Author: Emil Lazarian

When silences speak
TDN
Sunday, April 17, 2005
OPINIONS
Opinion by Elif SAFAK
ELIF SAFAK I first heard the word Armenian while eavesdropping on the
conversations of elderly Muslim women. Back when I was a child in
Istanbul, there was a small bakery my grandma would send me to for the
best yufka in the neighborhood. The place was owned by a modest
couple, a short woman who never smiled and her shorter husband who
always did. Coming home from there one day, I found a group of women
in our living room sipping their teas and praising the yufka of this
small bakery as they reached for the pastries. Then I heard one of
them ask, Are these bakers Armenians? My grandma nodded as she said:
But isn’t it obvious? They are such a hard-working couple. One by one
the women shared with each other memories of the Armenians they knew
back in their childhoods in Sivas, Erzurum, Van, Istanbul, etc.
Trying to cross the information I’d just heard with my image of the
bakers in the neighborhood, I had this vision of an insomniac couple
baking all kinds of bread every night in their little shops. The scene
seemed pretty pleasant to me, almost mystical. Eager to learn more
about these people and their ways, I interrupted the chitchat in the
room and asked, who on earth were these Armenians? Since that day, it
is not the answers that remain anchored in my memory but the silence
that followed. I remember the women being somewhat annoyed by my
question, and then, annoyed by my very presence in the room. Although
I had been sitting in front of their eyes for the past half hour, they
had only now taken notice. Suddenly, I had become an outsider.
Recalling that memory, I tend to liken it to a widespread and
deeply-rooted reaction in Turkish daily life concerning the Armenian
question. We can easily converse about the Armenians in the serenity
of our living rooms, we can recall distant memories of a past when we
used to live together with our good old Armenian neighbors, and we can
even be critical of the Turkish state provided there are no outsiders
around. We ourselves, on our own initiative can and do frequently
remember the Armenian neighbors we once had, but we do not like to be
reminded of them. That afternoon in that living room, I couldn’t help
but notice my interruption caused uneasiness and a decline in
enthusiasm among the women to keep talking in the same vein.
There was a nuance that equally remains etched in my memory. Whenever
she uttered the word Armenian, my grandmother lowered her voice
without realizing it — her voice dwindling to an almost confidential
whisper. To this day, Grandma’s intonation changes when she talks
about an Armenian, any Armenian. Clearly, she does not do it
deliberately or malevolently. When I ask her the reason why she cannot
utter this word aloud, she looks back at me in surprise. Does she
lower her voice? Sure she doesn’t.
In the passage of time, I came to realize I was not asking her the
right question. When the word is Armenian, it is not the sound of the
word itself necessarily, but the silence that conveys the uncharted
depths of oral history of elderly Muslim women in Turkey.
I conducted the same test on the women of my mother’s generation and
then the women of mine. The results were somewhat different. Younger
women in Turkey had no real difficulty in pronouncing the word
Armenian aloud, as if it was just any other word for them. They didn’t
have any reason to pause because they didn’t have any particular story
to tell. They didn’t have any particular story to tell because they
had no common experience with Armenians. Somehow, somewhere, a body of
knowledge was lost between generations of women. Thus, those who were
young and didn’t know much were the ones who would speak, but, didn’t
have anything personal to tell. Those who were old and had something
personal to tell were the ones that kept quiet, and as such, their
stories could not be heard. In either case, the Armenian question
remained unspeakable.
History does not only mean written and documented history. History is
also oral history. The elderly women in Turkey remember the things
Turkish nationalist historians cannot possibly bear to hear. In almost
every household in Turkey today, there is a woman of my grandmother’s
generation. The crucial question is: how can we ever bring that
experience out? How can we decode the silence? It is my belief that if
we are to look into the dusk of the past and shed light on the
atrocities we Turks have allegedly committed against the Armenians, we
should not only focus on the archives or written documents, but also
pay attention to the unwritten volumes of women’s oral histories.
We need to listen to the suppressed memories of the Turkish
grandmothers. For, unlike the Turkish nationalists who keep reacting
against every critical voice in civil society by systematically
propagating collective amnesia, these elderly women do remember.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Libération , France
15 avril 2005
Le tabou arménien a la vie dure en Turquie
DURAN Ragip
Ankara propose une commission mixte d’historiens turcs et arméniens
pour enquêter sur le génocide de 1915.
Istanbul de notre correspondant
Les plus optimistes y voient un prudent premier pas de la Turquie
pour régler officiellement ses comptes avec la partie la plus sombre
de son histoire. Le Premier ministre turc, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, issu
du mouvement islamiste, a proposé, dans un message à son homologue
arménien, Robert Kotcharian, l’instauration d’une commission mixte
composée d’historiens turcs et arméniens afin d’enquêter sur les
massacres de centaines de milliers d’Arméniens, en 1915, qu’Ankara se
refuse toujours à qualifier de génocide.
L’initiative paraît néanmoins être surtout une manoeuvre pour
désamorcer les critiques occidentales qui appellent de plus en plus
fermement Ankara à ce “travail de mémoire” alors que les négociations
d’adhésion à l’UE devraient commencer en octobre prochain.
“L’administration turque est coincée car elle veut poursuivre son
