Author: Chakrian Hovsep

Exhibition "My Shushi" proving the Armenian origin of the fortress town opened in Stepanakert

Chakrian Hovsep
Panorama, Armenia
May 8 2021
Culture 15:47 08/05/2021NKR

Exhibition entitled “My Shushi” opened on Saturday at Mesrop Mashtots University in Artsakh capital Stepanakert, Artsakhpress news agency reported. The exhibition has been organised at the joint initiative of the University’s Caucasus Research Center, the Faculty of Foreign Languages and the University Library.  

Senior researcher at the Caucasus Research Center Hovik Avanesov has told Artsakhpress that the exhibition features archival materials about Shushi, including original documents, around 110 books about different aspects of the life in the Armenian fortress town published in Armenian, Russian, English and French in different years. 

“The materials represent thorough research about Shushi with their archive photos, analysis, scientific works, magazines and journals. The crafts and arts of Shushi are also on display, showing the occupation of the town’s Armenian population since 1852. Old certificates from 1920 issued by Shushi educational institutions in Armenian and Russian are among the materials as well as postcards from the 1800s with Armenian messages on them. Those are vivid examples showing Shushi’s Armenian heritage,” said Avanesov, adding some of the exhibits are displayed for the first time. 

The exhibition will be open to public till May 10, after which all materials, including digitized books and documents will be available to watch on the official website of Mesrop Mashtots University.  

In Avanesov’s words, the resources will serve valuable source for all researchers to undertake a research or analytical works about Shushi.

Armenian Speaker of Parliament to visit Moscow on May 16-18

Chakrian Hovsep

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 15:01, 5 May, 2021

YEREVAN, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS. Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan will depart for Moscow, Russia, on an official visit on May 16-18, TASS reports citing the Russian foreign ministry’s statement.

“The inter-parliamentary ties [between Russia and Armenia] are developing. The delegation of the Russian Federation Council participated on April 24 in the Armenian Genocide commemoration events in Yerevan. The official visit of Speaker of Parliament of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan to Moscow is scheduled on May 16-18”, the statement says.

 

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan

Discrimination against people with disabilities in Armenia: survey results

Chakrian Hovsep
Council of Europe
May 5 2021
ARMENIA 5 May 2021

In February-March 2021, the Armenian NGO of people with disabilities UNISON conducted a survey on the topic “Discrimination on the Ground of Disability n Armenia”. The survey respondents were 120 people with different types of disabilities.

The results of the research show that discrimination against people with disabilities (PWDs) in Armenia has not only social but also institutional manifestations. The efforts aimed at creating a barrier-free environment for PWDs are not systemic or pervasive. The reforms and measures taken are insufficient, especially given the large number of people who acquired disabilities during the war.

In this regard, raising the awareness of the general population about the needs of PWDs and conducting social programmes are important imperatives for the inclusion of PWDs in public life. Although various state programmes have been implemented to increase the socio-economic activity of PWDs, they are mostly of a formal nature and do not ensure the full involvement of PWDs in all spheres of public life. NGOs dealing with the problems of PWDs and engaging in the protection of their interests, are the most active entities. However, educational actions are needed to strengthen the inclusion of PWDs in public life, as research shows that discrimination against PWDs is still widespread.

Most of the survey respondents who faced discrimination and challenges during their lives, tried to solve them on their own. The reason is that the measures taken by the major stakeholders are not effective. It is necessary to introduce large-scale actions and effective mechanisms to eliminate discrimination against PWDs and to ensure the protection of their rights. Therefore, the results of this research can help the responsible bodies/individuals and policy makers to make their actions more targeted and effective.

