Author: Babajanian Karo

Virtual State Run by Oligarchy

Dr. Berge A. Minassian, Member of Armenian Renaissance, Toronto, 28 August 2014

In a democracy, the government is a team elected by the people
andcivil servants hired by that government to pass and administer laws
that optimize the well-being and prospects of the people. In the wake
of the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union, Armenia was naturally
unready to set up such a system. As a result power fell into the hands
of persons who soon realized that money is power.

Where was this money to come from? Naturally from the sources intended
for the people. Soon, a coalition of clans formed and the oligarchic
system of governance was established. Within this syndicate, struggles
for leadership led protagonists to forever try to enhance their
strengths, i.e. grab more and more of the people’s resources. The
oligarchy then became increasingly more sophisticated. Thus the
members of the major opposition party in parliament are also members
of the syndicate.

Now a system of rotating chairmanship of the hierarchy is in place
masquerading as political discourse. It’s not known to what extent the
individuals in power have national ‘feelings’ or aspirations, but
assuming they do, they find themselves stuck in an all-or-nothing rut,
the price of extrication from which too high for them and their
families. So the self-serving oligarchic government perpetuates
itself, with the consequence that Armenia does not have a government.
In other words, citizens do not have a collectively selected team to
realize their collective goals.

The collectivity (the nation) is headless, rudderless, glue-less. As
such, it is temporarily no longer a collectivity (a nation). Worse,
the ‘head’, to maintain itself, has to steal from the ‘body’ (how else
to satisfy its source of power?). The sum total of this situation is
that Armenian parents lie sleepless in bed late at night and worrying
about their children’s future, do not see themselves as part of a
group that together can build a good place for all the children of the
group. The longer the current situation persists, the more entrenched
in the minds of individuals the notion that nation is a myth.

Here is an example from my area of work, health care and medical
education. All of society is similarly organized. There is no
accreditation of hospitals and no proper licensing of doctors. This
year, Armenia will graduate half as many medical students (over 500)
as the Canadian province of Ontario (less than 1,000), even though
Armenia’s population is at best one-seventh that of Ontario. Armenia
has as many medical schools as Ontario. One, is (was) a reasonably
good medical school (Heratsi State Medical School). The others have
sprouted as private properties of this or that oligarch. Their quality
is dismal, their ‘graduates’ are youths with money who join the
residency programs next to those with a semblance of proper education
from Heratsi.

In any normal country, medical residents are paid a salary during
their residency. In Armenia, the residents pay the hospitals to do
their residency. Graduation from a residency program is tied to the
number of years spent in the program, and pretty much only that. For
example, one can spend three years in a surgical specialty, and during
these years can operate on zero patients, but then can graduate
anyway.

Some years ago, when the Soviet era dean of the main medical school
(Heratsi) retired, a fantastic new dean was appointed. Her husband was
a minor oligarch. She, however, seemed to have something special in
her heart. She established a superb vice-dean of medical education
office to revamp the whole system. This naturally did not go well with
the oligarchy. The incredible efforts and inroads towards revamping
curricula, introducing accreditation and licensing, etc. led by this
office were abruptly stopped. The dean was replaced, and since then
Heratsi and its teaching hospital are in severe decline.

Incidentally, the Church also owns a hospital. Very recently, the
position of medical director opened at this hospital, and a seemingly
normal competitive process was initiated. People sent resumes,
interviews were held, and excellent candidates were short-listed… and
at the last moment, the Catholicos intervened and said, no, there is
this other guy I know…. he will become the director, and so he was.

I know many people in Armenia, but I do not know anyone who does not
know the above. How do they react to these realities? Most,
understandably, leave. Few are substrata of the oligarchy, and are
able to lead some kind of existence. Few others are the true
embodiments of our nation. They somehow manage to rise above their
fears. They channel the thousands of years of our culture and refuse
to accept defeat. Against all odds they hope and they stay. They join
civic society movements, such as the Pre-Parliament movement, and they
do what they can, alone, or in their small groups, with no power or
money, to try and save this nation.

I know many people in the Diaspora, and I do know some who still do
not know much of the above, though their numbers are dwindling. The
Diaspora leadership certainly knows the above. But why do Diaspora
leaders embrace (literally) the oligarchy?

