Author: Andres-Papazian

MESSAGE DE SOUTIEN A LA CANDIDATURE DE NICOLAS SARKOZY
Ara

armenews.com
vendredi 16 mars 2012

Nous, Francais d’origine armenienne, engages dans la vie citoyenne et
conscients de nos droits et devoirs, souhaitons apporter notre soutien
a la candidature de Nicolas Sarkozy a l’election presidentielle des
22 avril et 6 mai prochains.

Notre pays faisant face a une crise mondiale sans precedent, il nous
parait plus que jamais indispensable que le Chef de l’Etat puisse
poursuivre son action pour faire aboutir les reformes entreprises,
en proposer de nouvelles et conforter, sur la scène internationale,
la place de la France, cinquième puissance mondiale.

Nous sommes aussi les descendants des victimes du genocide de 1915
perpetre par le gouvernement Jeune-Turc qui fait encore l’objet d’un
negationnisme d’Etat sans precedent, y compris et surtout en France.

Aussi, souhaitons-nous reaffirmer a ce titre notre reconnaissance et
renouveler nos sincères remerciements au president de la Republique
pour son engagement sans faille dans le combat contre le negationnisme,
qui represente un outrage a la memoire des victimes, une menace pour
leurs descendants et une negation des valeurs fondamentales de notre
Republique.

Nous remercions Nicolas Sarkozy pour sa determination a faire adopter,
dans un esprit non partisan et de rassemblement, une loi reprimant
la negation du genocide armenien. Après la decision rendue par le
Conseil constitutionnel, et l’immense deception qu’elle a suscitee,
nous saluons la decision de Nicolas Sarkozy de faire preparer un
nouveau texte par le gouvernement, et son engagement a le faire
adopter dès le debut de la prochaine legislature.

Nous saluons aussi l’engagement indefectible de Nicolas Sarkozy en
faveur du renforcement des relations entre la France et l’Armenie,
ces deux ” nations soeurs ” unies par l’Histoire qu’il veut aussi
projeter, ensemble, dans l’avenir, ainsi qu’il l’a souligne lors de
sa visite d’Etat en Armenie.

Nous l’encourageons a continuer de s’investir activement pour favoriser
un règlement juste, pacifique et durable du conflit du Haut-Karabagh,
fonde sur le droit a l’autodetermination de sa population.

Dans notre histoire, jamais un President de la Republique n’a demontre
un attachement aussi sincère a notre cause, une comprehension aussi
profonde de nos attentes, et une volonte aussi ferme d’y repondre.

Pour toutes ces raisons, pour faire oeuvre utile a l’egard de notre
pays, pour preserver les valeurs de la Republique et faconner pour
demain une France belle et genereuse dans ses richesses humaines,
intellectuelles, culturelles et sociales, nous lui apportons notre
plein soutien.

Premiers signataires du communique de soutien a Nicolas Sarkozy

M. Ara AHARONIAN, chef d’entreprise – M. Gary AHARONIAN, juriste
– M et Mme Kevork AHARONIAN, expert en art et artiste peintre –
M. Leon AHARONIAN, etudiant – Mme Edouard ATTAMIAN, consultante en
produits de luxe – M. Charles AZNAVOUR – M. Camilio AZZOUZ, etudiant,
responsable associatif – M et Mme Nabil AZZOUZ, chef d’entreprise –
Me Charles BAGHDASARIAN, avocat a la Cour – M. Armand BAHADOURIAN,
chef d’entreprise – M. Andrea BASHIAN, etudiant – M. Alain Karning
BODRIKIAN, cadre bancaire – M. Michaël BOROYAN, chasseur de tete – Mme
Astrig BOURMAYAN, cadre d’entreprise – Mme Isabelle CAPRON-ZELVEYAN,
dirigeante d’entreprise – M. Eric DADIAN, chef d’entreprise – Mme
Sonia DAMLAMIAN, consultante en marketing – M. Paul DER.AGOPIAN,
ingenieur, responsable associatif – M. Raphaël DER-AGOPIAN, etudiant,
responsable associatif – M. Patrick DERDERIAN, chef d’entreprise – M.