Notable results of this research

  • The vast majority of respondents, 69%, have experienced discrimination; 58% of them are people with reduced mobility, 31% have the 1st category of disability, 29% have the 2nd and 27% the 3rd category of disability. 38% of the respondents, who have faced discrimination, are men and 62% are women. In other words, women are about 1.5 times more likely to be discriminated against. Cases of violence on the ground of disability are very rare. According to 25% of respondents, they have never been discriminated against.
  • Interestingly, more women than men think they would be discriminated against if they were of the opposite sex. Thus, 65% of women fear that being a man leads to discrimination and 35% of the male respondents think that being a woman can lead to discrimination.
  • The majority of respondents (80) who mentioned they had been discriminated against, try to solve the problem on their own without turning to anyone. Interestingly, women (57%) were more likely to report that they had solved the problem on their own, without a side intervention.
  • 60% of respondents are not at all satisfied with the accessibility of public transportation, which in turn leads to a decline in economic activity among PWDs.
  • Almost half of the respondents participate in the local and national elections. Interestingly, 78% of those who did not participate in the elections were urban respondents, i.e. the voter turnout of people with disabilities in rural areas is significantly higher.
  • Respondents have the most active participation in the decision-making process in the country through elections. 69% of respondents said they had participated in the elections. Then public activism is performed by expressing opinions on social networks, which was mentioned by 64% of respondents. On the other hand, 79% of the respondents stated that they did not participate in the meetings of the Community Councils, 74% – in the online discussions of the draft laws, 70% do not participate in the petitions, 68% do not submit complaints, 62% do not participate in any public discussions.
  • The respondents are mostly concerned about making money and starting a family in the future. 55% fear that due to disability they may not be provided with a loan in case they need it. 54% are afraid that they will not be able to start a family. 38% have fears that they may become subject of bullying because of their disability. 41% are worried and feel anxiety while they communication with the employer, thinking that the latter will make fun of them, ignore or insult them. 22% think they will face discrimination in educational institutions. Only 17% of respondents consider it likely that they may be mistreated by a caregiver or nurse. 23% are afraid of physical attacks in crowded places.

 Read the full report in Armenian 

 Watch Armen Alaverdyan, the president of UNISON, speak about this survey and the project within which it was produced during a Television programme .

Opinion: American recognition of Armenian Genocide and Turkish-Russian relations

Chakrian Hovsep
Daily News Egypt
May 4 2021

On the one hand, this recognition declares the existence of tension in the Turkish-American relations, as this decision came as a result of the dissatisfaction of US members of Congress with the Turkish government.

Marwa El- Shinawy

Although the American recognition of the Armenian Genocide at the end of the Ottoman Empire does not have legal significance, this recognition has great political importance as it is an effective pressure card on Turkey in several respects. 

On the one hand, this recognition declares the existence of tension in the Turkish-American relations, as this decision came as a result of the dissatisfaction of US members of Congress with the Turkish government. 

This followed the Turkish military operation in northern Syria, as well as the purchase of the Russian missile defence system (S-400), which gave an impression that Turkey is trying to get closer to Russia.

Most importantly, raising the Armenian issue at this time is considered as a political manoeuvre to revive the eternal hostility between Turkey and Russia due to Russia’s ambitions in the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. It recalls the memory of the Russian-Ottoman war that broke out in 1877 due to the intervention of the Russians in supporting the Armenians in their struggle against the Ottomans. 

This war lasted for a year and ended with the defeat of the Ottomans and the signing of the Treaty of San Stefano, under which the Armenians obtained for the first time in history a pledge that the Ottoman Empire would carry out political reforms in the Armenian provinces under Russian supervision.

So far, it seems that this American manoeuvre has achieved its desired goal as Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his latest statements, rejected [US President Jo] Biden’s allegations of the genocide of the Armenians.

Erdoğan also held the Armenians and those behind them responsible for the events they were subjected to in 1915, accusing Russia of inciting the Armenians to revolt against the Ottoman state. 

He said, “The Armenians took advantage of the political and financial support from European countries, and the great military support from Russia, so they relied on their brutal crimes, as 150-300,000 Armenian guerrillas fought side-by-side, effectively, with the Russian army against the Ottoman Empire, and they committed mass massacres and killed millions of Turks and Kurds in eastern Anatolia, which forced the Ottoman authorities to take a decision to deport them to Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, which were then Ottoman lands.”

On the other hand, the American recognition is a real victory for the Armenian community in the US and the Armenian diaspora in general, as they assert that one and a half million of their ancestors were systematically killed by the forces of the Ottoman Empire. They commemorate this massacre on April 24 of each year. 

Despite the pressure of the Armenian community in the US for years, and the struggle of the Armenians of the diaspora to obtain international recognition, especially the US, of the Armenian genocide and the criminalisation of those who legally deny it, no American president has ever tried to incite Turkey’s anger. 

This especially since Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora are demanding Turkish recognition of the execution of the genocide against the Armenians. The appending of the recognition was an apology for the killing of one and a half million Armenians. This is in addition to restoring the lands of western Armenia (now eastern Turkey) to Armenian hands, and providing compensation to the children and grandchildren of the victims.

In fact, Turkey, which arose at the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire in 1920, acknowledged the occurrence of massacres, but to this day it still rejects the phrase “genocide”, which obliges it with many legal matters. The most important of these is returning lands in eastern Turkey to the Armenians, and paying compensation. 

Accordingly, for long decades, Turkey has deliberately marginalised the Armenian issue by falsifying history, trying to convince the world that what happened was a result of a civil war in the Anatolian region. It also blames the occurrence of famine, which led to the deaths of 300,000 Armenians and a large number of Turks. 

