Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

TWENTY-THIRD DINK CASE HEARING IN ISTANBUL

Hurriyet Daily News
Dec 26 2011
Turkey

An Istanbul court held the 23rd hearing of the Hrant Dink murder
trial today.

Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, present at the hearing, are suspected
of killing the Turkish-Armenian journalist.

Dink’s family’s lawyers said Trabzon police and military officers’
inaction was beyond neglectful and should be held as “accomplices in
manslaughter through negligence.”

Laywers claimed Hayal’s brother-in-law, Coþkun Ýðci, was being used
as an informant by the gendermerie and told security forces about
Dink’s planned assassination.

State officials purposefully ignored Ýðci’s intelligence and told
him not to tell anyone about the matter, Dink’s family’s lawyers said.

A group of protesters, calling themselves “Hrant’s friends,”
gathered outside the courthouse before the hearing and released a
press statement saying they had been waiting for justice for five
years and would continue to do so even if it took 95 years.

From: Baghdasarian

TURKISH CITIZENSHIP FOR ARMENIAN DIASPORA

Today’s Zaman
Dec 26 2011
Turkey

Existing policies give us no hope for progress in solving the chronic
problems between Turkey and the Armenian diaspora and Armenia. In this
context, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu gave hints about
Ankara’s new perspective concerning the Armenian diaspora. Speaking
at the 4th Annual Ambassadors Conference held in Ankara on Dec. 23,
Davutoglu kicked off a new era in which each individual who migrates
abroad from Anatolia will be considered part of the Turkish diaspora.

Yerevan is not in the least inclined to recognize Turkey’s territorial
integrity. Nor is it willing to review its “genocide” theses. Also,
it shows no intention to withdraw from the Azerbaijani territories it
has occupied. On the contrary, it tries to distract Baku, which does
not intend to resort to the military option, with endless talks and,
in the meantime, absorb the Azerbaijani territories.

Armenia is also not inclined to develop a new initiative regarding
Turkey. Meetings between Turkish and Armenian aquaculture-related civil
society organizations or photos depicting them together with smiling
faces are of no use. Yerevan’s bureaucratic oligarchy, inherited from
the Soviet era, continues to survive. Yerevan’s nomenclature needs the
“fear of Turks” in order to keep the Armenian people under pressure.

This applies also to the Armenian diaspora, which needs “anti-Turkish”
sentiments to create a different past and a different identity that
would make it possible for them to live as a Christian community
without being assimilated by other Christian societies in Europe,
and in Latin and North America.

And Ankara is tired of extending a hand of friendship to Yerevan
with no avail. Therefore, Turkey will not open the border crossings
to Armenia unless the latter withdraws its troops from Azerbaijani
territories under Armenian occupation.

Moreover, Turkey and Azerbaijan have failed to develop a common
Armenian policy. Despite the fact that some 20 percent of Azerbaijani
territories are under Armenian occupation, that the border crossings
between Turkey and Armenia remains closed, that Armenia accuses
Turkey of committing genocide, that Armenia does not respect Turkey’s
territorial integrity, that Turkey faces terrorist attacks from
Armenians, that every year a new parliament passes a bill recognizing
Armenian claims, that the Armenian diaspora conducts activities hostile
to Turkey and Azerbaijan, despite all that, the two countries have
been unable to come up with a joint Armenian policy. They have failed
to establish a common fund. They have been unable to set up a common
strategy center. They have not been able to hold joint conferences
or meetings and they could not encourage joint studies.

Under these circumstances, how can we expect a new rapprochement
between Ankara and Yerevan and the Armenian diaspora?

New policies should not start with an emphasis on recent tragic
developments between Turks and Armenians, but should emphasize the
thousands of years of close and friendly ties between the two nations.

They should be maintained with ties of kinship. In this scope,
Armenians working in Turkey as well as the Armenian diaspora in
South and North America, Europe and the Russian Federation as well
as Armenian citizens should be issued residence permits and, if they
want, Turkish citizenship. The children of Armenians working in Turkey
may be admitted to Turkish schools. Undergraduate and graduate state
scholarships may be provided to students who are Armenian citizens.