Jacques DONABEDIAN, ingenieur – Mme Naïri DJIDJIRIAN, dirigeante
d’entreprise – M. Alexis GOVCIYAN, conseiller regional – Dr Nadia
GORDZOUNIAN, medecin – M. Mathieu JAMIAN, etudiant – M. Raoul
KAZANDJIAN, dirigeant d’entreprise a la retraite, responsable
associatif – M. Leon KEBABDJIAN, chef d’entreprise a la retraite,
responsable associatif – Me Denis KETCHEDJIAN, avocat a la Cour – M.

Antranig KEVORKIAN, etudiant – M. Arthur KHANDJIAN, elu local,
responsable associatif – Mme Karine KIRKORIAN, etudiante – Me Bruno
KNADJIAN, avocat a la Cour – Mme Tamara KOTCHARIAN-PETROSSIAN,
responsable associative – M. Rafi KOUYOUMDJIAN, dirigeant
d’entreprise – M. Daniel KURKDJIAN, expert-comptable – Mme Nathalie
LAMBERT-BADGUERAHANIAN, conseil en recrutement – M. Philippe
MISSAKIAN, dirigeant d’entreprise – Mme Patricia MOURADIAN, dirigeante
d’entreprise – M. Rudolf MOURADIAN, dirigeant d’entreprise – Mme
Angelina NAJARIAN, cadre d’entreprise – M. Samuel NAJARIAN, expert
comptable – M. Didier PARAKIAN, adjoint au Maire de Marseille, chef
d’entreprise – Me Olivier ROUMELIAN, avocat a la cour – M. Michel
SABBAGH, cadre superieur a la retraite, responsable associatif –
M et Mme Antoine SAKHOCHIAN, chef d’entreprise a la retraite –
M. Levon SAYAN, manager de M. Aznavour – M. Jean SIRAPIAN, editeur
– M. Alain TERZIAN, producteur de films – M. Christophe ZELVEYAN,
chef d’entreprise

From: A. Papazian

LE DOUBLE LANGAGE DE BAKOU SUR LE KARABAGH
Gari

armenews.com
vendredi 16 mars 2012

“En depit de l’absence de resultats des negociations sur le
règlement du conflit du Haut Karabagh, l’Azerbaïdjan poursuivra les
pourparlers de paix”, a indique le ministre des affaires etrangères
de l’Azerbaïdjan, Elmar Mammadyarov, dans un entretien accorde au
journal allemand “Die Welt”.

“J’espère qu’enfin, les responsables armeniens sauront faire preuve de
sagesse politique et en vue de parvenir a une solution acceptable”,
a ajoute Elmar Mammadyarov, en rappelant que le Haut Karabagh est
une partie inalienable du territoire de l’Azerbaïdjan sous occupation
des forces armees armeniennes depuis 20 ans.

“Bien que le Conseil de securite de l’Onu ait adopte des resolutions
concernant le retrait inconditionnel des troupes armeniennes des
territoires occupes, l’occupation se poursuit “, a conclu le chef de
la diplomatie azerie.

Le ministre azeri de la defense Safar Abyiev a tenu quant a lui
des propos nettement moins diplomatiques, pour exalter ” une armee
plus forte qui sera en mesure de parler le meme langage que les
envahisseurs, quand les solutions pacifiques auront echoue “.

Lors d’une conference de presse a Teheran où il effectuait une visite
officielle, M. Abyiev a deploye tous ses efforts pour s’attirer les
bonnes grâces du voisin iranien, chasse de la signature recente entre
Israël et Bakou d’un important contrant portant sur la livraison
d’armes israeliennes a l’Azerbaïdjan.

Exaltant les liens entre les deux pays qui partagent un Islam chiite,
il s’est employe a justifier la cooperation militaire avec Israël par
la necessite de faire face a l’ ” agression armenienne “, repetant
que ces armes avaient vocation a aider l’armee de Bakou a reconquerir
le Karabagh et ne seraient jamais utilisees contre l’Iran.

