Author: Babajanian Karo

URGENT CALL TO DEFEND REGHTEOUS AZERIS

Ragip Zarakolu
Society – Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 10:47

Conscience is a distinctive moral quality of mankind. The
conscientious, the honest, the righteous or whatever you may choose
to call them represent the true pride and honour of a country, but
criminals wielding an axe never can! A writer in Azerbaijan who
should have been the pride of his country is presently in mortal
danger, and the threat emanates from the President of the country,
who is a post-Soviet autocrat. The title of “People’s Writer” of
the Republic of Azerbaijan and the associated state award have been
rescinded, his author’s pension has been cancelled, and his wife and
son have been fired from their jobs. This writer is Ekrem Eylisli, an
author, scriptwriter and dramatist who adopted the great Soviet writer
Maxim Gorky’s philosophy of the fraternity of peoples at Maxim Gorky
Literature Institute in Moscow, dedicated to that great man. He is
presently 75 years old, a prolific writer published in many magazines
and newspapers. He was elected to the parliament in 2005. His literary
life had begun in 1959 with poetry, and continued with stories, plays,
scripts and novels. He has also translated many works by humanist
writers such as Gabriel G. Marquez, Turgenev and Chinghiz Aitmatov
into the Azeri language. His plays have been performed in many former
Soviet cities including Yerevan. Lynch mobs are now mobilized in front
of his house, very much like we had once witnessed in Maras and Sivas.

An outstanding slogan is >, calling on
the Azeri officer Ramil Sahiboglu Seferov who decapitated an Armenian
officer called Gurgen Margaryan with an axe in his sleep in 2004,
twenty days before they were to return home (*). They were co-trainees
in the NATO-sponsored > program in Budapest.

Melahet Ibrahimqizi -an Azeri parliamentarian who had been a part of
the delegation flown in to Ankara to talk with parliamentary chairman
Koksal Toptan (**), CHP leader Deniz Baykal, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli,
as well as various AKP functionaries, and eventually to block the
move altogether when a protocol was signed in 2009 between Armenia
and Turkey to normalize relations and open the border- now tries to
extend the lynch campaign to Turkey as well, saying in an aggressive
speech delivered in the Azeri parliament that Eylisli insults not only
Azerbaijanis, but the Turkish nation as a whole. Demands were even
made in that parliamentary session that the writer be subjected to a
DNA test and that he should be deprived of citizenship. The reason
for all this is the publication of Eylisli’s latest novella “Stone
Dreams” in the Russian literary magazine Druzhba Narodov (Fraternity
of Peoples). The novella has not even been published in Azeri yet. An
enraged mob gathered in front of Eynisli’s home in the capital Baku,
shouting “Shame on you, traitor!”, and burning his books, and his
portraits with a cross printed on his forehead. The novella tells the
story of two Azeri men who tried to protect their Armenian neighbours
from ethnic violence. It also mentions pogroms against Armenians in
Sumguit and Baku cities in a vein of conscientious criticism. The
novella was actually finished in 2007, but could only be published
5 years later in Russian. It is interesting to note that an Armenian
writer also dealt with the Armenian-Azeri conflict in a conscientious
tone -at about the same time– and was awarded a prize in the Republic
of Azerbaijan. The Writers Union where he was a member reacted to
his acceptance of an Azerbaijani award (though not to his writing of
the story itself), whereupon the writer resigned from the Union in
protest. However, he never became the target of a hate campaign as
is the case in Baku now. Researcher Sarkis Hatspanian says that the
Armenian writer Levon Cavakhyan wrote the story “Kirve” (Godfather)
in 2008, saying “Azeris are not my enemy” (***). Azeri writer Ekrem
Eynisli -who had said “Armenians are not my enemy” at about the same
time–now faces a lynch campaign 5 years later for having uttered the
same sentence. Though invited by Western countries and Russia, Ekrem
Eynisli takes a proud stance, saying “This is my homeland and I will
not leave it”. I call upon international public opinion as well as the
democratic public in Turkey and Azerbaijan to to solidarize actively
with Ekrem Eynisli in order to avert a new murder similar to that
committed against Hrant Dink. Ragip Zarakolu (****) (*) Seferov was
condemned to life imprisonment in Hungary, but Azerbaijan’s president
Aliev had him immediately released by presidential pardon on August
31, 2012, when he was extradited to Azerbaijan. (**) Koksal Toptan
was to exercise his powers as Chairman of the Turkish Parliament in
2009 in impounding and returning -at the behest of CHP’s MP Sukru
Elekdag–books sent to members of parliament by the Gomidas Institute,
thereby violating the parliamentarians’ freedom to communicate. (***)
facebook.com/notes/sarkis-hatspanian/kirve/489684637733351 (****)
Founding Member of Human Rights Association and of Social History
Foundation; member of PEN Turkey and of the Writers Union of Turkey;
member of Turkish Publishers Association and of the International
Committee for the Freedom to Publish; nobel Peace Prize Nominee by
Swedish Parliament members and by the French Section of GIT [the
International Work Group (GIT) ‘Academic Liberty and Freedom of
Research [in Turkey]’ ( and www.gitinitiative . com).”