How are we doing as a nation? Not well. We are losing 100,000 of our
people from the homeland every year. Can we invent riches to keep our
people on the land? No. Can we govern ourselves better? Yes, but first
we need to actually have a government. We should stop pretending we
have a government. We should stop lying. There are too few left who
could be lied to, and Diasporan leaders are increasingly turning into
ludicrous jesters. And what are we, regular Diasporans, who accept
this?

The major media, in the homeland and in the Diaspora, are controlled
by the government or the Diasporan leadership respectively. They spew
lies. What is uglier is us. Standing in church and community halls…
applauding. Empty words; ridiculous, soundless, heartless, applause. A
wailing silence all around, stabs, impalement, again and again, into
the core of who we are, into the heart of the journey that brought us
here.

Oh, what our fedayeen faced in the mountains of Agdagh and throughout
Anatolia, to save what few they could from the caravans of death. Oh,
what deprivation, rape, and abuse survived the helpless young girls,
who, somehow, against all odds, carried us, delivered us, here, before
they dropped, annihilated, but hopeful, hopeful, thinking that they
did their part, that we would do ours, that evil will not win, that
the nation will survive…

It is time we opened our eyes. It is time we became honest. It is time
we got serious. It is time we stopped being scared.

I conclude with an extract from Grigoris Balakian’s book, Armenian
Golgotha. Srpazan Balakian, on his way to be killed (which he
miraculously escaped), with a small group of destitute co-deportees
came across a sight not to be beholden by human eyes. He wrote
(translation by Peter Balakian with Aris Sevag):

“For a moment or two, on seeing this misery, we lost hope. And we
asked ourselves: Why are we living and for whom are we living?… But
then, suddenly, the flaming fire of life strengthened our weary steps.
No! No! On the contrary, it was necessary to live at all costs… All
that mattered was to stay alive and see the resurrection of the
Armenian people.”

“European” Armenians

Editorial, 31 August 2014

“In its history, culture and desire for rapprochement with Europe,
Armenia is a deeply European state…” said French Ambassador Henri
Reynaud during Bastille Day celebrations in Armenia on July 14. But is
Armenia really in Europe? Are Armenians European? Is identity
designated geographically, culturally or racially? Does it matter
whether we are European or not?

To consider–as most people do–the Ural Mountains are the static
dividing line between Asia and Europe would be inaccurate. History
shows that Europe’s eastern boundaries have been elastic. A millennium
ago the River Don was the boundary between Asia and Europe. At the end
of the 15th century the line advanced to the banks of the Volga River.
A century later the demarcation line had reached the River Ob. In the
19th century the Urals affixed the boundary between the two
continents. In the 20th century the boundary shifted to the banks of
the Rivers Emba and Kerch, near Kazakhstan. Clearly, in the past
millennium geography has not been the determinant of Europe’s eastern
boundaries.

Culturally, Armenia is a blend of the East and the West. While in
recent decades Johnny-come-lately Turkey has typically barged in to
claim that it’s ‘the’ bridge between Asia and Europe, Armenia was the
original bridge for two-thousand years. Surrounded by Muslim nations
(and sometimes occupied by them), Armenians are Christians–a faith
they share with Europeans. Christianity has also been the main channel
of Armenian cultural expression in the past 1,700 years.

Even before the birth of Christ, Armenians were rubbing shoulders with
the Greeks and the Romans: sometimes fighting them; sometime occupied
by them; sometimes forming alliances with them. A few decades after
the Crucifixion, King Drtad I of Armenia received his crown from
Emperor Nero. Armenia maintained relations with the West through
Byzantium, the eastern half of the Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages
Armenia even sent missionaries and monks to far away Ireland. Then
came the Crusaders and further alliances with the West. A number of
respected scholars believe that in addition to exporting Armenian
military architecture to Europe, the Crusaders took Armenian civic
architecture to Europe. The latter was given the “Gothic” misnomer in
Europe, although the Goths were barbarians whose contribution to
Europe was pillage and death; they were forerunners of the marauding
Turkic tribes.