In books that teach history in Turkey, for example, Armenians are referred to as “these people who have been instigated by foreigners, and who aim to divide Turkey, and have killed Turks and Muslims”. 

In the intermediate school history books, it is also emphasised that the events of 1915 related to the Armenians came as a reaction to their cooperation with the Russian army in preparation for the occupation of the Ottoman Empire. 

As for the term “genocide”, it is not mentioned in Turkish educational books. Rather, they use the term “issue” to refer to the Armenian tragedy. The few Armenian schools in Turkey do not constitute an exception to this rule, and they are forced also to teach Armenian students what is contained in the history books approved by the Turkish Education Council. 

Those justifications that are being taught to students in Turkey about Armenians are the same justifications and literature that Turkey uses in the political and media sphere to deny the genocide of Armenians. They are also the same justifications that Erdoğan uses to deny President Biden’s allegations.

Accordingly, the question that arises now is whether America will succeed in creating a wedge between Russia and Turkey by raising the Armenian issue, or will this American recognition be a mere transient matter.  

Dr Marwa El-Shinawy, PhD in American Theatre and member of the Higher Committee for the Cairo International Festival for Contemporary and Experimental Theatre

Angel Statues at Ghazanchetsots Entrance Destroyed

Chakrian Hovsep

April 26, 2021



The angel statues on the gates to Ghazachetsots Cathedral

Videos posted on Azerbaijani social media platforms show that the statues of angels that adorned the gate of the entrance to Gazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi have been destroyed, while the gates have also been removed.

Azerbaijani forces have continued to destroy Armenian cultural and religious sites since a portion of Artsakh territories fell under Azeri control as a result of the November 9 agreement. Shushi was one the many regions that was surrendered to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijani forces bombed the Ghazachetsots Cathedral in October several times during their aggressive attack on Artsakh.

[see video]

The destruction of Armenian cultural and religious heritage in the territories currently under Azerbaijani control is worrisome, Armenia’s acting Foreign Minister Ara Aivazian said on Monday during a joint press conference with visiting Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.

“We have already witnessed precedents of the destruction of Armenian places of worship, monuments, and official statements justifying them. This issue is in the focus of our attention, and our international partners have strongly criticized any attempts to destroy or misappropriate the Armenian historical and cultural heritage,” Aivazyan added.

The foreign minister said the issue is on the agenda of the peace talks, as evidenced by the 2020 OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs’ statement of December 3 and April 13. “We work with specialized structures. We cooperate very closely with UNESCO and other structures,” Aivazian said.

He emphasized the importance of raising the issue with the international community. On April 24 the “Heritage in Danger. Artsakh” exhibition opened at Yerevan City Hall in the presence of high-ranking foreign officials, who arrived in Armenia to participate in the events commemorating the 106th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Asbarez: Homenetmen Navasartian Games Will not Take Place in 2021

Chakrian Hovsep

April 27, 2021



Homenetmen, Armenian General Athletic Union & Scouts, est. 1918

The Homenetmen Western U.S. Regional Executive Board has been following state, local and federal guidelines since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

Homenetmen Western U.S. suspended its activities which include scouting and athletics programs, as well as all practices and tournaments and cultural programs since the initial closures began. “As we continue to monitor local and state protocols, Homenetmen Western US Region has started reopening programs in accordance to the current tier and protocols,” said a press statement from the organization.

For the past 45 years, Homenetmen Western U.S. has been organizing the Navasartian Games & Festival, which has grown over time to become the largest event that takes place in the diaspora. It has become a family tradition and a way for most to spend their July 4 holiday. The Navasartian Games and Festival are arguably the organization’s most anticipated event.

The Navasartian Games & Festival draws participants and spectators from various counties all over the Western US Region. Currently, all of these counties are in various phases and tiers on their path to recovery from COVID-19 restrictions.

The Homenetmen Western U.S. Regional Executive, taking into consideration the health and safety of the community, announced that the 45th Navasartian Games & Festival, Victory Banquet, and Closing Ceremonies, will not be organized in 2021.

Opinion | The U.S. has finally acknowledged the genocide of Armenians. What about Native Americans?

Chakrian Hovsep
Washington Post

Opinion by Glenn T. Morris and SimonMaghakyan
at 7:09 p.m. UTC

Glenn T. Morris is an associate professor and President’s Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado Denver. He also serves on the Leadership Council of the American Indian Movement of Colorado. Simon Maghakyan is an Armenian Genocide descendant, visiting scholar at Tufts University and lecturer in International Relations at the University of Colorado Denver.

