Author: Emil Lazarian

AKHTAMAR CHURCH TO OPEN NOVEMBER 4
PanARMENIAN.Net
09.10.2006 16:41 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The opening of the church on Akhtamar island
will most likely take place November 4. According to supervisor of
the restoration works, architect Zakhid Certanly, the works were
started in May 2005 and finished August 30, 2006. “600 000 Liras
was spent for the restoration carried out under the supervision of
5 experts. Bas-reliefs on the walls were cleaned, the foundation was
fastened, roof and floor were repaired and windows glassed. Presently
the workers put in order the surrounding territory, repair the roads,
build a quay, a booking office, a hotel, a cafe and a gift shop,”
the Turkish architect said. He also remarked that he restored the
church in Bitlis which is now used for social needs.
“As for Akhtamar, we always kept in contact with Armenian architects in
order to maintain its Armenian originality,” Certnaly said emphasizing
that Turkish Prime Minister Racep Tayyip Erdogan attaches importance to
the restoration of the church, which can contribute to the development
of the Armenian-Turkish relations and become an example for the
whole world.
“Erdogan will to all appearance be present at the opening ceremony,”
he said. The Turkish architect also reminded that the Church of
Saint Apostles was built in the 10th century by King Gagik Artsruni,
reports Yerkir with a reference to Marmara newspaper.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

FRANCE: PUNISHMENT FOR ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL SHOULDN’T BE APPLIED TO HISTORIANS
PanARMENIAN.Net
09.10.2006 17:25 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A leading figure from the ruling People’s
Majority Unity Party, French Armenian Patrick Devedjian proposed an
amendment to the bill penalizing the Armenian Genocide denial. The
single-sentenced proposal reads “These regulations do not apply
to academic and scientific researches and studies.” To remind, the
draft submitted by the opposition Socialist Party stipulates those
who deny the Armenian Genocide be imprisoned up to five years and
fined 45,000 euros. In a statement annexed to the amendment proposal,
Devedjian, in reference to Turkey, noted that the bill should prevent
any provocations and political demonstrations organized by a foreign
country, reported zaman.com.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

“VICTIMS: PLACE, RIGHTS AND ASSISTANCE” ON THE AGENDA OF THE 27TH CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN MINISTERS OF JUSTICE IN YEREVAN
Panorama.am
18:07 09/10/06
The Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe”s 46 member States
will meet in Yerevan (Armenia) on 12 and 13 October to find new
ways of promoting and developing support and assistance to victims,
facilitating their access to justice and ensuring that victims of
crime do not also become victims of administrative procedures and
bureaucracy.
The President of Armenia, Robert Kocharian, and the Council of
Europe”s Director General of Legal Affairs, Guy de Vel, will address
the participants when the conference opens on Thursday 12 October at
9 am (the meeting will be open to the press until 10.30 am).
During the conference, the ministers present will sign a number of
Council of Europe treaties.
The increasing rate of criminality as well as the threat and the acts
of terrorism demonstrate the need for member States to promote the
individual”s security and dignity and respond to violence by devising
and implementing social and judicial measures to assist the victims.
The conference will provide an opportunity to review existing standards
and practices in the member countries, as well as any shortcomings
in them or their implementation, and identify needs for additional
instruments.
The Council of Europe adopted a new recommendation on assistance to
crime victims (Rec (2006) 8) in June 2006. The Council of Europe
has long regarded aid for victims as a priority, having adopted a
Convention on the compensation of victims of violent crimes in 1983
and the Convention on the prevention of terrorism and the Convention
on action against trafficking in human beings in 2005.
Council of Europe Press Division
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