“Le conflit du Karabagh provoque des tensions dans la region depuis
des annees, et l’Armenie, poursuivant sa politique aggressive, ne
veut pas ramener la paix dans la region. Le people iranien aussi a
fait l’experience de l’occupation et de la guerre dans son histoire
recente. C’est pourquoi nous pensons que le gouvernement et le peuple
iraniens afficheront une position claire en vue de faire cesser
l’injustice dont est victime l’Azerbaïdjan et de la liberation des
territoires occupes de l’Azerbaïdjan”, a declare le ministre azeri
de la defense.

Il a aussi attire l’attention des Iraniens sur le sort du ” million
de refugies, et des villages, villes et autres sites, d’une valeur
spirituelle ou culturelle, qui ont ete detruits par les aggresseurs
et sont pris en otages “.

“Aussi, nous devons renforcer nos forces armees et liberer nos terres
de l’occupation etrangère. Quelque 20 % du territoire de l’Azerbaïdjan
sont occupes”, a martele le colonel Abyev. Mais il n’est pas sûr qu’un
tel discours suffise a apaiser l’Iran, qui supporte mal la cooperation
militaire entre Israël et son voisin azeri dont il s’est toujours
mefie en raison de ses tentations irredentistes sur les provinces
azerophones de l’Iran septentrional.

Teheran s’est contente de proposer une nouvelle fois sa mediation dans
le processus de règlement pacifique du conflit du Karabagh. Au moment
où l’Iran est sous la menace d’une attaque d’Israël, en raison de son
programme nucleaire presume militaire, le Karabagh passe au second
plan aux yeux des Iraniens, et ne justifie en tout cas pas que l’armee
de Bakou s’equipe en Israël dans la perspective d’une guerre contre
les Armeniens qui sont leurs voisins les plus fiables dans la region.

From: A. Papazian

DINK LAWYERS DEMAND PROBE INTO ISTANBUL, TRABZON MIT BRANCHES

Today’s Zaman
March 15 2012
Turkey

Lawyers for the family of Hrant Dink, a Turkish journalist of
Armenian origin who was shot dead by an ultra-nationalist teenager
in broad daylight five years ago, have demanded that prosecutors
investigate archives of the Ýstanbul and Trabzon branches of the
National Intelligence Organization (MÝT) in order to understand how
those agencies failed to prevent the murder.

“MÝT’s responsibility has not been stressed so far even though it’s
an institution that would naturally know about close threats to Hrant
Dink’s life. But MÝT was left out of the investigations,” the lawyers
said in a press conference on Thursday.

The lawyers told prosecutors who are once more investigating the
events preceding the murder of Dink that it is obvious that MÝT’s
Trabzon officials are not telling the truth when they say that they
had not received any information related to plans to murder Dink,
because even common people in Trabzon’s Pelitli — a small town where
Dink’s convicted murderer, Ogun Samast, is from — knew about it.

“The information regarding plans to kill Dink was known by police and
gendarmerie intelligence units; however, it is unconvincing that the
biggest intelligence agency in the country, MÝT, was unaware of the
danger and the threat,” the lawyers also said, adding that it should
be made clear how the police and gendarmerie failed to pass information
about plans to kill Dink to MÝT, despite laws requiring them to do so.

The lawyers said that Dink had clearly written in his column in Agos
weekly on Jan. 12 in 2007 that he was threatened with what was called
a “warning” by two MÝT officials at the office of Ýstanbul’s Deputy
Governor Ergun Gungor.

Lawyers of the Dink family also noted that, following Dink’s murder on
Jan. 19, 2007, Dink’s widow, Rakel Dink, filed a criminal complaint
against the two MÝT officials on Feb. 12 and the deputy governor,
who did not take any actions to protect Dink, despite their awareness
of threats on Dink’s life.

In addition, the lawyers filed a criminal complaint at the 14th High
Criminal Court of Ýstanbul on Feb. 8, 2010 calling for the prosecution
of those three people and other MÝT officials who neglected their
duties and did not take preventive actions.

However, the court forwarded the complaint to the Ýstanbul Public
Prosecutor’s Office, which forwarded it to the Ankara Public
Prosecutor’s Office on the basis that it lacked jurisdiction over
the issue. Then the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office asked for
permission from the Prime Ministry on June 21, 2010 to investigate
the MÝT officials who had met with Dink in Ýstanbul, Ozel Yýlmaz and
Handan Selcuk. The Prime Ministry granted permission on Jan. 21, 2011.