Such moves may ensure a rapprochement between the Armenian people
and Turkey and the Turkish people.

Indeed, Armenians and their intellectuals are tired of the
authoritarian and repressive rule in Yerevan. Armenians’ desire
for democracy and well-being is increasingly getting stronger. The
Armenian people seek to get closer to Turkey without denying their
past. The normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia is not
an economic but a political project. Turks, Armenians and Azerbaijanis,
who had been living in peace over the last millennium, should not
allow their recent problems to overshadow their common future.

From: Baghdasarian

FRIENDS OF HRANT DINK ONCE AGAIN PROTEST SLOW PACE OF TRIAL

Today’s Zaman
Dec 26 2011
Turkey

A group called Hrant’s Friends, including lawmakers and activists,
held another protest before the trial of the slain Hrant Dink, a
Turkish journalist of Armenian origin, on Monday, saying that they
will continue their protest until justice is served.

On Dec. 26, before the 23rd hearing of the murder trial, Gülten Kaya,
wife of artist Ahmet Kaya, who died in exile while he was subject
to hate speech in Turkey, read a statement on behalf of the group,
which gathered in BeÅ~_iktaÅ~_ Square as usual and then walked to
the courthouse.

â~@~Do not make fun of us. Reply. Where are the murderers? Where did
you hide them? Did you hide them in gendarmerie stations, intelligence
reports, media plazas, Parliament corridors, courthouses, cosmic
rooms? â~@¦ Giving the murderers to us is a step forward. You can
start from there. Moreover, they are so close to us. For Hrant,
for justice,â~@~] she said standing in front of the group, which
included Dink’s wife Rakel Dink, Republican People’s Party (CHP)
Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)
deputy Levent Tüzel and Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’
Unions (DİSK) President Tayfun Görgün.

Following the reading of the statement, some members of the group
started to keep guard in front of the courthouse until the hearing
ends.

At the hearing, lawyers read their defense as the public
prosecutor announced in September his opinion on who masterminded
the assassination of Dink. His statement had pleased neither Dink’s
lawyers nor Hrant’s Friends because even though the prosecution
points to an Ergenekon cell in the Black Sea province of Trabzon,
a significant number of public officials are not cited for their
involvement in the preparation and perpetration of the Dink murder
nor for their efforts to conceal and tamper with evidence afterwards.

Ergenekon is a clandestine underground network accused of creating
chaos and plotting to overthrow the government. The prosecutor also
demanded a life sentence for seven suspects, including key suspects
Yasin Hayal and Erhan Tuncel, on charges of attempting to destroy
the constitutional order.

A majority of the suspects, including the hitman, are from Trabzon,
where the police say they had informed the Ä°stanbul police about
the plot to kill Dink on more than one occasion. The lawyers for the
Dink family said the prosecutor’s announcement does not add anything
to the Dink file. The lawyers have long held that individuals who
assumed active roles in the preparation of Dink’s murder have remained
untouched only to be affected during the investigation of Ergenekon.

Those people, including Veli Küçük, Kemal Kerinçsiz, Sevgi
Erenerol, Ã~Vzer Yılmaz and Levent Temiz, are accused of a number of
criminal offenses, including setting up, managing and being members
of a terrorist organization, but so far it has not been possible to
question them about Dink’s 2007 murder.

The prosecutor in the Dink case had quoted from the indictments of
the Ergenekon, Sledgehammer, Cage and Zirve Publishing House cases
and said that Sledgehammer, a suspected military plot to overthrow
the government, targeted non-Muslims, including Dink.

From: Baghdasarian

MKS CALL FOR STATE TO RECOGNIZE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By LAHAV HARKOV

Jerusalem Post

Dec 26 2011

Left, Right agree gov’t should recognize Armenian genocide; Foreign
Ministry: Official declaration would be ‘irresponsible.’

Knesset members from all sides of the political spectrum called for
the government to officially recognize the Armenian genocide, marking
the first time the issue was discussed in an open Knesset meeting.