LEADER OF NTP CONCERNED ABOUT RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN CONFLICT
Panorama.am
18:11 09/10/06
Aram Karapetyan, chairman of New Times Party (NTP), forecasted “very
bad times” for Armenia if the country cannot find way to protect her
interests in the Russian-Georgian conflict. Karapetyan criticized the
Armenian authorities who, he said, blame everybody except themselves.
Unlike his opposition partners who blame Russia for ignoring Armenia’s
interests, Karapetyan blamed Georgia for strict actions. Karapetyan
unveiled very interesting data saying the mafiozi of Georgian decent in
Moscow will lose $8-10 million per month if the conflict continues. He
said of coarse Sahakashvili cannot recover the damage. Karapetyan
thinks Sahakashvili must think about his citizens living in
Russia.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP TO END
A1+
[11:51 am] 10 October, 2006
The Chess Championship under 20 is still continuing in the Chess
House after Tigran Petrosyan. Two tournaments will be held before
the end of the championship.
Armenian chess player Arman Pashikyan tied up with Ukrainian Yuri
Krivoruchko in the seventh tournament.
The Ukrainian representative leads the fixture table with six
points. Pashikyan is in the 5 – 12th places with his five points. He
will meet Indian chess player Chakravarti Dipan in the eighth round
who also has got five points.
Among Armenian women chess players only Tatevik Abrahamyan,
representing the U.S.A. has real chances to win. At present she is
in the 4 – 7th places with her five points.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

ASSYRIANS: IGNORED AMONG FEARS OF IRAQI CIVIL WAR
Source Assyria Times
UNPO – Unrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization
Oct 9 2006
The world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil
war between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But in this looming war of all
against all, it is Iraq’s small community of Assyrian Christians that
is at risk of annihilation.
Iraq’s Christian communities are among the world’s most ancient,
practicing their faith in Mesopotamia almost since the time of
Christ. The Assyrian Apostolic Church, for instance, traces its
foundation back to 34 AD and St. Peter. Likewise, the Assyrian Church
of the East dates to 33AD and St. Thomas. The Aramaic that many of
Iraq’s Christians still speak is the language of those apostles –
and of Christ.
When tolerated by their Muslim rulers, Assyrian Christians contributed
much to the societies in which they lived. Their scholars helped usher
in the “Golden Age” of the Arab world by translating important works
into Arabic from Greek and Syriac. But in recent times, toleration
has scarcely existed. In the Armenian Genocide of 1914-1918, 750,000
Assyrians – roughly two-thirds of their number at the time – were
massacred by the Ottoman Turks with the help of the Kurds.
Under the Iraqi Hashemite monarchy, the Assyrians faced persecution
for co-operating with the British during the World War I. Many fled to
the West, among them the Church’s patriarch. During Saddam Hussein’s
wars against the Kurds, hundreds of Assyrian villages were destroyed,
their inhabitants rendered homeless, and dozens of ancient churches
were bombed. The teaching of the Syriac language was prohibited
and Assyrians were forced to give their children Arabic names in an
effort to undermine their Christian identity. Those who wished to
hold government jobs had to declare Arab ethnicity.
In 1987, the Iraqi census listed 1.4 million Christians. Today, only
about 600,000 to 800,000 remain in the country, most on the Nineveh
plain. As many as 60,000, and perhaps even more, have fled since
the beginning of the insurgency that followed the United States-led
invasion in 2003. Their exodus accelerated in August 2004, after the
start of the terrorist bombing campaign against Christian churches by
Islamists who accuse them of collaboration with the allies by virtue
of their faith.
A recent UN report states that religious minorities in Iraq “have
become the regular victims of discrimination, harassment, and,
at times, persecution, with incidents ranging from intimidation to
murder.” It also observed that “members of the Christian minority
appear to be particularly targeted.”
Indeed, there are widespread reports of Christians fleeing the country
as a result of threats being made to their women for not adhering
to strict Islamic dress codes. Christian women are said to have had
acid thrown in their faces. Some have been killed for wearing jeans
or not wearing the veil.
This type of violence is particularly acute in the area around Mosul.
High-ranking clergy there claim that priests in Iraq can no longer
wear their clerical robes in public for fear of being attacked by
Islamists. Last January, coordinated car-bomb attacks were carried
out on six churches in Baghdad and Kirkuk; on another occasion, six
churches were simultaneously bombed in Baghdad and Mosul. Over the
past two years, 27 Assyrian churches have reportedly been attacked
for the sole reason that they were Christian places of worship.
The attacks go beyond targeting physical manifestations of the faith.
Christian-owned small businesses, particularly those selling alcohol,
have been attacked, and many shopkeepers murdered. The director of the
Iraqi Museum, Donny George, a respected Assyrian, says that he was
forced to flee Iraq to Syria in fear of his life, and that Islamic
fundamentalists obstructed all of his work that was not focused on
Islamic artefacts.
Assyrian leaders also complain of deliberate discrimination in the
January 2005 elections. In some cases, they claim, ballot boxes did
not arrive in Assyrian towns and villages, voting officials failed to
show up, or ballot boxes were stolen. They also cite the intimidating
presence of Kurdish militia and secret police near polling stations.
Recently, however, there are signs the Iraqi Kurdish authorities are
being more protective of their Christian communities.
Sadly, the plight of Iraq’s Christians is not an isolated one in the
Middle East. In Iran, the population as a whole has nearly doubled
since the 1979 revolution; but, under a hostile regime, the number of
Christians in the country has fallen from roughly 300,000 to 100,000.
In 1948, Christians accounted for roughly 20 percent of the
population of what was then Palestine; since then, their numbers
have roughly halved. In Egypt, emigration among Coptic Christians is
disproportionately high; many convert to Islam under pressure, and
over the past few years violence perpetrated against the Christian
community has taken many lives.
The persecution of these ancient and unique Christian communities,
in Iraq and in the Middle East as a whole, is deeply disturbing. Last
April, the European Parliament voted virtually unanimously for the
Assyrians to be allowed to establish (on the basis of section 5 of
the Iraqi Constitution) a federal region where they can be free from
outside interference to practice their own way of life. It is high
time now that the West paid more attention, and took forceful action
to secure the future of Iraq’s embattled Christians.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