After the fall of Ani, many Armenians fled to Eastern Europe and
established towns, trading posts as far north as Poland. By the 16th
century Armenian merchants were traipsing up and down Europe thus
continuing cultural cross-pollination between Armenia and Europe.
After the establishment of the Romanov dynasty Armenians began their
tortuous and prolonged campaign to persuade Russia to liberate Armenia
from Turkish/Persian rules. In the 18th and 19th century Armenians
came to perceive Europe as the fountain of modern civilization and
progress. Armenian young men in Tiflis and in Constantinople headed to
Venice, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow, Dorbat (then German-ruled Estonia),
and Paris for their education. They returned brimming with ideas of
the Enlightenment. Armenians have maintained that cultural
adoration/aspiration, and imitated Western ideals and values. In the
60 years following the Genocide, Armenians, who had survived the
Genocide and settled in the Middle East, were often modems between
Western culture and the Arab world.

If race is the determinant as to what continent Armenia belongs,
Armenia would be as European as the denizens of London, Paris and
Rome. Like them, Armenians belong to the Aryan (not a scientific term)
race and their language is Indo-European.

What would be the benefits, for Armenia, to be considered European?
It’s certainly not an admission ticket to the European Union. Neither
will it guarantee Armenia’s security. Europe can’t defend Armenia
against Turkey. Armenia also can’t expect the United States to abandon
its long-time ally Turkey for Armenia: when America considers Asian
and Muslim Turkey far more important than European and Christian
Greece, what chance does Armenia have of American support in case of
conflict with Turkey?

Some political pundits and scholars in Armenia and in the Diaspora
insist that Armenians are in denial and that Armenia is a Middle
Eastern country with a future that should be firmly in the East.
However, the East right now is not an option for Armenia: Turkey and
Azerbaijan are hostile; the Arab world continues to be in tumult; in
Central Asia the people are mostly Turkic. While Tehran is eager to
solidify its relations with Armenia, Iran is isolated since the West
decided to make it a pariah state. As well, Iran is not a big player
on the world political or economic stage.

While Arab countries co-operate, to some extent, with other Arab
countries because of shared religion, ethnicity and cultural affinity,
Armenia doesn’t have similar “siblings”. In most places outside the
Arab world, religion, ethnicity, geography are not significant factors
in weaving alliances. What matters in international politics is naked
self-interest. Justice and religious proximity are not part of the
equation. We learned that lesson at the Congress of Vienna close to
140 years ago. We learned that lesson when Britain said its ships
couldn’t climb Mount Ararat, although they could certainly climb the
much-higher Mount Everest. We learned that lesson when the French
abandoned us in Cilicia.

To be a desired friend, a country has to be desirable. To have solid
allies Armenia has to offer something (political, economic, military,
strategic, strategic, and cultural) of value to potential allies.

Whether Armenians are European or Asian is really of tertiary
importance, if not irrelevant. Besides, they say we now all live in a
flattened and “globalized” world.

When ST. Louis Murdered 200 Blacks & What It Means to Ferguson

Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:49

TEHRAN (FNA)- In Ferguson, Missouri, last month, the white producer of
Don Lemon’s CNN news show was told by a National Guard soldier, “You
want to get out of here because you’re white. Because these niggers,
you know, you never know what they’re going to do.

You may never know what “niggers” will do, but we DO know ABSOLUTELY
what whites HAVE DONE, and why we MUST heed the words of the Messenger
of Allah, The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad:

“We need land wherein we can build our own society free from the
tension, hatred and violence that have accompanied our race
relationship with the white race of America. When you learn that the
white man is not your brother, you will readily begin to see and
accept the Divine Plan that Almighty Allah (God) has in the working
for our people. Who has been our aggressors and murderers ever since
we have been in America? Who, by nature, was made quick to shed blood
— even his own?”

As the troops descend upon Ferguson, Missouri, in a grotesque display
of punitive white supremacy, let us never forget The Messenger’s words
in light of what occurred a century ago less than 20 miles to the east
of Missouri’s current militarized zone. One of the bloodiest incidents
of white savagery ever seen in America has been wiped clean from
nearly every American history book. It was uncovered and exposed by
the Nation of Islam Research Group and published in The Secret
Relationship Between Blacks & Jews, Vol. 2.