The Knesset Education Committee meeting was initiated after MK Arye
Eldad (National Union) proposed a bill to mark the Armenian genocide
annually, which was then turned into a motion for the agenda after
Eldad realized the coalition would not allow the legislation to pass.

The meeting also addressed a similar motion put forward by MK Zehava
Gal-On (Meretz), making Armenian genocide one of the few topics agreed
upon by the Knesset factions farthest to the political left and right.

The discussion took place a week after France’s lower house of
parliament moved to criminalize Armenian-genocide denial, leading to
a diplomatic crisis between Paris and Ankara.

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said that those who fight Holocaust
denial must not ignore the tragedies of other nations, and it is a
moral imperative that Israel remember the Armenian genocide.

Rivlin said that he made a motion to the agenda on the matter in
1989, but until Monday, it was not discussed openly in the Knesset,
due to political and diplomatic reasons. He added that the issue was
moved from the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, where
it was discussed behind closed doors, to the Education Committee,
with the press present, so that “morals and values” could be discussed.

Gal-On said the meeting was an “exciting moment,” bringing to fruition
the efforts of many former and current Meretz MKs over the years.

She called for government ministries to stop using the Armenian
genocide as a tool in Israeli foreign policy. Although Gal-On said that
Israel must not allow “tense” relations with Turkey to deteriorate, she
added that relations with Turkey should be separate from this issue.

“This is the first time we can really discuss this and not sweep
it under the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s rug: A million
and a half Armenians were murdered in the beginning of World War I,”
Eldad said. “Who remembers them today? We must talk about it, so no
one in the world thinks [genocide] can be committed again.”

Eldad accused the government of hypocrisy, saying that at first,
the matter wasn’t publicly addressed because relations with Turkey
were strong, and now the same policy stands for the opposite reason.

Coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin (Likud) said that he is embarrassed
that the Knesset has yet to fulfill its “basic responsibility” in
recognizing the Armenian genocide.

He said “a wall has been broken” in that the Education Committee
discussion was taking place openly, but that progress still needs to
be made.

Elkin also mentioned that in 1939, Hitler cited the fact that Europe
ignored the Armenian genocide to justify his actions.

At the same time, Foreign Ministry representatives in the meeting said
that it would be irresponsible to make any official declarations on
the matter.

The ministry never denied the Armenian genocide, the representatives
explained, but the issue has become political, and Israel prefers
not to be involved, especially because Turkey and Armenia have been
holding an open dialog on the facts and opinions surrounding it.

In addition, only 21 countries have officially recognized the Armenian
genocide, according to the Foreign Ministry, and it would be unfair
to declare all those who haven’t immoral.

“We can’t disconnect ourselves from reality. The Islamic world is
getting more and more extreme,” MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima) said,
echoing the Foreign Ministry’s stance. “We have to improve our
relationship with Turkey; it’s a matter of survival, even if it has
a painful price.”

Schneller suggested that the Knesset declare that according to human
and Jewish morality, genocide is unacceptable no matter where it
takes place, be it Armenia, Rwanda or Cambodia. He added that specific
discussion of the Armenian genocide would be irresponsible.

In addition, two representatives of the Israel-Azerbaijan International
Association (AZIZ), denied that genocide took place, saying that
Armenians took the side of Turkey’s enemies and were a “fifth column”
in Turkey.

In addition, AZIZ spokesman Arye Gut said that thousands of
Azerbaijanis were killed in war with Armenia, and that Armenia
occupies land Azerbaijan’s land. The two countries fought a war
following World War I, and another war from 1988-1994.

Gut told the committee to keep in mind that Turkey helped Jews after
the Spanish Inquisition and during the Holocaust, and that there are
only 300 Jews in Armenia, while 30,000 live in Azerbaijan.

He called for the government not to make any official statements,
and wait for decisions to be made in an international, academic forum.