On Sept. 29, 2011, the Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office ruled that
the suspects had committed the crime but the statute of limitations
would not allow an investigation into the matter.

“We objected to this ruling but the Sincan 1st High Criminal Court
turned our objection down without any justification,” the lawyers
stated. “There was a crime but it remained unpunished. With the ruling
of the Sincan 1st High Criminal Court, domestic legal remedies were
exhausted and therefore we will take the case to the European Court
of Human Rights [ECtHR].”

At the press conference, Rakel Dink said the court’s final verdict
in January fell short of justice.

The final verdict, which caused outrage in large parts of society,
established that the suspects had no ties to a larger criminal network,
but acted alone. On the other hand, the prosecution believes the
killers are affiliated with the Ergenekon network, whose suspected
members are currently standing trial on charges of plotting to
overthrow the government.

In February a report from the State Audit Institution (DDK), the
presidency backed a probe into officials for their role in the Dink
murder. The 650-page report stated that the DDK’s authority is limited
in conducting such an investigation, and it should avoid influencing
the judiciary, but it evaluated the situation in the face of the
ECtHR ruling, which declared in September 2010 that Turkey failed to
fulfill its duty to protect the life of Dink and included a reference
to possible links between the 2007 murder of Dink and Ergenekon.

The lawyers indicated at the press conference that they will watch
how Turkey implements the ECtHR ruling.

From: A. Papazian

ARMENIA STANDS FIRM ON EUROVISION BOYCOTT
by Anna Barseghyan

Institute of War & Peace Reporting IWPR
March 15 2012
UK

Armenia has withdrawn from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in
Azerbaijan, following the death of a soldier that was initially blamed
on Azeri troops.

The boycott will stay in place even though it transpires that
the soldier was killed by one of his comrades rather than by an
Azerbaijani sniper.

The contest is organised by the European Broadcast Union, EBU, which
issued a statement on March 7 announcing the withdrawal of Armenian
Public Television as a participating member.

“We are truly disappointed by the broadcaster’s decision,” contest
chief Jon Ola Sand said in the statement. “Despite the efforts of
the EBU and the [Azerbaijani] host broadcaster to ensure a smooth
participation for the Armenian delegation in this year’s contest,
circumstances beyond our control led to this unfortunate decision.”

Pressure for a boycott had been growing for some time in Armenia.

The immediate cause was an Armenian defence ministry statement on
February 23 that Private Albert Adibekyan had been killed by a sniper
firing from inside Azerbaijan.

The following day, an open letter written in the name of 22 musicians
started circulating in the media.

“We refuse to perform in a country known for its mass pogroms against
Armenians. We refuse to perform in a country where hatred of Armenians
has become state policy. We refuse to perform in a country which
people of Armenian ethnicity are barred from visiting, even if they
are citizens of another country,” the letter said.

The letter did not bear the signatures of the musicians named, and
it was uncertain whether they had initiated it.

“No one signed any letter,” well-known singer Alla Levonyan said a
famous Armenian singer. “We all received calls from Public Television
and asked whether we were for or against it [participation]. I was
against.”

The story became even more confused on March 5 when officials admitted
that Private Adibekyan was killed by another Armenian solider under
unexplained circumstances, so he had not been hit by an Azerbaijani
sniper after all.

Despite this, performers continued demanding a boycott of Eurovision.

“This [shooting] incident is not relevant to my position. Azerbaijan
breaks the ceasefire and takes our soldiers’ lives on a regular basis.

I was opposed to our taking part from the outset,” Levonyan said.

“What would we show or prove by going there?… We are enemies,
so why should we indicate that we mean them well?”

Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan remain tense two decades
after the conflict over Nagorny Karabakh, which ended in 1994 with
an Armenian administration in control of the separatist entity. A
formal peace deal remains far off.

Many other singers agreed, like Aramo, who said it would be wrong to
perform in a city where Armenians had been victims of ethnic violence
in the past.

However, members of the Dorians group which was widely tipped to
represent Armenia in the competition were disappointed they would
not be going.