In 1917, whites of East St. Louis consumed themselves in an orgy of
grisly racial violence that included random lynchings, stonings,
shootings, rapes, amputations, human torchings, house burnings,
iron-pipe beatings, and axe-murders, culminating in the killing of up
to 200 Blacks, though the exact number may never be known. Rampaging
whites destroyed $7 million in property ($85 million in today’s
value), and 10,000 Blacks were believed to have fled from their homes.
One arrested man was heard to say, “I’ve killed my share of niggers
today. I have killed so many I am tired and somebody else can finish
them.”

Last month, Ferguson, Missouri Blacks were demonstrating against the
wanton murder of an unarmed Black youth named Michael Brown. Police
were caught on camera screaming, “Bring it! Bring it you f–ing
animals!” That is not much different from the Star’s 1917 report that
whites “stood around in groups, laughing and jeering while they
witnessed the final writhings of the terror and pain-racked wretches
who crawled to the streets to die after their flesh had been cooked in
their own homes…”

The savage massacre was the result of the economic conflict generated
at the end of legalized slavery, when whites set about to
systematically remove Blacks from the American workforce in order to
replace them with immigrants from Europe. By any standard, this ethnic
cleansing would be seen as identical to the Nazi policies of Adolf
Hitler. American history books, however, remember this wicked activity
as the “Labor Movement”–the mass campaign that gave us the Teamsters,
the American Federation of Labor (AFofL), and the Congress of
Industrial Organizations (CIO), and many other unions that secured
white working families economically but sentenced Blacks to
everlasting poverty and perpetual unemployment.

In East St. Louis in 1917, the trouble started because white business
actually preferred Blacks, who were known to be highly skilled and
dependable workers. The American Federation of Labor was then led by a
conniving racist named Samuel Gompers, a Jew who proved as willing as
any hooded Klansman or jack-booted Nazi to employ violence and murder
to achieve his Aryan dream. He complained bitterly that the hiring of
Blacks “has reached the point where drastic action must be taken…to
get rid of [them].” And thus commenced an American massacre of
Gaza-like proportions.

As St. Louis cleared the bodies from the roads and ditches, the
horrified former President Theodore Roosevelt condemned the horrifying
white violence, which he said “was waged with such appalling fatality
as to leave an indelible stigma upon the American name.” For his part,
Samuel Gompers actually defended the murderers, pinning the blame on
the business leaders of St. Louis, who, he said, had been “luring
colored men into that city to supplant white labor.” Roosevelt then
alluded to Gompers’ own heritage: “In the past I have had to listen
too often to the same kind of apologies for the murders committed
against the Armenians and the Jews….I say to you, sir, that there
can be no justification, no apology for such gross atrocities…”

The great Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois investigated the East St. Louis
massacre for the NAACP and declared that it was “engineered by Gompers
and his Trade Unions.” He concluded, in striking harmony with The Most
Honorable Elijah Muhammad, that the massacre “brought the most
unwilling of us to acknowledge that in the present Union movement, as
represented by the AFofL, there is absolutely no hope of justice for
an American of Negro descent.” The charge made by America’s leading
Black intellectual and activist could not have been clearer: the most
prominent and powerful Jew in America, Samuel Gompers, had
“engineered” a massacre of scores of innocent Black men, women, and
children. Indeed, there is no Ku Klux Klan leader or group of them who
have ever been charged with committing that level of mass murder
against Black Americans! As the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad would
say, “Think about that.”

Let us not miss the relevance of this 1917 incident to the shooting of
Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, by policeman Darren
Wilson. Even though the ex-president Roosevelt and the preeminent
Black intellectual Du Bois agreed on the culpability of America’s most
powerful union leader, Samuel Gompers never faced a single day in
jail; he did not lose a day of work; he faced no official
investigation for his central role in the mass murder of Black
American citizens. And neither will Ferguson policeman Wilson be held
responsible for his actions that ignited an international firestorm of
protest.

And that is no mistake; it is not a failure of leadership. Both Wilson
and Gompers are stalwart pillars of American white supremacy, both of
whom stepped up to take on the bloody responsibilities of white
rulership. Gompers, as a high-level member of the ruling class, had to
establish the racial hierarchy in the American labor market, ensuring
that Blacks were firmly locked in plantation and maid service at the
bottom levels of society. So adept was Gompers in this role that
Jewish scholar Paul Berman described him as “The most accomplished and
admirable Jew in American history.” An imposing monument dedicated to
Gompers in the heart of Washington, DC, secures his official place in
the shaping of white America.