No vote took place at the end of the meeting, and Knesset Education
Committee chairman Alex Miller (Israel Beiteinu) said that more open
discussions of the Armenian genocide will take place.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIA AND RUSSIA HOLD CONSULTATIONS ON SECURITY

Vestnik Kavkaza
Dec 27 2011
Russia

The Russian Foreign Ministry hosted Armenian-Russian bilateral
consultations on a wide range of security issues on December 23,
News Armenia reports.

Consultations from the Russian side were led by Mikhail Ulyanov,
director of the department for security and disarmament, and his
deputy Grigory Mashkov, while the Armenian side was represented by
Samvel Lazarian, head of the department for control over armaments
and international security.

An emissary of the Armenian embassy in Russia, Ruben Ananyan, also
attended the consultations.

The sides discussed control over exports, in particular, the most
efficient ways of multilateral and bilateral cooperation within
international regimes. Special attention was paid to joint efforts
for realization of resolution 1540 of the UN Security Council.

The sides discussed prospects for reconsideration of the CFE Treaty
and its full-fledged realization.

The sides expressed views on negotiations of the treaty on sales of
weapons and formation of the European missile shield. They agreed to
organize regular consultations.

From: Baghdasarian

ISRAEL RISKS NEW TURKISH IRE WITH RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By ETHAN BRONNER

Published: December 26, 2011

JERUSALEM – The Israeli parliament on Monday held its first public
debate on whether to commemorate the Turkish genocide of Armenians a
century ago, an emotionally resonant and politically fraught topic for
Israel, founded on the ashes of the Holocaust and trying to salvage
frayed ties with Turkey.

The session resulted from a rare confluence of political forces –
a decades-long effort by some on the left to get Israel to take a
leading role in bringing attention to mass murder combined with those
on the right angry at the way Turkey has criticized Israel over its
policies toward the Palestinians.

Previous efforts to declare one day a year a memorial for “the massacre
of the Armenian people” have failed, and hearings on the topic
were restricted to closed sessions of the Parliament’s defense and
foreign affairs committee because of concerns over Turkey’s reaction,
especially at a time when relations were friendlier.

But with Turkey having recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv, the
hearing was moved this year to the education committee where sessions
are open. The debate was carried on live television.

“As a people and as a country we stand and face the whole world with
the highest moral demand that Holocaust denial is something human
history cannot accept,” Reuven Rivlin, the speaker of the Parliament,
who has favored official recognition of the genocide, said in his
testimony. “Therefore we cannot deny the tragedy of others.”

More than 15 countries have officially labeled as genocide the
slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians in the chaos surrounding World
War I and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Its denial is a
crime in Switzerland and Slovenia.

The lower house of the French parliament just approved legislation
requiring a fine of nearly $60,000 and a year in jail for denying
it, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador from Paris and cancel
permission for French military planes to use Turkish airspace and
French naval vessels to enter Turkish harbors.

Turkey acknowledges atrocities occurred but without any specific
death toll and says the killings were not genocide but part of the
inevitable tragedy of war.

At Monday’s hearing, attended by an official of the Armenian
patriarchate of Jerusalem and members of Israel’s Armenian minority,
some advocates of commemorating the massacre said their efforts had
nothing to do with politics or with the Turkey of today. Rather,
they said, the goal was to face history, educate young Israelis about
genocide and publicly assert the need to prevent such acts.

But officials from the Foreign Ministry said relations with Turkey
today were fragile and that passing such a resolution could have bad
strategic consequences. They did not take a stand on the commemoration
but said the discussion could not be disentangled from regional
developments concerns.

After Israel invaded Gaza three years ago to stop rocket fire by
Palestinian militants, Turkey expressed anger. A year and a half ago,
the Israeli navy stopped a Turkish-sponsored flotilla from going to
Gaza, killing nine activists aboard. Turkey demanded an apology and
compensation and when Israel refused, ties were downgraded. Otniel
Schneller, a parliamentarian from the opposition Kadima Party
and himself the son of Holocaust survivors, spoke against the
commemoration, saying the region was growing more hostile to Israel
in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings and that Israel had to
be pragmatic.