On April 24, 2015, the centennial of the start of the Armenian genocide, Armenians in Colorado stood shoulder to shoulder with indigenous peoples of the Americas on the grounds of the Colorado state Capitol for the unveiling of a memorial recognizing the Armenian genocide. A representative of the Ute Nations, some of the indigenous peoples of what is now Colorado, offered words in recognition of the common experience of Armenians and indigenous peoples.

Last weekend, Colorado’s Armenian community gathered again at the state Capitol memorial, a replica of a medieval monument recently destroyed in an ongoing act of Armenian erasure. This month’s commemoration differed from previous years. This year, Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to formally recognize the Armenian genocide.

While one official statement cannot eliminate fears of another genocide or the pain of losing millions of Armenian, Assyrian, Pontic Greek, Yazidi civilians and their indigenous homelands during the 1915-1923 genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire, Biden’s proclamation made hope for justice more imaginable and the intergenerational Armenian trauma slightly more manageable.

Now, it is time for Biden and the United States to take those sentiments and look inward.

Denial of the genocide against indigenous peoples by the United States is rampant. The massacre of Native peoples — from Mystic River, Gnadenhütten and Sacramento River to Bear River, Sand Creek, Camp Grant and Wounded Knee (and the fact that most readers have probably never heard of these) — is evidence of American amnesia about its homegrown genocide.

Multiple forced marches and removals — the most infamous being the Trail of Tears and the Long Walk — were precursors to the forced death marches of Armenians to the Deir ez-Zor desert that now stand condemned by Biden. The kidnapping, torture, rape and murder of indigenous children in the United States and missionary manual labor schools are equally condemnable to the ethnic cleansing, slaughter and turkification against Armenian children by the Ottomans — practices now recognized as genocide under the international Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Native nations now surrounded by the United States still await Biden’s proclamation and reparations for those crimes against humanity.

In some ways, America has made superficial efforts to do what Turkey, which denies the very existence of Armenian genocide, is so far from doing. At least the United States acknowledges Native nations as indigenous peoples, although it refuses to implement the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Turkey denies that Armenians are indigenous people in their homelands.

The United States has laws to protect indigenous peoples’ sacred sites, albeit often ignored in places such as the Black Hills and Bears Ears, while Turkey continues to erase Armenians’ heritage sites and denies their antiquity. Turkey’s obsession with erasure is so brazen that even the Armenian Tiara adorning 2,000-year-old statues at the Nemrut Dağ World Heritage Site is rebranded in official Turkish publications as “Five-spiked Tiara.”

U.S. policy toward indigenous peoples possesses the veneer and cachet of greater civility, including the recent appointment of Deb Haaland to serve as interior secretary. What is missing from U.S. practice is any formal recognition of the systematic crimes committed against Native nations and the ongoing damage that persists through extractive industries, land theft, missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and the denial of genuine self-determination for indigenous peoples under international law. What is missing from both countries is any acknowledgement that their societies and economies remain the beneficiaries of genocide.

Despite Turkey’s threats that diplomatic relations with the United States will be damaged by Biden’s proclamation, it is obviously easier for Washington to recognize the Armenian genocide than to hold itself to account for genocidal U.S. practices. Both Turkey and the United States try to control the production of the historical record to sanitize, rationalize or erase their genocidal records. Despite these futile attempts, the Chinese writer Lu Xun reminds us: “Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood.”

The spirit and future of the Armenian people, as well as the indigenous peoples of the Americas, springs from and runs with the land, and thus, it will be forever. Perhaps Biden’s proclamation is a small step in acknowledging that truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/29/us-biden-armenian-genocide-native-americans-recognition/

Asbarez: Armenia’s War Crimes Probe includes Beheading of POWs and Deploying Mercenaries

Chakrian Hovsep



Syrian jihadists fighting for Azerbaijan

Armenia’s prosecutors are probing more than 100 criminal cases of war crimes committed by Azerbaijan’s military and political leaders and troops during last fall’s Artsakh War.

Foreign mercenaries and another 37 Azerbaijani nationals have been charged, with two of the jihadists currently in custody and international warrants have been issued for 35 others.
Armenia’s prosecutor general’s office said that the Azerbaijani authorities, fueled with ethnic hatred, launched premeditated and targeted attacks on the peaceful civilian settlements of Armenia and Artsakh using artillery and drone strikes.

Azerbaijani attacks were an act of aggression—a war—which resulted in the deaths of both servicemen and civilians, who were protected under international conventions, and civilian infrastructures such as residential homes, kindergartens and roads were destroyed.

