Papazian

THE ARMENIAN REVOLUTIONARY FEDERATION (ARF) DOESN’T SEE ANY “GROUNDS FOR OPTIMISM”

September 12, 2012 10:55

The ARF hasn’t started, so to say, decisive discussions on the
presidential election to be held in February 2013. In response to
a question of how the party would participate in the
election, Aghvan Vardanyan, the secretary of the ARF parliamentary
group, said, “We have said lots of times that we haven’t discussed
the issue of candidates and personalities yet. We prefer a few main
problems facing the country, which will be included in the political
agenda in the short-run. Only after discussing those will we decide
on the form of our participation in the presidential election.”

Given the current developments, our interlocutor doesn’t see any
grounds for the opposition’s complete consolidation, which was talked
about during the whole summer, “Those issues will be discussed in
good time, but given at least the picture of today’s political stage,
there are no grounds for such optimism.”

Nelly GRIGORYAN

From: A. Papazian