“This is the time when we must rehabilitate our relations with Turkey
because this is an existential issue for us,” he said. “We have to
integrate into the Middle East. Sometimes our desire to be right and
moral overcomes our desire to exist, which is in the interest of the
entire country.”

The politics of the debate have been head-spinning. The session was
launched by the combined efforts of Alex Miller of the ultranationalist
Yisrael Beiteinu party and Zahava Gal-On of the left-wing Meretz
party. Enthusiastic advocates include many members of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s hawkish Likud party – yet Mr.

Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, telephoned Mr.
Rivlin of Parliament on Sunday and tried to get the session canceled.

Ori Orbach, a parliamentarian from the right-wing Habayit Hayehudi
party, challenged the government’s concerns about what Turkey might
do and spoke for many conservatives here.

“How many times can they recall their ambassador?” he asked
rhetorically. “What can Turkey do to us? It’s our duty to teach what
happened to the Armenian people.”

Many Jews argue for the unique nature of the Nazi Holocaust and
efforts to view it in the context of other genocides have sometimes
met with resistance. But Yehuda Bauer, a longstanding historian
of the Holocaust, spoke at Monday’s session in strong support of
commemorating the Armenians.

Later, by telephone, he said that the Nazi Holocaust was unprecedented
in that it was the most extreme and thorough form of genocide so
far in history – the aim was to kill every single Jew everywhere in
the world even though the Jews had no army, no government and their
property had already been taken. Still, he noted, the Armenians lost
two thirds of their people in the killings that started in 1915 and the
Jews only one third in World War II. The Armenian genocide, he said,
deserved wide discussion and education.

“As Jews, we have a special moral obligation and in my book that comes
before any political consideration,” he said. He urged the study of
the Armenian genocide throughout Israeli schools and naming April
24, when mass killings of Armenians began in 1915, as a date when
Parliament would mark the deaths.

The committee took no action, agreeing to meet again.

From: Baghdasarian

LOI REPRIMANT LA NEGATION DES GENOCIDES: MENACEE, LA DEPUTEE VALERIE BOYER PORTE PLAINTE

Publie le 26/12/2011 a 15:57 – Modifie le 26/12/2011 a 15:58

French UMP right-wing ruling party MP for the Bouches-du-Rhône region,
Valerie Boyer, who authored the Armenian Genocide denial bill, answers
journalists questions as she arrives at a police station in Marseille,
southern France, on December 26, 2011. Boyer filed a complaint after
her website was attacked on December 25, 2011 by hackers who posted
a Turkish flag and an address in Turkish and English to the French
government, the message saying that the websites of French National
Assembly and Senate would be the next targets. GERARD JULIEN

La deputee UMP des Bouches-du-Rhône Valerie Boyer, auteure de la
proposition de loi reprimant la negation des genocides dont celui
des Armeniens, a porte plainte lundi a Marseille après avoir recu
des menaces et le piratage de son site internet par des militants
pro-Turquie.

“Je viens deposer plainte parce que depuis que nous avons vote mercredi
sous les huees de manifestants etrangers a l’Assemblee nationale,
j’ai ete victime sur mes reseaux sociaux d’insultes et d’injures,
de menaces de viol, de menaces de mort, et le jour de Noël, mon site
internet a ete pirate a plusieurs reprises”, a explique Mme Boyer a son
arrivee au commissariat attenant a la prefecture de police de la ville.

“Je ne peux pas rester comme ca. Ces attaques-la sont lamentables. Je
depose plainte et j’espère qu’on en restera la. J’aurais prefere
traiter les choses avec indifference et mepris”, a-t-elle dit.

L’Assemblee nationale a adopte jeudi dernier la proposition de loi
penalisant la contestation de tout genocide, dont celui des Armeniens
en 1915, provoquant la colère de la Turquie, le gel de sa cooperation
militaire avec la France et le rappel de son ambassadeur a Paris.