processus d’accès à l’Union européenne alors que les lobbies
arméno-occidentaux font monter la pression à la veille des
commémorations du 90e anniversaire de ces événements tragiques”,
estime le professeur d’histoire Halil Berktay, de l’université
Sabançi, une des rares personnalités turques, avec Taner Akçam,
spécialiste du problème arménien, qui contestent la thèse officielle.
Les massacres et les déportations d’Arméniens, entre 1915 et 1917,
ont fait entre 1,2 et 1,3 million de morts, selon les Arméniens, et
300 000 selon les Turcs.
“Nouvelle stratégie”. Occultée pendant quatre-vingt-dix ans par
l’histoire officielle, la mémoire arménienne a ressurgi en Turquie au
travers de livres et d’expositions. Mais si la société civile bouge
sur cette question, les autorités restent beaucoup plus timorées. Le
vice-Premier ministre et ministre des Affaires étrangères, Abdullah
Gül, avait pourtant annoncé mercredi une campagne tous azimuts et
“une nouvelle stratégie”, redoutant que le Congrès américain adopte
une résolution qualifiant ces événements de génocide. Les députés de
la Grande Assemblée nationale, réunis en session extraordinaire, se
sont mis d’accord sur un texte commun. “La raison et la logique
imposent que la Turquie et l’Arménie ne craignent pas de briser les
tabous dans une initiative commune […]. C’est le moyen d’éviter que
notre passé n’assombrisse notre présent et notre avenir”, affirme ce
document, qui, pour l’essentiel, réaffirme les thèses classiques
d’Ankara : il n’y a pas eu de génocide, une commission mixte
d’historiens de Turquie et d’Arménie doit étudier leurs archives
respectives et celles d’autres pays, et Ankara condamne fermement les
parlements des pays qui reconnaissent le génocide de 1915.
“Au-delà de l’effet d’annonce, il n’y a aucune nouveauté dans la
position turque”, observe un journaliste de l’hebdomadaire arménien
d’Istanbul Agos, précisant qu'”il ne s’agit pas d’un débat mais d’une
déclaration unilatérale qui avoue l’entêtement et les embarras
d’Ankara”. En effet, Abdullah Gül, qui a facilement adopté le ton
officiel devant le parlement, a réfuté en bloc l’existence d’un
génocide, estimant que “la Turquie était fière de son histoire”. Le
numéro 2 du gouvernement turc a aussi précisé que “l’ouverture de la
frontière et de l’espace aérien ainsi que le développement des
relations commerciales turco-arméniennes dépendaient de l’abandon,
par Erevan, de ses thèses falsifiant l’histoire”.
Encore plus catégoriques ont été hier les propos du président du
Centre d’études stratégiques et historiques de l’armée turque, le
général Erdogan Karakus, rappelant que l’ensemble des archives de
l’état-major, couvrant la période de 1914-1918, est ouvert depuis
1984 : “La totalité des documents et des correspondances des
autorités civiles et militaires de cette époque seront publiés en
quatre volumes. Quand vous les lirez, vous allez bien comprendre qui
a fait le génocide contre qui.” Le nationalisme monte en flèche
depuis quelques mois, notamment contre l’Union européenne, accusée de
“soutenir les terroristes kurdes et d’encourager les partisans du
génocide arménien”. Une atmosphère qui rend difficile un débat vieux
de quatre-vingt-dix ans.
Condition préalable. La reconnaissance du génocide arménien de 1915
par une dizaine de pays, dont la France, avait provoqué un choc. La
République turque, créée sept ans après la tragédie, n’a toujours pas
réussi à se situer par rapport à ce lourd héritage. Toutefois, les
Arméniens de Turquie restent pour la plupart hostiles aux
revendications de la diaspora, exigeant la reconnaissance du génocide
comme condition préalable à une adhésion turque à l’UE. Etyen
Mahçupyan, journaliste arménien d’Istanbul, avec Hirant Dink,
directeur d’Agos, et l’historien Taner Akçam font actuellement la
tournée des capitales européennes pour expliquer ce point de vue :
“La population turque n’a pas encore pris pleinement conscience du
problème et, dans un tel contexte, imposer une solution ne peut que
susciter des réactions hostiles.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Agence France Presse
15 avril 2005 vendredi 3:12 PM GMT
60.000 cierges sur l’internet pour le 90e anniversaire du génocide
arménien
EREVAN 15 avr 2005
Plus de 60.000 internautes ont allumé un cierge virtuel à la mémoire
des victimes du génocide arménien perpétré par la Turquie en 1915,
sur un site internet réalisé par un jeune Arménien qui dénonce un
“crime turc” non reconnu par Ankara.
Le nombre de cierges allumés avait dépassé les 62.000 vendredi, une
semaine après l’ouverture du site candle.direct.am.
“Chaque jour, pas moins de 3.000 cierges sont créés sur notre site.
Ce qui montre que les gens ne sont pas indifférents aux malheurs de
notre peuple”, a déclaré à l’AFP le jeune informaticien à l’origine
du projet, Gaïk Assatrian.
Il espère réunir sur son site jusqu’à 200.000 cierges d’ici au 24
avril prochain, date de la commémoration du génocide.
Parmi les internautes ayant déposé un cierge virtuel, de nombreux
Arméniens, mais aussi des internautes des Etats-Unis, de pays de
l’Union européenne, d’Israël ou même de Turquie.
Comme celui d’Orhan Bal, qui a écrit sous l’un des multiples cierges
apparaissant sur le site: “En tant que Turc, j’ai honte de ce qui est
arrivé aux Arméniens en Turquie. Je m’excuse et je demande pardon à
tous les Arméniens”.
“Nous devons nous souvenir, pas seulement des juifs”, écrit Kristjan
Mand, alors que de nombreux visiteurs israéliens ont été enregistrés
sur le site.
“Un million et demi d’oubliés. Le crime turc du génocide arménien du
24 avril 1915”, indique la page d’accueil du site.
Les massacres et les déportations d’Arméniens entre 1915 et 1917 ont
fait entre 1,2 million et 1,3 million de morts, selon Erevan, et
jusqu’à 300.000 morts selon Ankara, qui ne reconnaît pas le génocide,
en dépit des appels répétés des autorités arméniennes et de plusieurs
pays européens.
La Turquie a récemment adressé une lettre à l’Arménie proposant la
création d’une commission conjointe afin d’enquêter sur les massacres
des Arméniens.
mkh-dt