]

IRANIAN AMBASSADOR DENIES EXISTENCE OF AGREEMENTS BETWEEN ARMENIA AND IRAN FOR RENTING PASTURES

Trend, Azerbaijan
Feb 12 2013

Iranian Ambassador To Armenia Mohammad Reis Denies The Existence
Of Any Agreements Between Armenia And Iran For Renting Pastures In
Syunik Region, Arka News Agency Reported.

In December 2012, The Iranian Media Reported That It Was Planned To
Sign An Agreement During The Expected Visit Of Head Of Armenian Syunik
Region To The Iranian Province Of Eastern Azerbaijan Under Which The
Syunik Region Pastures Would Be Rented For Five Years For Grazing
Five Thousand Heads Of Cattle From The Province Of East Azerbaijan
In exchange for agricultural equipment produced in the province.

“Such an agreement was not signed between Armenia and Iran,” Reis
said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The ambassador explained that such issues should be decided not by
governors, but by the countries’ leadership, adding that special
studies and official negotiations have to be conducted prior to
the signing of such documents. In addition, such contracts must be
ratified by the parliaments of both countries.

“It is not an issue that can be resolved secretly between the two
parties,” he said.

Furthermore, the ambassador said that if such an agreement will be
signed between Armenia and Iran, it will take into account interests
of both sides.

In December 2012, Armenian Minister of Territorial Administration,
Deputy Prime Minister Armen Gevorgyan also confirmed that no agreement
was signed for renting pastures in Syunik between Armenia and Iran.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, there are 1.118.000 hectares
of pasture in Armenia, however, only 30 percent are put to efficient
use.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ACCUSES AZERBAIJAN’S GOVERNMENT OF MISTREATING WRITER

Calgary Herald, Canada
Feb 12 2013

By Aida Sultanova And Peter Leonard, The Associated Press

BAKU, Azerbaijan – Human Rights Watch accused the government of
Azerbaijan on Tuesday of intimidating a writer at the centre of a
public row over his depiction of violence between Azerbaijanis and
Armenians.

The New York-based group said that foreign governments should urge
oil-rich Azerbaijan to investigate what it described as threats
against Akram Aylisli.

Aylisli’s novel “Stone Dreams” is set in part during the wake of
a bitter war in the 1990s between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the
disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The book makes allusions to
instances of mob violence by Azerbaijanis against helpless Armenians.

Many see the work as a condemnation of the Azerbaijani people.

The Azerbaijani government has long laid all the blame for the war
on Armenia.

In a decree stripping the 75-year-old writer of state honours and
his monthly $1,270 pension, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said
that Aylisli was trying to cast Azerbaijanis in an inhumane light.

On Monday, outspoken pro-government lawmaker Hafiz Hajiyev told local
media he is offering a $12,700 reward to anybody that would cut off
Aylisli’s ear.

Police spokesman Ehsan Zahid said the threat would be investigated,
even though nobody has yet made a formal complaint to the authorities.

“Nobody, regardless of their position in society, or their social,
political, religious and ethnic identity, has any right to mete out
their own justice,” Zahid said.

People have protested outside Aylisli’s home, and copies of his books
have been burned. The writer’s wife and son have both been dismissed
from their jobs amid widespread public acrimony.