“La haine et la betise ne s’expliquent pas. Nous avons vote un texte
sur les droits de l’Homme et la dignite humaine, et la facon dont,
aujourd’hui, je suis traitee est assez significative de tout l’interet
qu’il y avait a legiferer sur cette question (…) Ce que je subis
depuis quelques jours, cela fait plusieurs annees que des concitoyens
francais d’origine armenienne ou pas, des descendants de la diaspora
ou de rescapes de la diaspora armenienne, le vivent aussi”, a conclu
la deputee.

Des elus de gauche et de droite ont pour la plupart condamne
lundi les menaces proferees a l’encontre Mme Boyer, Jean-Francois
Cope (UMP) denoncant des menaces “intolerables”, Bruno Le Roux,
un des porte-parole de Francois Hollande, les qualifiant, lui,
d'”inacceptables”.

From: Baghdasarian

ISRAELI LAWMAKERS DEBATE DAY MARKING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By Izzy Lemberg

CNN
December 26, 2011

Jerusalem (CNN) — In a move that could further erode already soured
relations with Turkey, Israeli lawmakers on Monday debated whether to
establish an official day marking the hotly debated Armenian genocide.

Armenian groups and many scholars argue that 96 years ago, starting
in 1915, Turks committed genocide, when more than a million ethnic
Armenians were massacred in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.

Modern day Turkey which emerged after the collapse the Ottoman
Empire, has always denied a genocide took place arguing instead that
hundreds of thousands of Armenian Christians and Muslim Turks died in
intercommunal violence around the bloody battlefields of World War 1.

The Knesset committee debate, which had been scheduled for months,
was made up of an ideological cross section of political parties and
allied some right and left-wing legislators in support of creating
an Armenian memorial day.

Zehava Gal-On of the left wing Meretz party declared, “It is a moral
question of recognizing the Armenian genocide, and it should not be
based on political considerations.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said “an open debate
on the issue based on facts and figures was welcome” but stressed that
the sensitive topic should not be used to make political statements
or be divorced from the current geo-political context.

Last week the French National assembly passed a law making denial of
the Armenian genocide a crime. Turkey reacted furiously, recalling
its ambassador from Paris, denying landing rights to French military
aircraft and forbidding the docking of French ships in Turkish ports.

The issue of the Armenian genocide has posed a diplomatic and moral
dilemma for Israel which sees itself as the keeper of the memory of the
Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were the victims of a mass genocide. It
has had to weigh this obligation with the more practical political
consideration of maintaining stable economic and security relations
with Turkey.

But as relations between the two countries have deteriorated over
the last three years, there have been increased calls from some in
the Israeli political establishment for the government to take a more
aggressive stance on the Armenian issue.

“In the past we were always told that we cannot discuss this subject
because of our good relationship with Turkey; now we are told that
we cannot discuss this because of our bad relationship with Turkey,”
said Aryeh Eldad of the right wing National Union party.

Turkish-Israeli relations have been on the rocks since 2009, when, in
response to repeated rocket fire, Israel launched a military offensive
against militant Islamist political party Hamas which controls Gaza.
Ties between the one-time allies deteriorated further in 2010 after
Israeli commandos seized a Turkish ship carrying pro-Palestinian
activists and humanitarian supplies. The ship was part of a flotilla
seeking to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. During the
seizure nine Turkish nationals were killed by the Israeli commandos.

Members of the committee came under pressure from the Foreign Ministry
as well as the Prime Minister’s Office not to have a vote at this
time, according to some Knesset members. It appears the requests
were heeded as the meeting broke up without a vote or a date for
further discussions.

From: Baghdasarian

HITCHENS’ LEGACY IN OUR MIDST

Nanore Barsoumian
December 26, 2011

The prominent journalist was a harsh critic of Turkey’s genocide denial

Author, journalist, and critic Christopher Hitchens died of pneumonia
on Dec. 15, at the age of 62, after a long struggle with esophageal
cancer. A phenomenal debater, he angered many. He was an outspoken
atheist, an unforgivingly cool and passionate critic of religion.