EU PARLIAMENTARIAN LAGENDIJK CRITICIZES FRANCE, THE NETHERLANDS
Hurriyet, Turkey
Oct 9 2006
The co-head of the EU-Turkey Parliament Commission, Joost Lagendijk,
has signalled his disapproval for the so-called Armenian genocide
denial bill which the French Parliament is scheduled to debate
this week. Lagendijk, who called on Turkey last week to get rid of
the controversial article 301 from its penal code, said yesterday
“To speak openly, right now, neither France nor the Netherlands are
showing respect for freedom of expression.
What this means is that they are quieting people down.” Lagendijk’s
criticism of the Netherlands came in the wake of news that several
ethnically Turkish candidates in upcoming elections across the
Netherlands were forced of their parties’ candidate lists when they
refused to acknowledge the so-called Armenian genocide.
Lagendijk’s comments on the matter continued as follows: “To make
denial of the Armenian genocide a crime is an attempt to squelch
debate on this subject, and is incredibly risky. If want to maintain
our authority and believability in front of Turkey, we have to stay
away from these attempts to limit freedom of expression. I am opposed
to these efforts. Also, politics must never intrude on the debates
which occur between historians.”
Lagendijk touched in particular on the removal of the Turkish
candidates from election lists in his own country, the Netherlands:
“It is extremely worrisome that the Turks were removed as candidates
in my country. These questions are only being directed at the Turkish
candidates. Why don’t they ask me, or my collegue, Camiel Eurlings?
Maybe we also think differently on this subject.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AWARDING CEREMONY FOR WINNERS OF 4TH OPEN PROGRAMMING COMPETITION HELD IN YEREVAN
Arka News Agency, Armenia
Oct 9 2006
YEREVAN, October 9. /ARKA/. The ceremony of awarding the winners of
the 4th annual open programming competition was held in Yerevan.
Director of the Enterprise Incubator Foundation (EIF) Bagrat
Yengibaryan stated the three-stage contest was held from September
15 to October 4, 2006.
The second-year student of the Department of Applied Mathematics,
Yerevan State University, Gagik Amirkhanyan won the first stage of the
individual competition. The second stage (not part of the competition)
was in Tsakhkadzor as part of School of Information Technologies. So
winners were only selected in the first and third stages.
The teams of the Departments of Applied Mathematics of Yerevan State
University and of Russian-Armenian Slavonic University were winners
of the third stage, a team competition.
According to Yengibaryan, the participation in the competition opens
up new prospects for talented young people.
“Representatives of many international organizations specializing
in information technologies have started taking notice of our young
specialists,” he said.
Over 350 young people under 30 took part in the competition. The
bonus fund was about AMD 2mln (about $5.2ths).
The competition was sponsored by Synopsys Armenia, Virage Logic,
USAID, EIF, ACBA, “Unicomp” CJSC.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