The Armenian authorities noted that an Armenia SU-25 warplane was shot down while it was flying in Armenian airspace, and the pilot Valery Danelian was killed. Hostile drones breached Armenian airspace and bombed the province of Gegharkunik, hitting residential homes in Sotk, a passenger bus, as well as servicemen on duty. A child was severely wounded when the Azeri military fired on civilians in an agricultural field. A civilian was killed in the bombing of Mets Masrik. The Azeri combat drones even reached the airspace of Kotayk  Province but were shot down by the Armenian air defense.

In Armenia’s south, three soldiers were killed in a bombing and military equipment which was not in combat was hit.

The investigation has gathered evidence that the Azerbaijani military repeatedly tortured, murdered and subjected to inhumane treatment the prisoners of war and other detainees, including civilians both during and after the war. In one case, the Azeri servicemen beheaded an Armenian POW and published photos on the interest.

All cases are under investigation to give individual criminal-legal assessment to the actions of the Azerbaijani servicemen.

There is evidence that the Azerbaijani military vandalized and destroyed Armenian cemeteries and monuments, including churches both during and after the war.

Evidence includes facts that Azerbaijan pre-planned the war back in June 2020 and recruited more than 2,000 Syrian mercenaries and deployed them via Turkey. Azeri authorities transferred payments namely to the Suleyman Shah and Sultan Murad terror groups.

Another criminal case concerns the downing of a Russian gunship over Armenian airspace by Azerbaijani military on November 9, 2020, which killed two pilots and wounded another one.

Armenian genocide President Biden Turkey Worcester community

Chakrian Hovsep
Telegram & Gazette, Worcester
Nicole Shih   | Telegram & Gazette

WORCESTER – The Worcester Armenian community is grateful that President Biden Saturday became the first U.S. president to officially recognize the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago as a genocide.

“Our president made history by recognizing this great human tragedy in its true definition as genocide,” said Rev. Aved Terzian of the Armenian Church of Our Saviour on Salisbury Street.

“I think it is absolutely important for us Armenians that President Biden used the word ‘genocide’ in his statement and with that he acknowledged that what happened in 1915 were not massacres or sad events, as the Turkish government is trying to represent in its official commentary on the Armenian genocide,” said the Rev. Torkom Chorbajian, pastor of Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church on Grove Street.

In a statement released Saturday, Biden said, “Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” risking a potential fracture between the U.S. and Turkey but reflecting Biden’s commitment to human rights.  

April 24 marked the 106th anniversary of the beginning of the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, resulting in 1.5 million people being deported and killed.  

“We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern (Armenian term for genocide) so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms,” Biden said.

Another reason for Biden to go in this direction, Chorbajian said, is that Turkey is becoming an authoritarian state “with no respect to human rights,” though being an important member with NATO and a strategic partner to the United States.  

“On numerous occasions it is acting against the interests of the United States in the region,” Chorbajian said.  

Despite the declaration made by Biden, concerns and struggles still continue.

Chorbajian is extremely grateful that Biden honored his promise to the Armenian community and acknowledged the Armenian genocide. 

However, on the other hand, he is uncomfortable with the fact that many people may think that this is the sole purpose of years of lobbying and talking about the Armenian genocide and the historic Western Armenian lands that Turkey usurped following the genocide. 

“I have mixed feelings,” Chorbajian said. “I think the struggle must continue until the government of Turkey acknowledges the genocide and just reparations follow it, through which only a full reconciliation can happen between Armenia and Turkey.” 

Terzian said reconciliation means many things, but more importantly people should focus on the definition, “to fix broken relationships,” where the formal political stance has generally been avoided out of concern about damaging relations with Turkey. 

“Denial of the genocide makes reconciliation impossible,” Terzian said. “How can reconciliation take place in a relationship based on a lie?” 

Terzian firmly believes and prays that the declaration serves as an appropriate time for the governments and society to use the platform established by Biden as an opportunity for reconciliation. 

The number of Armenians killed has been a major contention. Estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million deaths between 1914 and 1923, with not all of the victims in the Ottoman Empire. But most estimates – including one of 800,000 between 1915 and 1918, made by Ottoman authorities themselves – fall between 600,000 and 1.5 million. 

Whether due to killings or forced deportation, the number of Armenians living in Turkey fell from 2 million in 1914 to under 400,000 by 1922. 

The Worcester Armenian community said it is also grateful to local leaders, including U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, D-Worcester, on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, who were at the forefront of the Armenian cause all along the way.

They will never stop seeking justice in recognizing the Armenian genocide.  

“The Armenian community in Worcester is content with the fact that there is a politician who did not betray his promise when he was a candidate, and did not use this sensitive topic only to get Armenian sympathy and votes,” Chorbajian said.  

2021-04-28T20:37:52Z