And Ferguson policeman Wilson performed a vital function as the
slave-catching enforcer of a policy that is as traditional and
ingrained as the Fourth of July. His street-level role, which he
performed with six deadly bullets from his government-issued revolver,
was to secure the integrity of the pipeline that channels Black males
into the prison labor system, as well as to destroy the troublesome
and unruly Black excess–or “niggers” as Don Lemon’s National Guardsman
would say. These two “incidents”–a century apart–are not anomalies;
nor are they disconnected. They are as old as Herod’s order to kill
all the boy babies (Matthew 2:16), and as new as the private prison
contracts that require that states supply an annual quota of inmates.

The America of Samuel Gompers is the America of Darren Wilson. Both
are patriots of an alien civilization of Caucasians that has run its
course and has finally earned the wrath of God Himself. The cheap
propaganda of “post-racial advancement” and the false euphoria of
Black presidential “progress” have been brutally repudiated by the
events of recent days. Blacks are fast coming to understand The
Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, as he admonishes us, encourages
us, and implores us “to get up from the feet of our 400-year
oppressors, unite, pool our resources and do something for self.” That
is pure wisdom. All that we see proves such wisdom to be pure truth.

By the Nation of Islam (NOI) Research Group

Action commemorating Armenian Genocide victims launched in Israel

13:38, 01.09.2014

Armenian center of culture and education in Israel organized “One
candle, One Soul” action dedicated to the centennial of the Armenian
Genocide.

Participants will lit one candle to honor memory of the Genocide
victims and will send a message to five friends from five continents
with a call to recognize the Armenian Genocide and condemn it,
spokesperson for Noyan Tapan center Mendel Korsunsky told Armenian
News-NEWS.am.

The action can be joined not only by Armenians, but everyone around the world.

The fact of the Armenian Genocide is recognized by many states. It was
first recognized in 1965 by Uruguay. In general, the Armenian Genocide
in Ottoman Turkey has already been recognized by Russia, France,
Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia,
Switzerland, Sweden, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Canada, Venezuela,
Argentina, and 42 U.S. states. Armenian Genocide was recognized by the
Vatican, European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.

PROCLAMATION OF THE NKR IS THE ONLY TRUE SOLUTION

Friday, 29 August 2014 16:15

On September 2, the entire Armenian nation will celebrate the
anniversary of the proclamation of the NagornoKarabakhRepublic. On
this day in 1991, a joint session of the Nagorno Karabakh regional and
Shahumian district Soviets of People’s Deputies adopted the
Declaration on the Proclamation of the NKR. From the historical and
political points of view, this day, marking a new stage of the
Karabakh National-Liberation Movement, became an important milestone
in the fate of Artsakh and defined the future path of its development.

It was the Declaration on the proclamation of the NKR that
initiated the process of establishing an independent state, which
today, 23 years later, can be rightfully considered an established
reality.

Today’s younger generation of Artsakh may not be fully
aware of the complicated twists and turns of the National-Liberation
Movement and takes the reality of the NagornoKarabakhRepublicas a
fact. We believe that there is nothing reprehensible in this, because
the fact in itself proves that today’s youth of Artsakh, which grew up
in a free and independent country, cannot imagine itself in a
different condition, in a different reality. However, it should know
that the freedom was achieved at a high price, and the path to real
independence was through hard trials, having become a visible
testimony of the courage, honor and dignity, steadfast will and
determination of the people of Artsakh in their aspiration to build
and strengthen their hard-won statehood.

The process of creation and development of the viable
Karabakh statehood passed and is passing in extremely difficult
conditions of confrontation with Azerbaijan, which committed
unprecedented in their cruelty acts of mass murder and massacre
against the Armenian population, set a blockade on Nagorno Karabakh,
which hasn’t been lifted so far, and then unleashed a war. Thehostile
actions of the Baku regime are still underway, 20 years after the
ceasefire establishment. The Azerbaijani authorities, actually, resort
to almost any means, including clearly criminal, to impede the
political, social-economic, and cultural development of our country. A
special place in the foreign policy of Azerbaijan is occupied by
distortion of the essence of the Karabakh conflict, substitution of
the legitimate and legal bases of the proclamation of the
NagornoKarabakhRepublicby pseudo-legal theses that have nothing to do
with the reality. From many reputable platforms,Azerbaijan, in order
to justify its unfounded claims for Artsakh, tries to impose on the
appropriate international structures its viewpoint on the priority of
the principle of territorial integrity over the people’s right to
self-determination.