East Side Boxing
Darchinyan robbed of a TKO! Wins easy technical decision!
07.10.06 – By Izyaslav `Slava’ Koza: In a situation eerily similar to
Arthur Abraham’s bout with Edison Miranda, Glenn Donaire suffered a broken
jaw in his bout with Vakhtang `Vic’ Darchinyan. The similarities ended
there, however, as Donaire indicated to the ref, Tony Weeks, that he could
not continue due to a `phantom’ headbutt foul. The replay clearly showed
Darchinyan landing a straight left that rocked Donaire at which point he
stopped the action himself and told the doctor and the referee he could not
go on.
Donaire clearly lost every round up to that point and was knocked down in
the bout. It was abundantly clear that he was looking to quit and really the
bout should have been stopped via technical knock out, as the blow came from
a punch.
Darchinyan looked superb, and the one time Donaire decided to engage he
found himself on the ground via the knockdown. Darchniyan missed with an
uppercut and landed the left to cause the damage and the count. Darchinyan
barely missed a punch during the whole fight, and was very entertaining in
his third or fourth Showtime Debut.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

PRESS RELEASE
Council of Europe Press Division
Ref: 566a06
Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 25 60
Fax:+33 (0)3 88 41 39 11
[email protected]
internet:
“Victims: place, rights and assistance” on the agenda of the 27th
Conference of European Ministers of Justice in Yerevan
Strasbourg, 09.10.2006 – The Ministers of Justice of the Council of
Europe’s 46 member States will meet in Yerevan (Armenia) on 12 and 13
October to find new ways of promoting and developing support and
assistance to victims, facilitating their access to justice and ensuring
that victims of crime do not also become victims of administrative
procedures and bureaucracy.
The President of Armenia, Robert Kocharian, and the Council of Europe’s
Director General of Legal Affairs, Guy de Vel, will address the
participants when the conference opens on Thursday 12 October at 9 am
(the meeting will be open to the press until 10.30 am).
During the conference, the ministers present will sign a number of
Council of Europe treaties.
The increasing rate of criminality as well as the threat and the acts of
terrorism demonstrate the need for member States to promote the
individual’s security and dignity and respond to violence by devising
and implementing social and judicial measures to assist the victims.
The conference will provide an opportunity to review existing standards
and practices in the member countries, as well as any shortcomings in
them or their implementation, and identify needs for additional
instruments.
The Council of Europe adopted a new recommendation on assistance to
crime victims (Rec (2006) 8
<(200 6)8&Sector=3DsecCM&Language=3DlanEnglish&a mp;Ver=3Doriginal&BackColorInternet=3D9999CC&a mp;BackColorIntranet=3DFFBB55&BackColorLogged= 3DFFAC75> ) in June 2006. The Council of Europe
has long regarded aid for victims as a priority, having adopted a
Convention on the compensation of victims of violent crimes
< n/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=3D116&CM=3D8&DF=3D9 /27/2006&CL=3DENG> in 1983 and the Convention on the
prevention of terrorism
< mmun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=3D196&CM=3D8&DF= 3D9/27/2006&CL=3DENG> and the Convention on action against
trafficking in human beings
< n/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=3D197&CM=3D8&DF=3D9 /27/2006&CL=3DENG> in 2005.
A press conference will be held on Friday 13 October at 12.15 pm (House
of Government, 47 Mashtots Avenue).
Journalists are invited to obtain accreditation from Anahit Voskanyan,
Armenian Ministry of Justice, tél. +374 10 582 581, fax +374 10 582
157, e-mail [email protected]
For further information on the conference, consult
Press contact:
Estelle Steiner, Press officer, Council of Europe
Tel. +33 (0)3 88 41 33 35, mobile +33 (0)6 08 46 01 57,
[email protected]
To receive our press releases by e-mail, contact :
[email protected]
A political organisation set up in 1949, the Council of Europe works to
promote democracy and human rights continent-wide. It also develops
common responses to social, cultural and legal challenges in its 46
member states.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress