Author: Badalian Vardan

PRESS RELEASE
The Heritage Party
31 Moscovian Street, Suite 172
Yerevan, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 53.69.13
Fax: (+374 – 10) 53.26.97
Email: [email protected]
Website:

31 March 2012

Syunik Governor Obstructs Establishment of Heritage Office

Goris–On March 29, 2012, the regional authorities of Syunik prevented
Heritage activists and Member of Parliament Zaruhi Postanjyan from
establishing regional election headquarters in Syunik.

Citizens living in Goris had earlier provided Heritage with an
office. After receiving pressure from the authorities, however, the
citizens were forced to ask the party to return the office keys and
remove the Heritage emblem from the building.

When asked for an explanation over the phone, Syunik Governor Surik
Khachatryan, a Republican Party candidate for parliament, merely
insulted Postanjyan.

Heritage strongly condemns the governor’s behavior and submits it to
the attention of the Central Election Commission and relevant law
enforcement bodies. Heritage also demands that equal competitive
conditions be protected for all political forces during the
pre-election season.

Heritage Campaign Headquarters

PROSECUTOR APPEALS RULING IN DINK MURDER CASE

PanARMENIAN.Net
March 29, 2012 – 19:47 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Prosecutor Hikmet Usta has appealed the ruling in
the Hrant Dink murder trial, arguing that the crime was an organized
hit, Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Usta said the court’s ruling acknowledged the existence of an
organization behind the killing, but said there was a “lack of
evidence” to prove its existence. The prosecutor said he based the
appeal on the grounds that the court reached a verdict despite serious
deficiencies in the investigation of the case.

“The court should have requested that the prosecution collect more
evidence if it was lacking,” Usta said. “The court rejected our
requests to expand the investigation, it did not examine documents
related to the Ergenekon gang and did not include people in the case
who should have been put on trial with the existing suspects.”

CANADIANS – FIRST SPECTATOR OF PLAY TELLING ABOUT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

ARMENPRESS
MARCH 29, 2012
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, MARCH 29, ARMENPRESS: On 29 March “State of Denial” play
authored by Rahul Varma was presented to the Canadian spectator,
Armenpress reports citing “montrealmirror” website.

In writing this play, Varma derived a fictional story from multiple
true stories garnered from years of interviews as a part of the
research for Life Stories of Montrealers Displaced by Genocide, War
and Other Human Rights Violations. State of Denial is being presented
as a part of Life Stories Montreal and is directed by Deborah Forde.

The story centres around a Rwandan-born Canadian filmmaker, Odette,
who has been working in Turkey to create a documentary about Armenian
survivors of the genocide that took place almost a hundred years ago
during the rule of the Ottoman empire.

One interesting thing about this play is that while watching it one
cannot help but notice the similarities between stories from the
Armenian genocide, the filmmaker”s stories of Rwanda, and stories
that we have all heard about the most famous of genocides, the
Holocaust. This helps drive home the fact that genocide is a tragedy
that keeps on occurring, which is why the playwright seeks to spread
these stories and prevent history from repeating itself.

MORE ARMENIANS SEEK ASYLUM ABROAD
Heghine Buniatian

29.03.2012

The number of Armenian citizens seeking asylum in developed countries
has been on the rise in the past two years, according to a UN refugee
agency.

In a recently published report the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees says more than 11,000 citizens of Armenia,
a three-million-strong nation in the South Caucasus, have asked the
governments of wealthy nations in the West to grant them asylum during
the period in question.

Thus, according to the report, the number of applications for asylum
from Armenians in France doubled in 2011 to more than 3,600 as compared
to the previous year’s figure, making citizens of Armenia the third
largest group of asylum seekers in France after citizens of Russia
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which, by contrast, have
populations of around 140 million and 70 million, respectively.

Apart from France, such countries as Australia, Germany, Canada
and Poland have also reported an increase in the number of asylum
applicants from Armenia.

Armenia is the 16th among the world’s 40 nations whose citizens most
frequently seek asylum in Europe. Remarkably, it has the smallest
population among the top 20 countries on this list. In 2011, more
than 6,000 Armenians applied for asylum in European countries, an
increase by a thousand as compared to the year before.

In contrast, the number of asylum seekers in Armenia has been
steadily on the decline in the past five years. Whereas the number
of foreigners applying for asylum in Armenia in 2007 was 300, then
in 2011 it dropped to 70.

In general, analyzing the global trends, the authors of the report
conclude that the number of people seeking asylum from the governments
of industrialized nations has increased by 20 percent in the wake
of the revolutions that started in the Arab world in 2011, with the
number of Arab refugees in Europe reaching a record high.

ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE RESULTS OF THE GENOCIDE

13:44 – 30.03.2012

“Even though the Armenian Parliament has dozens of delegations in
International establishments but the staff of our Parliament, mildly
said, is not ready to commit diplomatic actions”, said member of ARF
Bureau, head of ARF fraction Vahan Hovhannisyan during the conference.

He believes that today we do not have any more actual issue that the
Armenian Cause as all the problems we are facing today are results
of the great tragedy of the Armenian history which is the Armenian
Genocide.

“Not fighting against the Genocide means to die as the only way to
survive is through fighting and our fight is in that direction. That
does not mean that we should not fight for other problems but we
should also realize that this entire situation is a result of the
Armenian Genocide. So, thinking that the battle against the Armenian
Genocide and the International recognition of Artsakh Republic are
less actual than the local problems will lead us to nowhere”, said
Vahan Hovhannisyan.