“I cannot see a reason why Armenia should not take part in Eurovision,”
the band’s producer Vahagn Gevorgyan said, accusing Armenian Public
Television of engineering a campaign to withdraw.

“The letter demanding a Eurovision boycott was written not by the
performers but by Public Television. It used them to articulate its
own view,” he said.

Officials at Armenian Public Television deny instigating the letter
or provoking a boycott by performers.

Armenia has taken part in the Eurovision Song Contest since 2006,
and it highest-place entry was in 2008 when it took fourth place. Last
year, its contestant Emmy did not make it past the semi-finals.

Anna Barseghyan is a reporter for

From: A. Papazian

KARDASHIANS CONVINCE NBA STAR NOT TO COME TO TURKEY

Hurriyet
March 13 2012
Turkey

Kim Kardashian has pressured NBA star Odom to change his mind about
going to Turkey.

Kim Kardashian pressured her brother-in-law NBA star Lamar Odom
to change his mind about going to Turkey, because of the Armenian
genocide accusations, Milliyet daily reports.

The final episode of the reality show following the Kardashian
family showed how Odom’s wife, Khloe Kardashian, changed her and her
husband’s mind following Kim’s objections to Odom’s possible transfer
to a Turkish team.

The Kardashians are an American family of Armenian descent.

Kim Kardashian caused tensions last April when she sued the Turkish
branch of an international magazine for making her the cover star of
its April issue.

From: A. Papazian

KARDASHIANS BECOME FRONT PAGE NEWS IN TURKEY BECAUSE OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE STAND

HULIQ.com

March 13 2012
SC

It seems that, in the wake of the Khloe & Lamar episode that aired
on Sunday, which focused on the Armenian Genocide, Turkey has taken
notice, with its top newspaper writing about the episode in a headline,
no less.

Aram Suren Hamparian, the executive director of the Armenian National
Committee of America, posted the following on his Facebook page:

“FRONT PAGE NEWS IN TURKEY:

“The major Turkish daily newspaper, Hurriyet, reports on the Kardashian
family’s pride in their Armenian heritage and their stand against
Turkey as an unrepentant perpetrator of genocide against the Armenian
nation.

Link:

“Stats: 2.1 million viewers (+ reruns); Armenian Genocide #10 most
searched Google term on the day of the show; Well over 13 million
tweets and retweets about the Armenian Genocide.”

The Kardashians are Armenian-American on their late father’s side. The
late Robert Kardasian, who died in 2003, was a third-generation
Armenian-American.

The Hurriyet article is somewhat inaccurate, however. It states that
“The final episode of the reality show following the Kardhashian
family showed how Odom’s wife, Khloe Kardashian, changed her and her
husband’s mind following Kim’s objections to Odom’s possible transfer
to a Turkish team.”

That’s true, although no real decision was made prior to the NBA
lockout ending. Also, Khloe & Lamar is set to air another episode
this coming Sunday, with Lamar and Khloe’s reactions to his trade
from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Dallas Mavericks.

However, seeing a Turkish newspaper pick up the story is key in many
ways. For one, the Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian
Holocaust, the Armenian Massacres and, by Armenians, the Great Crime
is still unknown to many, including Lamar Odom, apparently.

In April 1915, the Ottoman Empire, in what is now Turkey, allegedly
orchestrated a massacre of the local Armenian population. The number
of Armenian deaths is generally held to have been between one and
one and a half million.

Since then Turkey has continued to refuse to acknowledge the term
of genocide as an accurate description for the incident. Therefore,
this coverage in what has been called by some Turkey’s New York Times,
is good for those who want Turkey to fess up, despite any inaccuracies.

From: A. Papazian

ICC FINDS PROSECUTING WAR CRIMES NO EASY TASK

CBC.ca

March 14 2012
Canada

Ten-year old tribunal, based in the Hague, has only produced one
conviction

Established in 2002, the International Criminal Court was intended
as an instrument to prosecute large-scale war crimes like genocide
and crimes against humanity.

While the ICC delivered its first judgment on March 14, 2012 – the
conviction of Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga – it continues to
be criticized for its political agenda and perceived ineffectiveness.

