Author: Ekmekjian Janet

TATUL MANASERIAN IS SURE THAT HE HAS NOT LOST HIS ELECTORATE

Noyan Tapan
Apr 09 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 9, NOYAN TAPAN. The forthcoming parliamentary elections
can greatly contribute to rise of Armenia’s international rating
and solution of a number of important problems. National Assembly
independent deputy Tatul Manaserian stated at the April 9 press
conference. Therefore, as he affirmed, the authorities should first of
all demand their free and fair holding. At the same time T. Manaserian
said that "the responsibility is everybody’s and everybody should
demand free and fair elections."

The candidate for deputacy nominated by civil initiative at
electoral district N 5 (Arabkir-Davitashen) by majoritarian system
said that after coming out of Ardarutiun (Justice) bloc he has
not lost his electorate, as he has constantly worked with the
electors. T. Manaserian said that the Ramkavar-Azatakan Party of
Armenia and the Social-Democratic Party Hnchak, as well as a group of
representatives of intelligentsia will support him in the preelectoral
struggle.

Pointing to the example of electoral district N 4, T. Manaserian
proposed another four candidates for deputacy nominated at electoral
district N 5 also signing a memorandum, which will be aimed at
registering violations and revealing those guilty for them. He also
said that he treats his rivals with respect, he is ready to listen
to their programs to to present his program. "I am ready to organize
meetings with our electors jointly with my rivals. Moreover, I also
propose that candidates for deputacy at electoral district N 5 speak
jointly on television presenting their programs or equally divide
all expenditures on speaking on TV," the candidate for deputacy said.

The Chronicle of Higher Education
March 9, 2007 Friday
SECTION: THE CHRONICLE REVIEW; Pg. 9 Vol. 53 No. 27

The Evil That Americans Did

by JOHN DAVID SMITH

In 1997, Rep. Tony P. Hall, a Democrat of Ohio, proposed that the
federal government offer an official apology for slavery, a proposal
that President Bill Clinton took to heart when, on June 13, 1997, he
issued an executive order establishing the President’s Advisory Board
on Race. The following day, the president commenced what he described
as "a great and unprecedented conversation about race."

Nine months later, when visiting Africa, Clinton sparked an
international debate over what has become known as the Apology.
"Going back to the time before we were even a nation," he said while
in Uganda, "European-Americans received the fruits of the slave
trade, and we were wrong in that." Echoing the thoughts of many
moderates, the Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page wrote that "as
statements go," Clinton’s "was about as safe and factually accurate
as any could be. He didn’t even apologize. Not quite. But judging by
the fallout on some radio talk shows, you might think the president
not only had apologized but called for reparations." Last fall, Brown
University again sparked debate when it reported on the role its
founders had played in the slave trade, but it offered no
institutional apology and declined to recommend reparations to
descendants of slaves.

Slavery’s unequivocal evil lies at the heart of debates over
apologizing for America’s "peculiar institution" and awarding
reparations. In The Problem of Evil: Slavery, Freedom, and the
Ambiguities of American Reform (University of Massachusetts Press,
2007), a provocative collection of original essays, the editors
Steven Mintz and John Stauffer, along with 23 contributors, admonish
scholars to place moral questions in general, but especially American
slavery and its legacy, at the center of their work.

"Slavery," writes Mintz, a professor of history at the University of
Houston, "is a historical evil that the United States has never
properly acknowledged or atoned for." Nor have historians grappled
with those issues. Stanley L. Engerman, a professor of economics and
history at the University of Rochester, and David Eltis, a professor
of history at Emory University, find it noteworthy "how little
scholarly effort has been expended on explaining how and why evil has
been redefined over time, and how much academic work assumes that the
values that hold today are somehow unchanging and universal."

As Germans have learned since World War II, coming to terms with
one’s past is a wrenching and continuing process. The flood of works
on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, according to the essay by
Catherine Clinton, currently a lecturer in history at Queens
University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has inspired what she terms
"a booming enterprise" in the study of evil. In the past few years,
books on American reactions to 20th-century genocide, the Soviet
Union’s forced-labor camps in the gulag, and the Armenian genocide
have joined the list. Other scholars are at work on the ethnic tribal
wars in Rwanda and atrocities and war crimes in Bosnia. At Yale
University, the Cambodian Genocide Program is devoted to documenting
the murderous history of the Khmer Rouge.