Pan Armenian News
TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER: RELATIONS BETWEEN ARMENIA AND TURKEY CANNOT STAY
AT CURRENT LEVEL FOR LONG
16.04.2005 05:38
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ «The relations between Armenia and Turkey develop.
Activation of the cooperation is observed between our countries at the state
level. The MPs of Armenia and Turkey periodically meet both in Ankara and
Yerevan. Besides, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia was on tour in
Turkey lately,» stated Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, the New
Anatolian periodical reported. Speaking of further promotion of bilateral
relations and the issue of the opening of Armenia’s border under the
conditions of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict being not settled, Abdullah Gul
noted that the MPs of the two countries work over intensive development of
the Armenian-Turkish relations. «The current state of the relations between
our countries cannot remain unchanged. By saying «our countries» I mean
Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia… I hope we will solve our problems,» he
added.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Frontline, India
Volume 22 – Issue 08, Mar. 12 – 25, 2005
India’s National Magazine
TRAVEL
In the original home of Zoroastrians
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS:
SUDHA MAHALINGAM
recently in Yazd
Structures made of Adobe, bricks of sun-dried earth and straw, the
most widely used building material in Yazd.
DRIVING through the streets of Teheran, the Iranian capital, during
the evening peak hour is an excruciating experience, especially if
you have a train to catch. “Have oil, will drive,” seems to be the
motto of Teheranians. There is an endless stretch of Paykans before,
behind and beside my taxi – also a battered Paykan – inching their
way down the swanky Vali-Asr avenue. We move at a snail’s pace and
there is a good 30 kilometres to go. My nerves are on edge, but the
taxi driver seems unfazed as he weaves through the traffic lanes,
past flyovers and underpasses, and manages to deposit me at the
Teheran railway station just in the nick of time. Iranian trains are
very clean and the stations virtually deserted – almost a culture
shock for those of us from the subcontinent. I find myself in the
women’s coach where all my fellow travellers are fully veiled in
black chadors. Suddenly, I feel self-conscious in my token headscarf.

I am on my way to a fascinating destination – Yazd – located 690 km
south of Teheran, right in the heart of the vast Iranian desert.
Wedged between Dasht-e-Kavir and Dasht-e-Lut, Yazd is a town unlike
any other. The recorded history of Yazd province goes back to 30
B.C., when human settlements dotted the arid Persian countryside.
Yazd is also the capital of the province bearing the same name. Yazd
town is believed to be the second oldest, continuously inhabited town
in the world, after Jerusalem. It is home to the descendants of the
original Zoroastrians, who refused to convert to Islam when the Arabs
invaded Persia. When the Arab hordes descended on their town in the
8th century A.D., most Yazdis fled to safe havens such as India,
where today there is a distinguished and flourishing Parsi community.
But some stayed back, defying their aggressors and keeping alive
their faith, rituals and practices.
The next morning I take a taxi through the deserted streets of Yazd
to my hotel, which turns out to be a delightful old caravanserai in
the heart of the old town. From outside, the inn looks unpretentious,
and but for the English signpost scrawled in charcoal on the
mud-brick wall, one could not have located it. Winding steps lead you
into a central courtyard with a small pond in the middle, surrounded
by rooms on all sides. Colourful rugs set off the earthy hue of the
walls, roof and the floor. Hookahs and ornamental pitchers blend in
with the setting. I am to share a room with a Lebanese woman from
Chicago. She had given up her lucrative banker’s job to discover the
joys of travelling. She had traversed Asia through the land route
from Japan, stopping in every country along the way, including India.
When I met her in Yazd in March, she had been travelling continuously
for three years.

A view of the Jame Masjid.
The inn is a charming place just to lounge around and spend the
evenings under a brilliantly starlit sky, smoking a hookah or sipping
tea and exchanging notes with fellow guests, almost all of them
foreigners like me. But that will have to wait until evening.

The Mehrab, or prayerniche at the mosque.
I set out on a walking tour of the old town, savouring the leisurely
pace of life in this part of the world. Adobe, bricks of sun-dried
earth and straw, is the dominant building material and the houses
look as though they were built eons ago. Every once in a while the
monochrome of adobe is relieved by brilliant turquoise tiles
embellishing the domes of mosques and minarets. Many houses are
crumbling and look uninhabited, but Yazdis are very much there,
behind those formidable doors. Like many ancient houses in Yazd, the
front door sports two knockers – a slender one for women and a sturdy
one for men. From the sound of the knocker, the inmates would know
whether the visitor is a male or a female and accordingly decide who
should open the door. This practice certainly predates the Islamic
revolution. Now it is just a relic, with electric call bells
supplementing doorknockers. Behind that crumbling facade, most Yazdis
live in modern comfort – with wall-to-wall carpeting and electronic
gadgetry. Many even have computers with Internet connectivity.

A Yazdi woman
Apart from the minarets and domes, what strikes one about the Yazd
skyline are the badgirs – the cooling towers of a pre-electricity,
pre-air-conditioning era. Badgirs are rectangular structures that
rise above the skyline. Sometimes, they were built around a central
dome. The simplest towers contain two or four shelves. The trunk of
the tower contains shafts. The shelves at the top catch the hot air
and redirect it away from the dwelling below. The flaps effectively
redirect the cool air and circulate it. The air currents that enter
the house through these channels pass over a pool of cool water –
usually under the dome.

An alley in the town.
I use one of the female knockers and seek permission to stand under
the dome to judge the effectiveness of a badgir. It is incredibly
cool under the tower, though the outside temperature must have been
around 38° Celsius.

Schoolgirls in Yazd.
Another feature, typical of desert country, is the qanat or
underground water channel – an ingenious irrigation system of Persian
origin. The author Vikram Seth describes a similar channel in Turfan
in Xinjiang province of China in his book From Heaven Lake. There are
also qanats in Morocco and parts of Central Asia, but qanats were
originally conceived and designed by ancient Persians. Along the
length of a qanat, which can be several kilometres long, vertical
shafts are sunk at intervals of 20-30 metres to remove excavated
material and to provide ventilation and access for repairs. The main
qanat tunnel often slopes gently down to an outlet, usually near a
habitation, and from there canals would distribute water to the
fields for irrigation. It is no wonder Yazd is dotted with
pomegranate and almond plantations on apparently arid plains.

The Tower of Silence, where the Zoroastrians traditionally left their
dead to the vultures and the elements.
I spied several qanat outlets in Yazd. They are usually canopied,
with an ornamental circular skylight providing ventilation. At
Meybod, a small town near Yazd, there is an exquisitely decorated
qanat located in the middle of a caravanserai, and next to an amazing
ancient storehouse for ice. There is also a qanat inside Yazd’s Jame
Mosque, but it is barred and barricaded to prevent the feet of
tourists from defiling its pure waters. There are over 50,000 qanats
scattered all over Iran, and invariably the qanat builders came from
Yazd province. Mohammed Kharaji, a 10th century Persian scholar,
wrote a whole chapter on qanat construction, in a manuscript that was
recently discovered.

The Atashkadeh or Fire Temple is the congregation point for all
Zoroastrians in Yazd. The flame in this temple was brought from
Ardakan in A.D. 1474 and has been burning continuously since A.D. 470
in other locations.
Gradually, I wend my way to the Fire Temple – called Atashkadeh in
Farsi – the congregation point for all Zoroastrians in Yazd. The
flame in this temple was brought from Ardakan in A.D. 1474, and has
been burning continuously since A.D. 470 in other locations. It is a
Friday, and in a hall behind the temple, I find a heap of footwear.
After a moment’s hesitation, I enter the premises and make my way
across the row of women seated on the far side. A young priest is
delivering a fiery speech in Farsi, peppered with animated gesturing.
I do not understand a word of what he says, but am mesmerised by his
body language. Everyone listens in rapt attention, at times nodding
vigorously. There are framed paintings of Zoroaster and a huge bowl
of fire in an adjacent chamber. Unlike Muslim women, Zarthushti women
wear colourful headscarves and clothes. The men wear white skullcaps.
The priest’s speech is followed by an elaborate Zarathusti prayer,
with everyone standing and holding both palms outstretched towards
the sky. The men pull out a thread from around their waist – the belt
of humility – and chant more prayers. It seems like eternity when the
prayer finally ends.

The priest of the Fire Temple, a banker by profession.
I befriend the priest, a banker by profession. I was very curious to
know the content of his impassioned speech, but unfortunately he
could not speak English. But he gestures for me to follow him. We get
into his car and drive off to find an interpreter. We find a young
university student and all of us drive to another Fire Temple, where
I am schooled in the rudiments of the Zoroastrian religion, Farsi
traditions and history.