The concept of an international tribunal first emerged in the 1870s,
with a view to exposing some of the atrocities of the Franco-Prussian
War, and was again debated in the aftermath of the First World War.

The term genocide was coined by Polish lawyer Rafael Lemkin in 1943,
based on his study of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
in 1915 and the activities of the Nazis during the Second World War.

(To this day, Turkey denies the Armenian deaths were an act of
genocide.) Lemkin’s work led to the United Nations Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948,
but the divisiveness of the Cold War scuttled attempts to create an
international court.

The bloody massacres in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and East Timor
in the 1990s, however, renewed interest in such a tribunal, and in
July 1998, 120 countries signed the Rome Statute, which sanctified
the idea of an international court. The U.S., Israel and China were
among the countries that voted against the Rome Statute.

The ICC, which went into force on July 1, 2002, has been a subject
of criticism. Detractors question the political motivations of chief
prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo as well as the focus on sub-Saharan
Africa. Proponents respond that the ICC has checks and balances and
that all but one of the African states currently under investigation
requested the ICC’s help.

Here’s a timeline of notable dates in the ICC’s history.

March 11, 2003: The ICC is inaugurated in ceremonies featuring Prince
Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein of Jordan, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands
and then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

April 23, 2003: Argentinian lawyer Luis Moreno-Ocampo is elected as
the ICC’s first prosecutor.

Oct. 14, 2005: The court announces its first arrest warrants, for
five leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda,
including Joseph Kony. Despite the ICC warrant and a viral video
campaign in March 2012 decrying his use of child soldiers, Kony
remains at large.

March 17, 2006: The ICC arrests Thomas Lubanga, leader of the Union
of Congolese Patriots, a military group in the Democratic Republic
of Congo. Lubanga is accused of having conscripted children under
the age of 15 as soldiers to do battle with other Congolese militias
between September 2002 and August 2003.

May 2, 2007: The ICC issues warrants for Sudanese nationals Ahmad Harun
and Ali Kushyb for their involvement in atrocities in Darfur, Sudan.

May 2008: The court issues an arrest warrant for Jean-Pierre Bemba
Gombo, an alleged Congolese national, for war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed in the suppression of a coup d’etat in
the Central African Republic in 2002-2003.

Dec. 15, 2010: Moreno-Ocampo issues summons for six Kenyan nationals
suspected of crimes against humanity in the violence following Kenya’s
national elections in December 2007.

July 12, 2010: The ICC issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese
President Omar al-Bashir for genocide committed in Darfur, a charge
that stands alongside a 2009 ICC warrant for war crimes and crimes
against humanity. Sudan is the only country under investigation that
did not request intervention.

June 28, 2011: The court issues warrants for Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi, his son Saif al-Islam and military intelligence chief Abdullah
Senussi, claiming to have evidence the three committed crimes against
humanity against political opponents.

March 14, 2012: The court hands down its first judgment, convicting
Thomas Lubanga of conscripting child soldiers. He faces a maximum
sentence of life imprisonment, and will be sentenced following a
hearing that will be scheduled later this year.

From: A. Papazian

TURKEY REAFFIRMS KARABAKH PRECONDITION

Armenialiberty.org

March 13 2012

Turkey remains adamant in making the normalization of its relations
with Armenia conditional on a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister
Bekir Bozdag said on Tuesday.

“Nagorno-Karabakh is a Muslim, Azerbaijani and Turkic land occupied
by Armenia,” Bozdag told journalists during a visit to Baku. “The
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is our common problem.”

“Until Armenia pulls out of Nagorno-Karabakh, until the rights of
Azerbaijanis of that region are restored Turkish-Armenian relations
will not be normalized,” he said, according to the Trend news agency.

Ankara has followed this line even after signing in 2009 two protocols
with Yerevan that committed the two sides to establish diplomatic
relations and open the Turkish-Armenian border. Turkish leaders have
repeatedly said that the protocols will not be ratified by Turkey’s
parliament before a breakthrough in the international efforts to
broker an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal on Karabakh.

The Armenian side rejects this precondition, accusing the Turks of
acting against the letter and spirit of the Western-backed protocols.

President Serzh Sarkisian last year threatened to withdraw Yerevan’s
signature from the deal.