Following the attacks on the twin towers in September 2001, Hitchens
voiced his contempt of what he referred to as “Islamofascism” and,
to the surprise and dismay of many of his leftist supporters, became
a staunch proponent of the Iraq War, turning venomous towards its
critics. What many Armenians remember, however, and are grateful for,
is his unyielding support-spoken and written-for the recognition of
the Armenian Genocide.

Christopher Hitchens Speaking to an audience on April 1, 2010,
Hitchens reminded them that in a few weeks’ time Armenians would be
commemorating the attempted extermination of their nation: “[The
survivors] all died not with just the knowledge of what happened
to their families, their friends, and their communities, and the
extirpation of not just them physically, but the destruction of their
churches, their libraries, the renaming of their towns, the attempt
to erase them from the map, the production of new atlases in Turkey
that fail to show there was ever an Armenian province-the cultural
erasure! [They] didn’t just die in the knowledge of that; they died
in the knowledge that it was still said that it never happened to
them. This, I think, is the crowning insult, and the one that above
all cries out for justice,” he said.

The insult of denial was too hard for him to swallow, just as it is
for the descendants of our surviving nation. Hitchens was a crafty
orator, tripping and baffling his opponents in a swordsmanship
of words. Debating was who he was. He sought opponents, battled,
and at times bragged: “…If you go into the matter with Turkish
parliamentarians-as I have-[you will only get a] flat stern-faced
denial. Go into it a little further, and you will suddenly hear them
say, ‘Well, the Armenians were taking the Russian side in the First
World War. They were a subversive minority within our borders. They
didn’t follow our religion.’ So you say to them, ‘Ah, so I see. You
say it never happened, but it would have been very justifiable if
it did happen.’ And you catch them. And you realize they see it in
your face, and you see it in theirs. ‘Oh, yes, I shouldn’t have put
it quite like that.'”

When news of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threats
to deport his country’s Armenians went viral, infuriating Armenians
worldwide, Hitchens was outraged. He saw Erdogan’s behavior as salt
on the wound. “This man is an out-of-control thug, and he’s posing
as a defender of the human rights of the Palestinians,” he said. “It
makes me want to throw up things that I’ve forgotten ever eating.”

In another interview, he called Erdogan “a bully.” “He goes into
tantrums,” he explained. Hitchens saw the prime minister’s behavior as
“vulgar,” and as an example noted Erdogan’s response to an Armenian
Genocide commemoration. Hitchens paid no attention to Turkey’s threats
to cease its cooperation in the Iraq War if Congress recognized the
genocide. He saw Turkey as a tunnel, not a bridge, between Europe and
Asia. Turkey’s suppression of the press, intellectuals, and activists
within its own borders, and its expectations from others to do the
same, worried him. The “Ankara government had the nerve to try to hold
up the appointment of a serious Danish politician, Anders Rasmussen,
as the next secretary-general of the [NATO] alliance, on the grounds
that as Denmark’s prime minister he had refused to censor Danish
newspapers to Muslim satisfaction!” he wrote in Slate. “It is now
being hinted that if either President Obama or Congress goes ahead
with the endorsement of the genocide resolution, Turkey will prove
uncooperative on a range of issues, including the normalization of
the frontier between Turkey and Armenia and the transit of oil and
gas pipelines across the Caucasus.”

Exactly a week after Hitchens’ death, the French parliament passed
a bill rendering the denial of the Armenian Genocide punishable by a
fine of 45,000 euros ($58,000). Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu used threats and insults to dissuade lawmakers from
ratifying the bill.

Almost two years ago, in another column for Slate, Hitchens unleashed
his fury on the modern Turkish state for not only denying what its
predecessor inflicted on the Armenians, but also for threatening
countries who considered officially recognizing the genocide. “History
is cunning: The dead of Armenia will never cease to cry out. Nor,
on their behalf, should we cease to do so,” he wrote. “Let Turkey’s
unstable leader [Erdogan] foam all he wants when other parliaments
and congresses discuss Armenia and seek the truth about it.”