In this regard, I would like to remind once again that in
the context of the NKR proclamation, it is incorrect to speak about
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. The matter is that the
geopolitical transformations, which took place in the world at the
turn of the 1980-1990s, and first of all, the impending collapse of
the USSR created entirely new political and legal realities in the
South Caucasus region. It is clear that the collapse of the Soviet
Union was an inevitable consequence of the development of the domestic
political processes, and the once powerful Communist power was divided
into the parts, of which it had once been formed. For similar fair
reasons, the collapse of Azerbaijan also took place – a state
formation artificially created by the Bolsheviks, which was aptly
nicknamed as a by the tsarist General, Denikin. As a
result, two independent states were formed – the AzerbaijaniRepublic
and theNagornoKarabakhRepublic. Moreover, which is very important, the
process of secession of Nagorno Karabakh from Azerbaijan was legally
perfect, which, however, cannot be said about Azerbaijanwhen seceding
from the USSR. Whatever it was, but the fact is that
theAzerbaijaniSovietSocialistRepublic fell into oblivion, and now to
insist on the restoration of the territorial integrity of the
non-existent state formation seems to be nonsense.

Summarizing, we can state that the
NagornoKarabakhRepublic, which has passed all the stages of state
building, is a de facto established independent state. The process of
development of the Karabakh statehood has long become irreversible.
The NKR performs an independent foreign policy aimed at the protection
of its national interests. The main vector of the foreign policy
activity was and remains the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement
and achievement of the international recognition of the NKR
independence. It is important to note that the position of the
Republic’s leadership is based on the legally perfect procedure of the
NKR proclamation and on the peoples’ right to self-determination.
There is no doubt that the solution of the Karabakh issue on the
conditions of Azerbaijan, which, actually, insists on returning to the
realities of 1988, is unpromising and fraught with a new war.
Considering the above mentioned, the international mediators from the
OSCE should discuss today not the status of Nagorno Karabakh, which
has long been defined by its people and is not subject to revision,
but the principles and mechanisms for the establishment of interstate
relations between the NKR and Azerbaijan.

The Declaration of September 2, 1991 stated the right of the people of
Nagorno-Karabakh to independently resolve the issue of its state-legal
status, which did not absolutely run counter to international laws. 23
years have passed since that day, and time has only confirmed the
validity of this crucial political solution as the only true.

Leonid MARTIROSSIAN
Editor-in-Chief of Azat Artsakh newspaper

EUROPE SHOULD CHOOSE BETWEEN AZERBAIJANI ENERGY VECTORS AND DEMOCRACY

Friday, 29 August 2014 16:17

When watching the video on the trilateral meeting in Sochi, which was
spread via information sources, at first glance it seems that the
Azerbaijani President felt himself secure there. It is no longer a
secret for anyone that Ilham Aliyev is only concerned about the
extension of his power. It isn’t either a secret that he relies on the
support of Russia, as the West talks to him mainly about democracy.

This issue isn’t primary for Russia – Putin’s goal is to see
Azerbaijan in the Eurasian Union area and to contribute to the
Karabakh settlement on the Russian scenario.

In this regard, the direction of a number of statements
issued in Europe against the Aliyev clan after the Sochi meeting was
quite predictable. In particular, the phone call of the Council of
Europe’s Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland with Ilham Aliyev was
nothing more than a reminder of respect for democracy and fundamental
human rights.

The Azerbaijani authorities’ harassment and persecution of
intellectuals struggling for the elimination of the totalitarian
system and establishment of democratic principles in the country
cannot escape the attention of the international community. False and
unsubstantiated accusations are brought against these intellectuals
just because they dare to communicate with Armenian public figures,
supporting the natural right of a human being to live freely.

On the occasion of the arrest of prominent Azerbaijani
human rights activists Leyla and Arif Yunus, the West has repeatedly
sent signals to the Aliyev regime, calling upon the latter to put an
end to the violence against these people. According toTuran
Azerbaijani News Agency, the country’s Prosecutor General prohibited
another human right activist, Rasul Jafarov, to leave the country. On
the evening of July 28, he was travelling to Tbilisi by train; the
next day, the Azerbaijani border guards stopped him at the
Azeri-Georgian border, prohibiting him to leave the country. And
before that, the Azerbaijani General Prosecutor’s Office blocked the
human rights activist’s bank cards. Jafarov stated that he would try
to solve the issue of putting pressure on him at the court, institute
proceedings against the country’s General Prosecutor’s Office. He also
supposes that the authorities use the sanctions to respond to his
Strasbourg speeches. About a month ago, at the PACE session in
Strasbourg, the human rights activist presented a report on the human
rights violations in Azerbaijan.

Remarkable is Azerbaijani Turan Information Agency’s
published information about the recent study by the Institute of Peace
and Democracy. As of May, the number of victims of political
repression in Azerbaijan amounted to 130, conscience prisoners – 41,
and political prisoners – 89. When making the list, the organization
was guided by the standards set by the Amnesty International human
rights structure.

On August 12, two days after the trilateral meeting in
Sochi, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland
called the Azerbaijani President. According to information sources,
after the phone call he issued a statement, in which he expressed deep
concern over the recent arrest of prominent human rights activists in
Azerbaijan. Mr. Jagland, in particular, recalled the Working Group
created in 2003 and consisting of representatives of the Presidential
Administration and the civil society, and noted that it had operated
by 2008. The CE Secretary General sent a signal to Aliyev, making him
understand that the Group’s activities would soon be restored with the
participation of the CE representatives, which will allow to check the
Azerbaijani authorities’ charges against the human rights activists.
It will also allow establishing a dialogue between the authorities and
the civil society.

Ilham Aliyev must do corresponding conclusions not only
from the above mentioned statement – the European human rights
activists placed an article disclosing Aliyev’s policy at the Open
Democracy website. The Europeans record that prominent human rights
activists in Azerbaijan are subjected to harassment, but due to the
‘caviar diplomacy’, the authorities go unpunished. It is emphasized
that President Aliyev, arresting the human rights activists, is
radically destroying his country’s civil society. The articles
mentioned the names of the arrested human rights activists: Leyla and
Arif Yunus, Hasan Huseynli, Rasul Jafarov, and Intigam Aliyev. A few
days after the publication of the article, the Azerbaijani sources
reported about the arrest of young activist Murad Adilov.

Azerbaijan pursues 21 public organizations – the Aliyev
regime accuses them of tax evasion and other economic crimes.

It is necessary to pay attention to the August 15
statement of the OSCE USA Mission, which called on Azerbaijan to stop
the arrests of peaceful activists. The latter was connected with the
settlement of the Karabakh conflict. Mission Leader Harry Robins
notified from Vienna the Azerbaijani authorities that it was necessary
to put an end to political persecution and to freezing bank accounts
of individuals and organizations – people are struggling for their
fundamental rights.

Such an emphasis isn’t, surely, accidental – the
structure, which assumed the mission of peace settlement of the
Karabakh conflict, is well aware that the Azerbaijani authorities are
targeting the intellectuals who have a good idea of the content of the
Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict and propose to establish dialogue
between the parties. Just for this reason they are persecuted by their
own authorities.Let’s recall also that an educational component is
available, as a rule, in the statements and appeals by the West, in
particular, European institutions, addressed to Azerbaijan.Thus, the
statement of the USA mission at the OSCE reads that any country
striving for stability and prosperity should respect the freedoms
stated by the human rights activists.

In the meantime, Ilham Aliyev continues to ignore these
warnings and calls, while Azerbaijan is chairing the Council of
Europe’s Committee of Ministers. Maybe it treats so, considering the
European response to every Russian initiative in the process of the
Karabakh conflict peaceful settlement.

Only one conclusion can be made from this – Europe should
finally choose between the Azerbaijani energy vectors and democracy.
The international community should apply appropriate sanctions against
Azerbaijan, first of all, depriving it of the right to exercise the
presidency of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers.
Generally, this country has nothing to do with the Council of Europe
and other international structures, which are designed to protect
human rights and to develop democratic institutions and civil society.