Sarkisian mentioned the failed Turkish-Armenian normalization process
when he addressed a congress of his Republican Party on Saturday. He
insisted that despite the fiasco the unprecedented rapprochement
between the two neighboring nations, which began in 2008, was worth it.

“The entire world came to see that the only obstacle to the
establishment of relations between Armenia and Turkey is in Ankara
and another capital … but in no way or shape Yerevan,” Sarkisian
said. He argued that Ankara was “compelled” in 2009 to sign a legally
binding document that calls for an unconditional normalization of
Turkish-Armenian relations.

Turkey has stood by the Karabakh linkage despite pressure from the
United States. Visiting Ankara in December, U.S. Vice President Joe
Biden expressed hope that the Turkish parliament will ratify the
protocols “in the months ahead.”

From: A. Papazian

TARON UNDER NIGHT VEIL

Story from Lragir.am News:

Published: 10:26:15 – 15/03/2012

Yesterday, the Police of Yerevan, in the face of Bazaz (Robert
Melkonyan, vice-chief of Yerevan Police) and the Yerevan City Hall,
in the face of Mayor Taron Margaryan, conveyed to the Armenian people
that they are serving the interests of 2 or 3 oligarchs. In other
words, two state structures, the Police of Yerevan and the City Hall
are doing everything they can to ensure the kiosks are installed in
Mashtots Park. Under the veil of the night, they provoke protesters
to disperse them while they have been trying their best for a whole
month to defend the constitutional rights of the society.

In fact, the Police and City Hall of Yerevan gave up fulfilling their
constitutional function and decided to meet the demands of the kiosk
owners under the veil of the night.

The leadership of Yerevan Police and Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan
should immediately resign for disorganizing state structures and
anti-constitutional actions. Today, the session of the government will
be held which had better announce about the resignation rather than
discuss Taron Margaryan’s proposal to settle the issue of the park.

From: A. Papazian

TURKEY’S ENLIGHTENMENT LANGUISHES, LIKE THE JOURNALISTS IN ITS PRISONS

The record number of reporters imprisoned in Turkey threatens to
extinguish the flame of democratic reform

guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 13 March 2012 16.39 GMT

Ahmet Sik Turkish journalist Ahmet Sik (C) hugs his friends after he
being released from prison in Istanbul. Photograph: Sinan Gul/Anadolu
Agency/EPA

A year ago, police burst into the homes of two of Turkey’s best
investigative journalists, Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, and carted
them off to prison where they remained until last night, charged with
crimes so nebulous even prosecutors can’t explain them.

They are not alone. Turkey now holds the world record for locking
up journalists, leaving Iran and China scrabbling in the dust, with
by most reckonings 103 reporters behind bars, as opposed to 42 in
Tehran and 27 in China. More journalists were arrested in Istanbul
in one morning over Christmas than the Chinese managed all year –
who says Europe can no longer compete?

Sik and Sener’s dramatic release on bail yesterday after an
international outcry hopefully shows the Turkish authorities are
finally coming to their senses. Both men are nevertheless still
looking at up to 15 years in prison for basically doing their job.

The exact number of journalists in prison awaiting trial is hard to
pin down – estimates range from eight to 122, with 103 being the
most generally accepted – because the charges against them can be
kept secret under Turkey’s draconian anti-terrorist laws. The lowest
figure is a provisional one from the New York-based Committee for the
Protection of Journalists, which believes its final verified count
may top 90. Another 30 press workers are in jail, rounded up under
laws drafted by the country’s former military rulers and enforced by
a judiciary cut from the same cloth.

Two columnists from the website Oda TV, who had also been held in
solitary confinement in the same prison as Sik and Sener, were also
bailed last night. But as they were hugged and cheered by their
families and supporters, other journalists were still being arrested.

On Saturday night, Ozlem Agus became the 106th journalist to be jailed,
accused of “spreading terrorist propaganda” by breaking the story of
the rape and sexual abuse of minors charged with terrorist offences
held in an adult prison near Adana. Having ignored his reporting
for months, the government was forced to react to the scandal last
week. The price was Agus’s freedom. The following day, another Kurdish
reporter was remanded in custody accused of the same crime.