Human Rights Watch said Aylisli’s son was compelled to resign his
position as a senior official in the customs agency this month. His
wife was likewise made to quit her job at a public library, said HRW.

“The Azerbaijani authorities have an obligation to protect Akram
Aylisli,” Hugh Williamson, the Europe and Central Asia director at
Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Instead, they have led
the effort to intimidate him, putting him at risk with a campaign of
vicious smears and hostile rhetoric.”

The war over Nagorno-Karabakh has left a legacy of deep-seated hatred
between the former Soviet republics. Leaders frequently trade barbs,
and minor cross-border clashes have resulted in many fatalities since
the cease-fire was officially declared in 1994.

Last week, Aylisli told The Associated Press that he intended his novel
to serve as a call to peace between the bitterly opposed countries and
that he hoped an Armenian writer would write a similar work. “I didn’t
think it would be so politicized. I wanted to show that Azerbaijanis
and Armenians are not enemies,” he said.

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry and the presidential administration
didn’t respond to telephone calls Tuesday seeking comment about the
author’s treatment.

Leonard reported from Almaty, Kazakhstan.

BRING ME THE EAR OF AKRAM AYLISLI! POLITICIAN OFFERS £8,000 FOR ATTACK ON WRITER

Head of political party offers £8,000 for author’s body part over
controversial novel

Shaun Walker Author Biography

Moscow

of-akram-aylisli-politician-offers-8000-for-attack-on-writer-8492268.html

Tuesday 12 February 2013

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Akram Aylisli is in trouble for portraying violence by Azerbaijanis
against Armenians

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A politician in Azerbaijan has offered a cash reward for anyone who
slices off the ear of a controversial writer – the latest twist in
an alleged hate campaign waged by the country’s authoritarian
government in an apparent attempt to distract attention from internal
issues.

The author, Akram Aylisli, is in trouble for his novel Stone Dreams,
in which he portrayed scenes of violence carried out by Azerbaijanis
against their Armenian foes during the riots that accompanied the
break-up of the Soviet Union. What appears to be a coordinated
campaign has been unleashed against him, with television programmes
and official pronouncements railing against the writer.

He was expelled from the Union of Writers and had his presidential
pension rescinded. His wife and son have also lost their jobs, while
protesters have organised book-burnings of his works, held pickets
outside his house, and burned effigies of him.

Events took an even more alarming turn when Hafiz Haciyev, the head
of a pro-government political party, said his party would pay 10,000
manat (£8,000) for the ear of the author.

“The book was meant to be about conciliation between Azeris and
Armenians,” Mr Aylisli told The Independent from Baku. “I realised
when I wrote it that it could be controversial, but I didn’t for a
minute think that there would be this giant campaign, on a state
level.”

Azerbaijan is a bitter foe of neighbouring Armenia, and the two
countries fought a war in the early 1990s over Nagorno-Karabakh,
which is recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is currently run by a
pro-Armenian government. There is still a heavily armed front line of
muddy trenches between the two countries, and periodic militaristic
rhetoric from both sides.

“If a person has no national spirit, he cannot have a sense of
humanity,” said Ali Hasanov, an aide to Azerbaijan’s President,
Ilham Aliyev, commenting on Mr Aylisli’s novel. “The Azerbaijani
people must express public hatred towards these people.”

“The Azerbaijani authorities have an obligation to protect Akram
Aylisli,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. “Instead, they have led the effort to intimidate
him, putting him at risk with a campaign of vicious smears and
hostile rhetoric.”

The campaign comes after a period of unusual civil unrest in the
country, as Mr Aliyev prepares to stand for re-election later in the
year. Last month, thousands of people attended an unsanctioned rally
in Baku over conditions in the military, and later there were violent
protests in a provincial town after a minister’s son crashed his
luxury car into a local’s more modest vehicle. Although the
President still retains the support of the majority of Azeris,
analysts say discontent over Mr Aliyev’s authoritarian methods and
the rampant corruption of the ruling elite is eroding the regime’s
popularity.