Still, for all the attention paid to the subject of world and
comparative slavery (according to the essay by Joseph C. Miller, a
professor of history at the University of Virginia, 15,000 books,
articles, theses, and conference papers alone have appeared since
1991), remarkably few historians have examined the ethical and
philosophical questions that run like a leitmotif through the history
of slavery and race relations in the United States. The lacuna in the
historical literature may be because of scholars’ attempts to be
"objective," but that has meant that much of the work has undervalued
slavery’s cruelties, especially its short-term and long-term
psychological horrors.

That is not to suggest that in the wake of the Civil War, former
slaves and their abolitionist friends, and later African-American
commentators, ignored slavery’s exploitation and degradation of human
beings and its moral emptiness — what the North Carolina slave
Harriet Jacobs described as its "atmosphere of hell." In her memoir,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself (1861),
Jacobs recorded vividly the horrors of her enslavement, the dominance
her master held over her, and her determination to be free. Rejecting
his sexual advances, she chose another white man as her lover,
remarking that "it seems less degrading to give one’s self, than to
submit to compulsion." Frederick Douglass, in his Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), remembered that
slaveholders had worked systematically to destroy the slaves’ sense
of self, to diminish their humanity, to make them extensions of their
masters’ will.

No one underscored slavery as the embodiment of evil more than W.E.B.
Du Bois. In The Souls of Black Folk (1903), he wrote that
African-Americans considered enslavement "the sum of all villainies,
the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice." Three decades
later, in Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935), Du Bois
blasted American historians for substituting propaganda for history
when writing about slavery and the Civil War and Reconstruction: "Our
histories tend to discuss American slavery so impartially, that in
the end nobody seems to have done wrong and everybody was right."

Many other Americans took a more circuitous path to confronting the
evil of slavery, according to some of the contributors to The Problem
of Evil, who chronicle the ambiguities of moral perception — how,
why, when, and if people came to view slavery as a moral evil. In his
essay, for example, Peter Hinks, an independent scholar, examines the
antislavery thought of the Yale president and theologian Timothy
Dwight. Recent scholars have denounced Dwight as a champion of
slavery and as an influential pro-slavery ideologue, but according to
Hinks he came to espouse "the fundamental unity of all humankind
through God." Hinks interprets Dwight as "an important transitional
figure," connecting early theologians who denied that the Bible
condoned or endorsed slavery and later abolitionists who demanded
immediate emancipation and repatriation of the freedmen beyond
America. Viewed through Hinks’s lens, Dwight recognized slavery as an
evil and underscored the "invidious racial distinctions" at its core.

In a similar revisionist take, David Waldstreicher, a professor of
history at Temple University, revises Benjamin Franklin’s vaunted
reputation as one of the new nation’s earliest antislavery
proponents. To be sure, shortly before his death Franklin condemned
slavery as "an atrocious debasement of human nature"; as president of
the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, he
submitted a petition to Congress opposing slavery and the slave
trade. However, Waldstreicher convincingly argues that for much of
his adult life, Franklin benefited directly and indirectly from
slavery. He owned slaves and profited from publishing notices of
slave auctions and advertisements for escaped slaves. When, in the
1750s and 1760s, Franklin openly attacked slavery, he did so "on
economic and racism-based, not religious, grounds, subordinated to
arguments for colonial autonomy from imperial regulations."

Antebellum Roman Catholics generally championed slavery as long as
masters respected their chattels’ marriages and provided them access
to catechesis and the sacraments. Paula Kane, an associate professor
of religious studies at the University of Pittsburgh, argues that
although the Vatican in 1839 had condemned the slave trade (but not
slavery), working-class American Catholics in the mid-1800s tended to
support it because they feared competition from free blacks, and
because elite Protestants favored abolition. In her most original
interpretation, Kane maintains that American Catholics’ "recourse to
devotions and supernatural power fortified an antimodern outlook that
accepted slavery."