This has all come amid a blizzard of prosecutions of journalists that
now tops 4,000, the latest brought this weekend by the prime minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who claims the independent daily Taraf injured
his dignity by imputing in an editorial that he had become increasingly
“arrogant, uninformed and uninterested” in reform.

So how could a country that is held up as a poster boy for democratic
reform and economic success, the model Muslim democracy for the Arab
spring to follow, go quite so horribly wrong?

The answer, or much of it, lies in that police raid last March on
the homes of Sik and Sener, and shows how Turkey’s once reformist
government has succumbed to the same old repressive paranoia of the
military-nationalist establishment it was elected to clear away nearly
10 years ago.

Sik and Sener have spent years winning international awards for
excavating the Turkish “deep state”, the shadowy cabals within the
military and civil service who staged four coups in as many decades
in the name of protecting Ataturk’s secular legacy, and shackled
Turkey with its present constitution, the most authoritarian this
side of Pyongyang.

Yet they ended up in prison as a part of the 18th wave of arrests into
another putative coup, the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy to overthrow
Erdogan’s moderately Islamic AK party government – a plot revealed by
none other than Sik and his colleagues at the Nokta magazine. Sener had
meanwhile exposed staggering official negligence, if not connivance,
in the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and was
in the process of linking the killing to Ergenekon. (To give you an
idea of how surreally skewed press freedom in Turkey is, prosecutors
initially demanded Sener serve a longer sentence for revealing the
scandal than the one they demanded for Dink’s killers.)

It would be funny if the circumstances of the Dink case were not so
horribly tragic. And then it got even worse. The police began bugging
the two journalists’ phones, hoping to piggy-back on their inquiries,
having arrested 700 military figures and other government opponents
over four years with little or nothing to show for it investigating
Ergenekon and another alleged coup plot.

In so doing, they discovered Sik was writing a book on a “second deep
state”, one run in opposition to the Kemalist military by police
officers, business leaders and AK party politicians loyal to the
exiled theologian Fethullah Gulen, often hailed as the visionary
behind Turkey’s democratic Islamic enlightenment.

The Gulen movement – a kind of sufi freemasons where secrecy and
jobs for the boys are squared by good works and the common goal of
a Turkey guided by a revived, scientific Islam – owns the country’s
biggest selling newspaper, Zaman, controls hundreds of Jesuit-style
schools turning out its new, religiously minded elite and various
charities and TV channels.

Suddenly, Sik the man who stymied the nascent military coup against
the government was accused of being part of it. Police not only seized
his unfinished manuscript on the Gulen movement, The Army of the Imam,
they destroyed it, and began a paperchase to destroy any other copies
that might exist.

Gulen may preach openness and tolerance of other faiths, but the
movement run in his name is a model of opacity – understandably so
given the history of repression of similar dervish orders by the old,
rigidly Kemalist elite. Sadly, however, the new observant elite appear
to have inherited their secular predecessors’ love of conspiracy,
as well as their fearsome arsenal of repressive laws.

None of which bodes well for justice and transparency in the new Turkey
Gulen and his millions of followers want to create, particularly
when the prime minister and AK party luminaries brand journalists
who criticise them as “criminals and terrorists”.

Turkey is a much freer country today than the day the AK party came to
power, and much of that is also due to the Gulen movement. But it is a
funny kind of freedom, one where the internet is tracked and restricted
and where freedom of speech comes at a price. Turkey stands proud again
on the world stage as a major player and model to the Muslim world,
yet at home no one risks being entirely open, nor entirely honest.

In this atmosphere, with renewed violence and repression in the Kurdish
south-east, chest-beating nationalism, and such public tension between
the devout and the secular that MPs cannot debate an education bill
without two mass brawls in a week, a new constitution to replace
the old military one is finally being broached. Erdogan, the rock
on which hopes of reform once rested, has entered his third term
in power ill and ill-tempered, his absolute majority in parliament
fighting yesterday’s sectarian battles. The Turkish enlightenment may
not yet be completely dead, but its flame is fading, locked away in
the jails where so many journalists are now being held.

Let’s hope for all our sakes it gets a second chance of life.

From: A. Papazian