“Something is definitely changing in Azerbaijan,” said Emin Milli,
a blogger and activist who was released from a 15-day jail sentence
for organising unsanctioned rallies last month. “For the first time,
thousands of people are coming out to protest. This is the
government’s old game to rally support – play the nationalist
card.”

KIRO MANOYAN: WE SHOULD NOT KEEP SILENT

Tuesday,
February 12

The Turkish authorities bear main responsibility for the violence
committed against Armenian women in Turkey, representative of the
ARF Dashnaktsutyun Party Kiro Manoyan told reporters today.

In his words, the attacks on Armenian woman in Turkey have to do
with the approaching 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. “The
police, rather than authorities, have responded to these crimes. It
is clear that the police are doing everything to find the criminals,
but the main thing is that the authorities did not react in any way,”
Manoyan stated.

He also underlined the necessity to constantly raise this issue so as
to prevent new crimes. “We should not keep silent,” Kiro Manoyan said.

TODAY, 19:51

Aysor.am

ANCIENT LANGUAGES RECONSTRUCTED BY COMPUTER PROGRAM

TERT.AM
17:47 ~U 12.02.13

A new tool has been developed that can reconstruct long-dead languages.

Researchers have created software that can rebuild protolanguages – the
ancient tongues from which our modern languages evolved, BBC reports.

To test the system, the team took 637 languages currently spoken
in Asia and the Pacific and recreated the early language from which
they descended.

The work is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science.

Currently language reconstructions are carried out by linguists –
but the process is slow and labour-intensive.

Dan Klein, an associate professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, said: “It’s very time consuming for humans to look at all
the data. There are thousands of languages in the world, with thousands
of words each, not to mention all of those languages’ ancestors.

“It would take hundreds of lifetimes to pore over all those languages,
cross-referencing all the different changes that happened across such
an expanse of space – and of time. But this is where computers shine.”

Languages change gradually over time.

Over thousands of years, tiny variations in the way that we produce
sounds have meant that early languages have morphed into many different
descendents.

Dr Klein explains: “These sound changes are almost always regular,
with similar words changing in similar ways, so patterns are left
that a human or a computer can find.

“The trick is to identify these patterns of change and then to
‘reverse’ them, basically evolving words backwards in time.”

The scientists demonstrated their system by looking at a group of
Austronesian languages that are currently spoken in southeast Asia,
parts of continental Asia and the Pacific.

>>From a database of 142,000 words, the system was able to recreate
the early language from which these modern tongues derived. The
scientists believe it would have been spoken about 7,000 years ago.

They then compared the computer’s findings to those of linguists,
finding that 85% of the early words that the software presented were
within one “character” – or sound – of the words that the language
experts had identified.

But while the computerised method was much faster, the scientists
said it would not put the experts out of a job.

The software can churn through large amounts of data quickly, but it
does not bring the same degree of accuracy as a linguist’s expertise.

Dr Klein said: “Our system still has shortcomings. For example, it
can’t handle morphological changes or re-duplications – how a word like
‘cat’ becomes ‘kitty-cat’.

“At a much deeper level, our system doesn’t explain why or how certain
changes happened, only that they probably did happen.”

While researchers are able to reconstruct languages that date back
thousands of years, there is still a question mark over whether it
would ever be possible to go even further back to recreate the very
first protolanguage from which all others evolved.

YERKRAPAH: INDEPENDENCE OF NAGORNO-KARABAKH IS AN IRREVERSIBLE FACT

ARMINFO
Tuesday, February 12, 18:00

Chairman of the Yerkrapah Union of Volunteers Manvel Grigoryan has
congratulated the Armenian people on the 25th anniversary of the
Artsakh Movement.

“The arousal of 1988 is one of the most heroic pages of our history.

Armenian people were able to overcome all difficulties by their
solidarity. Due to the fight of our people and dedication of the
heroes, today we have a liberated Artsakh, whose independence is
already irreversible”, Grigoryan said.

AZERBAIJAN IS MAKING A MOCKERY OF ITS INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS – HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

NEWS.AM
February 12, 2013 | 17:38

The Azerbaijani government should immediately end a hostile campaign
of intimidation against writer Akram Aylisli, Human Rights Watch
said today.