HAYKAKAN ZHAMANAK: DEAD SOULS TO TAKE PART IN ARMENIA VOTING

Tert.am
30.03.12

Voters’ lists are going to be a “fascinating” feature of the
forthcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia.

The official number of voters is increasing as rapidly as emigration
is reducing the country’s population. If things go on like this,
the number of voters will soon exceed Armenia’s population.

What is the reason for the increasing number of voters? First,
persons who turn 18 are added to the lists, whereas dead people are
not struck off. Of course, the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA)
is the first to benefit from this – inaccurate voter lists afford
ample opportunities for election rigging.

The persons including dead people’s names in the voters lists stop
at nothing. For example, Fadey Sargsyan, a renowned scientist, who
died on January 10, 2010, is “taking part in the voting” in election
district #10.

ARMENIA SENDS 7 WEIGHTLIFTERS TO EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP

PanARMENIAN.Net
March 30, 2012 – 10:38 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – Samvel Grigoryan, Vanik Avetisyan (69 kg), Aghasi
Aghasyan, Vahram Gevorgyan (85 kg), Vardan Davtyan, Norayr Vardanyan
(94 kg) and heavyweight Hayk Hakobyan will participate in European
Weightlifting Championships due on April 6-16, in Antalya, Turkey.

Tigran Martirosyan, Ara Khachatryan, Arakel and Araik Mirzoyans will
not take part in the tournament, as they will train for Olympic Games.

European Weightlifting Federation will hold a meeting in Antalya
prior to the championship, to be attended by Armenian Weightlifting
Federation chairman Samvel Khachatryan and secretary Pashik Alaverdyan.

Azeri Scientists Not Ready To Cooperate With Their Armenian Colleagues

arminfo
Thursday, March 29, 19:02

Azeri scientists are not ready to cooperate with their Armenian
colleagues.

“Our scientists are ready to cooperate while our Azeri colleagues
are not,” Head of the Yerevan Office of the International Science and
Technology Center Hamlet Navasardyan said in an interview to ArmInfo.

“The less politics the more science: there are problems that are
common not only for our region but for the whole world and in order
to solve them we need to cooperate,” Navasardyan said.

He noted that the only framework Armenian and Azeri scientists
cooperate in for the time being is the joint programs of the
International Science and Technology Center, whose members are Armenia,
Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Russia, and the Ukrainian
Science and Technology Center, whose members are Azerbaijan, Ukraine,
Moldova, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

“During our joint events Armenian and Azeri scientists discuss some
common regional problems, like river monitoring, but there is no
direct contact yet,” Navasardyan said.

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : L’AMBASSADEUR TURC EVITE UNE EXPOSITION
Stephane

armenews.com
vendredi 30 mars 2012

Mardi 20 mars en presence de la chancelière Angela Merkel s’est ouvert
a Berlin l’exposition ” Heimatweh ” (mal du pays).

L’ambassadeur de Turquie en Allemagne, Huseyin Avni Karslioglu qui
avait accepte une invitation d’Erika Steinbach (CDU) Presidente de la
Federation des personnes deplacees ne s’est pas rendu a l’exposition.

L’exposition est ciblee sur les souffrances de 12 a 14 millions
d’Allemands qui ont ete expulses après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale
de leurs maisons mais elle evoque aussi le sort des Armeniens qui
ont dû quitter pendant la Première Guerre mondiale l’Empire ottoman
et qualifie les massacres de genocide.

DES QUESTIONS POUR LE NOUVEAU BLOC DE L’OPPOSITION
Stephane

armenews.com
vendredi 30 mars 2012

Deux partis de l’opposition ont officiellement rejoint leurs forces
pour concourrir aux prochaines elections parlementaires avec une
liste de candidats communs ce qui a incite des objections fortes de
quelques-uns de leurs membres.

Les partis (Heritage) Zharangutyun et Libres Democrates ont rendu
public la liste après qu’elle ait ete approuvee par leurs directions.

La composition de la liste est telle que seulement deux des sept
deputes du parti Zharangutyun dans l’Assemblee nationale sortante –
Hovannisian et Zaruhi Postanjian – auront une chance realiste d’entrer
au Parlement sous le système de la representation proportionnelle.

Armen Martirosian, l’ancien president du parti Zharangutyun, est
seulement 16ème dans la liste, derrière des membres moins en vue
de son parti aussi bien que plusieurs membres de Libres Democrates,
dont l’ancien Ministre des Affaires Etrangères Alexandre Arzumanian.

Martirosian et deux autres deputes du Zharangutyun, Stepan Safarian
et Anahit Bakhshian, poseront aussi leur candidature au Parlement
dans des circonscriptions electorales de mandat simple a Erevan. Ils
feront probablement face aux riches candidats progouvernementaux qui
reussissent traditionnellement lors de ces elections tenues sur une
base individuelle.

Karine Hakobian, secretaire du parti Zharangutyun, a demissionne
comme membre du parti en protestation contre ” cette liste injuste ”
qu’elle a dit a ete redige seule par Hovannisian. Elle est malheureuse
de l’inclusion de ” jeunes gens absolument inconnus de la societe “.

” J’ai ete deconcerte ” a dit Karine Hakobian lors d’une conference
de presse. ” C’etait une surprise pour chacun “.

Ruben Hakobian, vice-president du parti Zharangutyun, a ecarte
ces affirmations disant que la liste a ete discutee et a subi des
changements avant l’approbation par le Conseil du parti et le plus
grand Conseil du week-end. ” Des changements considerables ont ete
faits suite aux discussions ” a-t-il dit au service armenien de RFE/RL
(Azatutyun.am).