The abolitionist John Brown directly confronted slavery as an evil
and sought to destroy it. But while Brown’s militant abolitionism
established him as a heroic martyr among many Northerners, as Laura
L. Mitchellacting president of the Luther Institute, in
Washingtonexplains, by resorting to violence Brown disregarded both
civil and sacred authority, thereby alienating many abolitionists.
"Eventually," Mitchell concludes, "many of Brown’s pacifist
supporters did condone his methods, but in so doing, they embraced
him only as an imperfect tool of divine justice, like a plague."

Almost 150 years later, most Americans remain uncomfortable engaging
and reckoning with their slaveholding past. Most people sneer at the
mere idea of reparations, considering the notion of awarding
compensation to the descendants of American slaves somewhere between
a scam and a pipe dream. Perhaps our distance from slavery’s
barbarities desensitizes us to its evil, blinds us from seeing how it
stained and continues to soil the fabric of American democracy.

Another problem concerns comparing slavery and genocide in the world
with America’s twin evils, slavery and racism. Drawing comparisons
invariably highlights similarities and differences, but it also risks
relativizing evil and horror. How does one juxtapose American slavery
with systematic mass murder, human-rights violations, and other
horrendous evils over time and place?

The contributors to Mintz and Stauffer’s excellent collection largely
sidestep defining and comparing degrees of evil, but they
nevertheless remind us of slavery’s timelessness and the ubiquity of
moral wrongs. Focusing on evil enables us to see, if not feel, the
wicked acts that persons inflict on one anotherwhat Stauffer, a
professor of literature and African and African-American studies at
Harvard University, eloquently terms "the dark side of the American
soul."

John David Smith is a professor of history at the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte. Among his recent books is Black Judas: William
Hannibal Thomas and "The American Negro" (Ivan R. Dee, 2002).

ELINA DANIELIAN IS WITH 3 POINTS IN LEADERS’ GROUP AT WOMEN’S TOURNAMENT OF EUROPE CHESS INDIVIDUAL CHAMPIONSHIP

Noyan Tapan
Apr 06 2007

DRESDEN, APRIL 6, NOYAN TAPAN. The 3rd stage meetings of the Europe
Chess Individual Champioship took place on April 5 in the city of
Dresden, Germany.

7 participants, among who Elina Danielian is, got 3 points each in
the women’s tournament.

5 participants did not lose any point at the men’s struggle. Rafayel
Vahanian and Artashes Minasian among the delegates of Armenia have
2.5 points each.

ARAM I CATHOLICOS CONGRATULATES NEWLY APPOINTED RA PRIME MINISTER

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Apr 06 2007

ANTELIAS, APRIL 6, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Aram I Catholicos
of the Great House of Cilicia sent a congratulation message to newly
appointed RA Prime Minister Serge Sargsian on April 5. Mentioning
that being acquainted himself and seeing that S. Sargsian attended
with diligence and in a consistent way all the state obligations
entrusted him, Aram I Catholicos expressed confidence that he will
act with the same devotion and earnestness.

"I assure You in this sense that the Great House of Cilicia
Catholicosate will continue its undoubted and complete assistance
to the state of Armenia in favour of our Fatherland and our native
people," is said in the address.

MANIFESTATIONS OF INTOLERANCE

A1+
[02:34 pm] 06 April, 2007

The "United Javakhq" Democratic Union has spread the following
announcement on Misha Kiraksoyan’s assassination;

"United Javakhq" expresses its deep indignation at the impertinent
and vandal assassination of Misha Kirakosyan on Atsghur-Akhaltskha
highway on April 2.

The administration headed by President Saakashvili, that came to
power under the guise of establishing democracy in 2004, has created
an atmosphere of political intolerance throughout the whole country.

The above-mentioned intolerance is namely perceived in apparent
violations of national and civil rights and manifestations of vandal
encroachments by the police.

The Union draws the public attention to the fact that the April 2
murder of Misha Kirakosyan cannot be viewed as a tragic coincidence.

The on-going murders of Armenians in the territory of Georgia have
turned into a "tradition." They tend to suppress the will power of
the Javakhq Armenians.

The Union urges the Javakhq residents to display political and civil
vigilance and not to be subject to moral and psychological pressure
of the Georgian authorities.

We must unite under the imperative of protecting our rights and dignity
in Javakh to keep Misha Kirakosyan’s memory bright in our minds.

The Union condemns the recurrent murder of an Armenian resident in
the territory of Georgia; Misha has become an innocent victim of
anti-Armenian intolerance. We call for drastic measures to punish
the criminal.

The Union urges the international community to keep an eye on the trial
and legal procedure taking into consideration the mild verdicts of the
previous trials," the announcement reads. To note, the announcement
was spread via Javakhq Info Agency.

GREEK FOREIGN MINISTER: WE ARE HOPEFUL FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND CULTURAL CO-OPERATION WITH AZERBAIJAN

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
April 5 2007

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Ms Dora Bakoyannis has been
interviewed by the APA.

– How do you appreciate the current relations between Azerbaijan
and Greece?

– Our two countries enjoy good political and cultural relations. The
last two years have seen a dynamic exchange of high-level meetings
which help towards fostering closer ties. Greece is hopeful that we
will further develop and deepen our political, economic and cultural
co-operation. In this spirit, we eagerly await to welcome the Azeri
delegation at the 2nd Session of the Joint Ministerial Committee
for Economic and Technological Co-operation, which will be hosted
in Athens.

– What is the official position of Greece in the solution of Kosovo
problem?

– The main aim of Greece’s policy is to have a Southeastern European
neighbourhood characterised by flourishing economies, opportunity
for its citizens, peace, security and stability.

We believe in the need to devise a viable and sustainable solution
to the Kosovo issue. To this end, we stood behind and supported the
international community’s efforts to bridge differences and to bring
about a compromise which will ensure the functionality and viability
of any solution. We have repeatedly called upon both sides to show
the necessary constructive spirit and realism during the negotiation
process.

In short, the Greek government’s position on the issue of Kosovo’s
future status is threefold. First, we have insisted, and continue to
insist, that any solution should be consistent with the principles
and values of the European Union, and should be devised within the
framework of the region’s European perspective. Second, we believe
that if a democratic Kosovo is to emerge, it will have to become
a multiethnic and multicultural society, which will tolerate and
protect the rights of all its citizens, regardless of their religion
and ethnic origin. Third, the international community has to ensure
that any solution reached will bear no negative impact on the region’s
stability.

– Do you think that the possibly Kosovo’s independence precedent
might be applied in the case of the "frozen conflicts" from postsoviet
republics? Is it dangerous this precedent for international stability?

– I don’t believe that Kosovo may constitute a precedent. The situation
in Kosovo is in no way comparable to those in other regions. The
case of Kosovo is unique; it has its own historic trajectory, its own
internal particularities, its own present realities. It is an error
to generalise; to take a very specific situation out of context and
try to apply it elsewhere.

– What is the position of Greece in the "frozen conflicts" from
postsoviet republics and specially Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict?

– Greece supports the territorial integrity and inviolability of all
borders. This, naturally, refers to the borders of all post-soviet
republics including, of course, Azerbaijan.

With regard to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, we support the
efforts made on behalf of both the Azeri and Armenian presidents to
find a mutually acceptable solution to the Nagorno-Karabach conflict.

The efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group and its co-chairmen towards the
settlement of the conflict are also extremely important. We sincerely
hope that a peaceful solution will soon be reached, and that the
refugees will be able to safely return to their homes.

– What is importance of Nabucco project for Greece and what kind of
place Athens wants to take in this project?

– The ‘Nabucco’ project is included in the EU’s Trans-European Energy
Network and constitutes a priority for the EU and its neighbouring
countries. Hence, while Greece is not directly involved in the project,
we support its construction. We do so for two main reasons which we
believe to be of crucial importance. First, it is a project which
will diversify energy supply routings. Second, coupled with the TGI
Interconnector Project which could be operational by the year 2011,
both pipelines will greatly contribute to Europe’s energy security.

How is the activity of Muslim community in political and social life
of Greece?

We Greeks have a deep respect for all religions. We have been living
alongside Muslims for centuries and have a profound understanding
of Islam.

We are supporters and promoters of the dialogue of religions and
believe in the need for all spiritual leaders of all faiths to extend
the hand of friendship and of peace. This is essential for our peaceful
cohabitation. It provides the space within which to build bridges,
foster trust, address common challenges and resolve divisive issues. In
this spirit, we do not distinguish between peoples of different faiths,
and Muslims living in Greece enjoy the same rights and obligations
as all other inhabitants. Equality before the law and the state is
a value which is firmly entrenched in Greece, irrespective of religion.

– Besides energy, in what spheres is Azerbaijan attractive for Greece?

– Azerbaijan is a wonderful country with a plethora of resources. It
offers a great deal of opportunities for investment in the agriculture
sector, construction, communication, banking, telecoms, transport and,
of course, tourism.

Furthermore, our two countries can further deepen their bonds via
the cultural sector. For instance, I know that the Azeri people
have shown a great interest in Greek culture and civilization. The
Hellenic Cultural Centre at the Slavic University of Baku are doing
noteworthy work in terms of promoting and teaching the Greek language
and civilisation to Azeri students. Equally, Azerbaijan is a country
with many cultural and tourist attractions to offer. The old city of
Baku, for instance, with its fine arts and history museums housed in
pre-revolutionary mansions is magnificent. Moreover, Baku’s Palace
of the Shirvanshahs and Maiden Tower, which are classified by UNESCO
as World Heritage Sites, are a splendour for the eyes. In short,
cultural co-operation, coupled by tourism, are domains which offer
both countries a great many opportunities.

– Greece is the member of EU. How do you value Azerbaijan’s
perspectives for accession to this organization? How can you help
Azerbaijan in this way?

– For Greece, Azerbaijan is an important and valuable partner and
ally. During the Greek EU Presidency in 2003, our country supported
Azerbaijan’s rapprochement with the EU. Indeed, we promoted the idea
of appointing an EU Special Representative for Southern Caucasus.

EU-Azerbaijani relations are developing on several levels. Your country
has been a member of the Council of Europe since 2001 and has been the
EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy partner since 2006. The signing of
the EU-Azerbaijani Action Plan will, I believe, contribute further
to bringing the two sides even closer. It will also help Azerbaijan
in its reforms. In short, it provides Azerbaijan with the unique
opportunity to make full use of an enhanced co-operation with the EU.

Moreover, the EU and Azerbaijan have entered a new era of
co-operation in the energy sector with the signing of the Memorandum
of Understanding. Both sides share mutual interests and challenges in
the energy sector. The signing of this memorandum not only provides
the legal framework for co-operation but is also a tangible expression
of the political will from both sides to work alongside each other –
to be partners.

– Does Greece, as a NATO state, intend to enlarge military cooperation
with Azerbaijan?

– There have been instances of co-operation. For example, we trained
Azeri officers at the Multinational Peace Support Operation Training
Centre in Kilkis, Northern Greece. This Centre is one of the 11 NATO
PfP Training Centres. We would be willing and happy to repeat this
training programme.

Greece welcomes Azerbaijan’s commitment to Partnership for Peace,
as well as its desire to sign an agreement on bilateral military
co-operation. The Greek government has always supported and promoted
the idea of co-operation and partnership. We believe that partnerships
and alliances breed peace and security. To this end, we welcome any
proposals for a closer co-operation that the Azeri side may have
to offer.

– Greece signed an agreement in the sphere of energy with Bulgaria
and Russia which envisages transferring the Russian oil through
Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline. Is this project a concurrent of
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline?

– The month of March marked the three-way signing of the
Burgas-Alexandroupoli pipeline. Greece, Russia and Bulgaria signed
for the construction of an oil pipeline which will transport Russian
crude oil to Mediterranean shores. This will be economically more
efficient and will reduce the environmental risk in the Straits.

Moreover, it will serve to decongest the already ‘overworked’
Bosphorus Straits.

It is an error to view this important project as antagonistic to either
the Straits or the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan pipeline. Large-scale energy
projects such as the Burgas-Alexandroupoli and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan
pipelines are welcome by the international community. They should be
seen as complementary rather than in competition with one another. Such
projects are important for the environmental future of our planet. They
are also crucial in diversifying energy source routings, thereby
enhancing energy security.

Finally, we must not forget that they also contribute to the
wider economic development our continent. The construction of such
energy projects should be supported and promoted by everyone in the
international community as they are to the benefit of the whole of
the international community.

DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF ARMENIA IS GOING TO ACTIVELY CONTRIBUTE TO THE FORMATION OF UNITED ELECTORAL HEADQUARTERS OF THE OPPOSITION

Arminfo
2007-04-06 17:18:00

We are going to do our best for the formation of united electoral
headquarters of the opposition, the leader of the opposition Democratic
Party of Armenia, MP Aram Sargsyan said during a press-conference
today.

He said that in a few days they are expecting to receive the consent
of a number of parties and to start specific actions.

Meanwhile, a number of big opposition parties, particularly, the
People’s Party of Armenia, prefer taking time with formation of the
united headquarters: they say that in any case the opposition parties
will cooperate during the election.

TURKEY SUSPENDS TALKS WITH FRANCE OVER PIPELINE PROJECT

Agence France Presse — English
April 5, 2007 Thursday 10:07 AM GMT

Turkey, reacting to a French bill on the World War I massacres
of Armenians, has suspended talks with Gaz de France (GDF) on the
French firm’s possible participation in a major pipeline project,
the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

Turkey’s energy ministry and the state-owned oil and gas company
BOTAS, which is part of the Nabucco consortium building the pipeline,
refused to comment on the report.

The five-company consortium plans to build a 3,300-kilometre
(2,000-mile) conduit that will carry natural gas from the Middle East
and Central Asia to the European Union via Turkey and the Balkans,
bypassing Russia.

The other partners in the venture are Austria’s oil and gas group OMV,
Hungary’s MOL, Bulgaria’s Bulgargaz and Romania’s Transgaz.

The consortium had been in contact with GDF for some time as part
of its efforts to find a sixth partner in the six-billion-dollar
(4.5-billion-euro) project, which is expected to become operational
in 2012.

The four other partners approved GDF’s participation, but Turkey
has opposed it because of a French draft law that makes it a jailable
offense to deny that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians
during World War I, Anatolia said.

The bill was adopted by the National Assembly in Paris in October but
must still go before the Senate, then back to the lower house before
becoming law.

Turkey had at the time threatened unspecified measures against the
bill, which it denounced as a "heavy blow" to bilateral ties.

In November, the Turkish army froze military ties with France over
the bill.

Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin perished in systematic
deportations and killings between 1915 and 1917 under the Ottoman
Empire, modern Turkey’s predecessor.

Turkey categorically denies claims of genocide and says thousands of
Turks and Armenians were killed in civil strife when Armenians took
up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian
troops invading the crumbling empire.

Much to Turkey’s ire, many countries have recognised the killings
as genocide.

NIKOLAI RYZHKOV AND NIKOLAI BORDYUZHA CONGRATULATED SERZH SARGSYAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
07.04.2007 15:12 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Nikolai Ryzhkov, Member of RF State Duma Council and
Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Cooperation Commission Co-Chair,
as well CSTO Sec. Gen. Nikolai Bordyuzha congratulated Sezh Sargsyan
on his appointment as RA Prime Minister. The Press Office of the
Armenian Government reported Serzh Sargsyan’s huge contribution to
the development of Armenian-Russian relations is stressed in their
message. The two also express assurance mutual understanding between
Armenia and Russia will further benefit to the interests of Armenia
and Russia.

2007 IS ANNOUNCED IN ARMENIA YEAR OF UNITED MOVEMENT FOR PROTECTION OF INVALIDS’ RIGHTS

Noyan Tapan
Apr 05 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 5, NOYAN TAPAN. The alliance of the "Protection
of Invalid People’s Interests" public organizations stated 2007
the year of united movement for protection of invalids’ rights
in Armenia. Susanna Tadevosian, the Chairperson of the alliance,
Chairwoman of the "Bridge of Hope" public organization stated about it
at the April 4 press-conference. In her words, the goal of the alliance
uniting 15 public organizations is to protect the invalids’ rights and
dignity, stimulating the process of their integration in the society.

Suren Ohanian, the Chairman of the "Lighthouse" public organization
mentioned that the invalids’ electoral rights will be violated
during this year parliamentary elections as it was during the
previous ones. He called on the political forces participating in the
elections to accompany their advertisements with surdo translations,
take measures to make polling stations accessible for invalids.