Foreign governments and intergovernmental organizations of which
Azerbaijan is a member should speak out against this intimidation
campaign. They should urge the authorities to immediately investigate
those responsible for threats against Aylisli, and to respect freedom
of expression.

“The Azerbaijani authorities have an obligation to protect Akram
Aylisli,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. “Instead, they have led the effort to intimidate
him, putting him at risk with a campaign of vicious smears and
hostile rhetoric.”

Head of Azerbaijani pro-government Hafiz Hajiyev publicly said
that he would pay AZN10,000 [US$12,700] to anyone who would cut off
Aylisli’s ear.

“Azerbaijan’s authorities should immediately investigate and hold
accountable anyone responsible for making threats against Aylisli,
and ensure his personal safety,” Williamson said.

“The government of Azerbaijan is making a mockery of its international
obligations on freedom of expression,” Williamson added. “This
is shocking, particularly after Azerbaijani officials flocked to
Strasbourg last month to tout the government’s human rights record
at the Council of Europe.”

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH URGES AZERBAIJAN TO END HOSTILE CAMPAIGN OF INTIMIDATION AGAINST WRITER AKRAM AYLISLI

12.02.13

The Azerbaijani government should immediately end a hostile campaign
of intimidation against writer Akram Aylisli, Human Rights Watch
said today.

Aylisli recently published a novel depicting relationships between
ethnic Azeris and Armenians in Azerbaijan.

Foreign governments and intergovernmental organizations of which
Azerbaijan is a member should speak out against this intimidation
campaign. They should urge the authorities to immediately investigate
those responsible for threats against Aylisli, and to respect freedom
of expression.

“The Azerbaijani authorities have an obligation to protect Akram
Aylisli,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at
Human Rights Watch. “Instead, they have led the effort to intimidate
him, putting him at risk with a campaign of vicious smears and
hostile rhetoric.”

Aylisli, a member of the Union of Writers of Azerbaijan since the
Soviet era, is the author of Stone Dreams. The novel includes a
description of violence by ethnic Azeris against Armenians during the
1920s, and at the end of the Soviet era, when the two countries engaged
in armed conflict. Aylisli told Human Rights Watch that he saw the
novel as an appeal for friendship between the two nations. The novel
was published in Friendship of Peoples, a Russian literary journal,
in December 2012.

Aylisli’s sympathetic portrayal of Armenians and condemnation of
violence against them caused uproar in Azerbaijan. An escalating
crescendo of hateful rhetoric and threats against Aylisli started at
the end of January 2013, culminating in a February 11 public statement
by Hafiz Hajiyev, head of Modern Musavat, a pro-government political
party. Hajiyev publicly said that he would pay $12,700 to anyone who
would cut off Aylisli’s ear.

“Azerbaijan’s authorities should immediately investigate and hold
accountable anyone responsible for making threats against Aylisli,
and ensure his personal safety,” Williamson said.

In the wake of the public vitriol, Aylisli’s wife and son were fired
from their jobs. On February 4, a senior officer at Azerbaijan’s
customs agency forced Najaf Naibov-Aylisli, Aylisli’s son, to sign
a statement that he was “voluntarily” resigning from his job as
department chief. Aylisli told Human Rights Watch his son had received
no reprimands during his 12 years on job.

“The government of Azerbaijan is making a mockery of its international
obligations on freedom of expression,” Williamson said. “This
is shocking, particularly after Azerbaijani officials flocked to
Strasbourg last month to tout the government’s human rights record
at the Council of Europe.”

“WITH A SUDDEN KICK, HAYRIKIAN SCORES AN OWN GOAL”

Tuesday,
February 12

What has happened to Hayrikian is a classic example of
self-destruction, the leader of Armenia’s Communist Party Ruben
Tovmasian said at the meeting with journalists today. “After his
changeable behavior in 24 hours when he submitted and then withdraw
his application, I can only say that Hayrikian spent those 17 years
in prison as an ordinary prisoner. With a sudden kick, Hayrikian has
scored an own goal”.

Tovmasian discussed the domestic political situation, saying that
nowadays institute of president has lost its value to such an extent
that just about everyone wants to become president. In his opinion,
the unification of the three opposition candidates is impossible for
one reason – their haughtiness.

TODAY, 17:08

Aysor.am