“The grotesque fact remains that the one parliament that should be
debating the question-the Turkish Parliament-is forbidden by its own
law to do so. While this remains the case, we shall do it for them,
and without any apology, until they produce the one that is forthcoming
from them,” he added.

From: Baghdasarian

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : LA DEPUTEE BOYER PORTE PLAINTE APRES DES MENACES MORT, LA CLASSE POLITIQUE S’INDIGNE

Le Monde

26 dec 2011
France

La deputee UMP Valerie Boyer, auteure de la proposition de loi
reprimant la negation des genocides dont celui des Armeniens, a porte
plainte, lundi 26 decembre, après avoir recu des menaces et après le
piratage de son site Internet par des militants pro-Turcs.

“Je viens deposer plainte parce que (…) j’ai ete victime sur mes
reseaux sociaux d’insultes et d’injures, de menaces de viol, de menaces
de mort, et le jour de Noël, mon site Internet a ete pirate a plusieurs
reprises”, a explique Valerie Boyer, deputee des Bouches-du-Rhône,
a son arrivee au commissariat, a Marseille.

Le site Internet de la deputee, qui renvoyait, dimanche, vers un ecran
noir affichant le drapeau de la Turquie et un message non signe en
turc et en anglais, s’en prenant au gouvernement francais et a la
communaute armenienne de France, etait toujours inactif lundi.

À DROITE COMME À GAUCHE, LA SOLIDARITE S’EXPRIME

La classe politique de droite comme de gauche a vivement reagi a ces
menaces et intimidations, affichant sa solidarite avec Mme Boyer. A
l’UMP, le secretaire general, Jean-Francois Cope, a ainsi rappele
dans un communique que “la liberte d’opinion est au c~ur de notre
democratie”. “Il est particulièrement inacceptable qu’une elue du
peuple soit ainsi menacee pour la simple raison qu’elle a eu le
courage de defendre ses convictions”, a-t-il fait valoir.

Le patron des deputes UMP, Christian Jacob, est lui aussi monte au
creneau pour defendre Mme Boyer et le travail des parlementaires. “La
souverainete populaire s’exerce d’abord a l’Assemblee nationale et
rien ne saurait justifier qu’elle soit contestee par des menaces
inacceptables”, a mis en garde M. Jacob.

La gauche n’a pas ete en reste, a l’image du president du Parti radical
de gauche (PRG), Jean-Michel Baylet : “Je ne partage pas du tout les
convictions politiques de Mme Boyer, mais je condamne avec fermete
les menaces et les intimidations”, a lance l’ex-candidat a la primaire
socialiste. Bruno Le Roux, un des porte-parole de Francois Hollande, a
pour sa part juge que Valerie Boyer devait etre “soutenue et defendue”
et que “les auteurs de ces agissements et menaces [devaient] etre
poursuivis par la justice”.

Meme tonalite du côte de Manuel Valls, directeur de la communication
de la campagne de M. Hollande, qui a adresse sur Twitter “un message
de solidarite” a la deputee des Bouches-du-Rhône. L’ancien ministre
Jack Lang a, lui aussi, denonce ces menaces.

COLÈRE DE LA TURQUIE

L’Assemblee nationale a adopte jeudi dernier la proposition de loi
penalisant la contestation de tout genocide, dont celui des Armeniens
en 1915. Ce vote a suscite des “sentiments de fierte, de reconnaissance
et de justice rendue” chez le chanteur d’origine armenienne Charles
Aznavour, qui s’en est ouvert dans une lettre a Nicolas Sarkozy. Mais
il a suscite la colère de la Turquie, le gel de sa cooperation
militaire avec la France et le rappel de son ambassadeur a Paris.

Le texte doit desormais etre inscrit a l’ordre du jour du Senat. Ce
dernier a vu son site Internet regulièrement inaccessible depuis
dimanche a cause d’une operation de saturation du site. Le celèbre
hacker turc Iskorpitx avait revendique dans la page des commentaires
de son blog le piratage du site du Senat. Iskorpitx s’est rendu celèbre
en Turquie pour avoir pirate près de un demi-million de sites Internet.

From: Baghdasarian