Ruzan ISHKHANIAN

Policemen apply violence against defendant to get testimonies from him

11:51 | September 1,2014 | Official

A criminal case was instituted based on the materials prepared in the
Special Investigation Service of the Republic of Armenia in accordance
with Part 2 of Article 309 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of
Armenia, the SIS Press Service reports.

Davit T., a defendant of the criminal case reviewed in the Court of
General Jurisdiction of Ajapnyak and Davtashen Administrative
Districts and a prisoner of “Nubarashen” Criminal-Executive
Institution, reports that the employees of Mashtots department and
Yerevan city Administration of the Police of the Republic of Armenia
applied violence against him in order to get testimonies from him
about the murder of Mariam H. They threatened that they would apply
the same measures in respect of his mother and sister, as a result of
which Davit T. had to gave testimonies inconsistent with the reality.
A preliminary investigation is under way.

The suspect or the accused of the alleged offence is deemed innocent
unless his or her innocence is not proved by virtue of the effective
court verdict in the manner prescribed by the Criminal Procedure Code
of the Republic of Armenia.

President Sargsyan’s message on Knowledge Day

11:05 01.09.2014

Dear schoolchildren, teachers and parents,
Dear students and faculty,

I congratulate you on the Knowledge Day and the start of the new academic year.

Culture and literature are the age-old symbols of our nation; even in
the most difficult situations we did not abandon scientific progress
and were among the most literate nations in the region.

Those long-standing progressive traditions of ours took us to a
qualitatively new port of call: improving the quality of education is
among our nation’s priorities today.

Our achievements in this field stand further out against the
background of Armenian schoolchildren’s victories in international
Olympiads. This is only the beginning of a rocky road full of many
challenges that can be overcome with consistent joint effort.

I wish good luck to all teachers and professors, all pupils and
students in the new academic year. I offer special felicitations to
those students taking the first step at educational institutions.

May the coming school year be fruitful, because our pupils and
students are laying a solid foundation not only for their professional
career, but also for the future of Armenia.

About 250 ceasefire violations by Azerbaijan reported last week

13:17 01.09.2014

According to the data of the NKR Defense Army, about 250 cases of
ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the
line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and
Azerbaijan from August 24 to 30.

The rival fired more than 2,000 shots from weapons of different
caliber in the direction of the Armenian positions.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army remained committed to the
maintenance of the ceasefire regime and resorted to retaliatory
actions only in case of extreme necessity.

ARMENIE
Le Président Sarkissian dit ne pas voir de > dans le
processus de négociation

Les agences de presse et les chaînes de télévision rendent compte de
la participation du Président Sarkissian aux cérémonies de clôture des
jeux de la jeunesse arménienne > à Tsaghkadzor, ayant
réuni plus de 500 jeunes d’Arménie, du HK et de la diaspora. Le Chef
de l’Etat a longuement discuté avec les jeunes et les organisateurs
réunis à cette occasion. Dans son allocution, il a cité les nombreux
succès arméniens enregistrés lors des rencontres internationales
telles que les olympiades scolaires, ainsi que ceux des jeunes
militaires, notamment des tankistes qui viennent de devenir
vice-champions du monde au concours du biathlon international des
chars : >. Lors d’une conférence de presse à Tsaghkadzor
en marge de cette manifestation, le Chef de l’Etat a évoqué le conflit
du HK, estimant que l’objectif de l’Azerbaïdjan est de montrer à la
communauté internationale que la guerre n’est pas terminée et que le
statu quo est inadmissible. Le Président de la République a expliqué
les affrontements frontaliers du début août par le souhait de Bakou de
provoquer la panique au sein de la population arménienne, ainsi que de
justifier les énormes dépenses militaires de ces dernières années. Le
Chef de l’Etat a qualifié de > l’escalade du mois,
dans la mesure où, pour la première fois, l’Azerbaïdjan a effectué des
tirs de mortiers. Selon le Président, depuis le sommet de Kazan > par l’Azerbaïdjan, aucun progrès sensible n’a pu être
enregistré dans le processus de négociation : >, le Chef de l’Etat a convenu que tous les
membres de l’Union ne sont pas également satisfaits mais que