Worshippers in the temple.
Zoroastrianism or Zarthusht – as the Persian followers of Zoroaster
call themselves – was the official religion of the Achaemenids and
the Sassanids, the two great ancient dynasties of Persia. In fact,
during an earlier visit to Iran, I visited Persepolis – the great
capital of the ancient Persian Empire – which Darius built 2,600
years ago, where I saw several bas-reliefs of Zoroaster and the
ancient Zarthusht god, Ahura Mazda. Even though recorded history is
rather skimpy on the details of the religion, Herodotus’ description
of Zoroastrian rituals confirms that the religion as it is practised
today in Yazd is the same one dating back to 4,000 years. After the
sacking of Persepolis by Alexander the Great, Zoroastrianism probably
went underground during the Parthian era until the Sassanid dynasty
revived it in A.D. 228. It is widely believed that the three wise men
who bore gifts for Jesus of Nazareth were Zoroastrian Magi. During
the sixth century, Zoroastrianism spread to Armenia and through the
Silk Route, to as far as China.

A badgir, or cooling tower, built around a central dome.
But the Arab conquest of the Sassanids in the 7th century A.D. saw
Zoroastrians fleeing Persia in huge numbers, with many of them
seeking refuge in western India. Jaidev Rana, a Hindu king, gave them
refuge on the condition that they marry within their community and
desist from proselytising. The Parsi community in India now
outnumbers the Zarthusht in Iran, but because of endogamy, their
numbers are dwindling. In Yazd, the community is said to be
30,000-strong. The language spoken by the Zarthusht in Yazd is
different from the Farsi spoken by Muslim Iranians and Indian Parsis.

A typical doorway in Yazd, with separate knockers for men and women.
While there is no overt persecution of Zoroastrians in Iran, I got
the impression that they are just about tolerated in post-revolution
Iran. There is one member of the community represented in the Majlis.
There are a few special schools where Zarthusht children learn their
traditions and rituals. Zarthusht settlements are found in clusters
in and around Yazd town, although there are a few of them scattered
all over Iran. Inter-religious marriages are rare. There is a
Zarthusht Anjuman Society, where the members gather to discuss issues
of concern. Men and women enjoy equal status in Zarthusht society.
Zarthusht women do not wear chadors, but only a headscarf. After a
long chat with the priest and other members of the Zarthusht
community in Yazd, I felt they were weighed down by the
responsibility of having to keep their identity, traditions and faith
alive, even as their numbers are dwindling at an alarming rate.

A vertical shaft of a qanat, or underground water channel, an
ingenious irrigation system.
The next day, I made a detour to the Tower of Silence situated on the
outskirts of the town. There were two mounds – both were used a
hundred years ago, to leave the dead to vultures and the elements.
Today, the Zarthusht bury their dead in concrete crypts in a special
cemetery. The Tower of Silence seems a misnomer today. Young boys on
motorbikes race up and down the mounds, kicking up a huge cloud of
dust and making a racket. At the foot of the mounds are the ruins of
an old caravanserai. Further away is the new Zarthusht cemetery. I
stroll into the cemetery, where I bump into Fariborz, a Zoroastrian
living in Canada. At last, I can converse freely without the aid of
an interpreter. Fariborz had lived in Mumbai for 20 years before he
shifted to Canada. He visits Yazd every year. He maintains a website
on ancient Iran, and makes a serious effort to bring the Zarthusht
diaspora together through newsletters and magazines.

The ornamental dome of Alexander’s Prison.
I am irresistibly drawn back to the walled city with its ramparts,
towers and tunnel-like streets. It is easy to get lost in its
labyrinthine lanes, but always someone materialises magically to
escort you all the way back. There is a delicious aroma of baking
bread in the numerous little bakeries that dot the old city. I make
my way to the Jame Mosque, which towers over the old city with its
glittering twin minarets. Folklore has it that unmarried young women
used to ascend the minarets on Fridays. From the top of the minaret
they would throw down the key to a lock affixed on their headscarves.
The young man who found the key could claim the girl’s hand in
marriage.
The 14th century mosque was built under the loving gaze of Bibi
Fatema Khatun, the wife of the Governor of Yazd. Its Mehrab (prayer
niche) is intricately patterned in dazzling blue and dappled green,
but the stark interiors appeal to me more. I coax the caretaker to
open the winding stairwell to the top of the minaret, from where I
could get a bird’s eye view of the rooftops. He insists I give him a
written request and I promptly oblige. I am not sure he could read
English, but he seemed satisfied enough to open the door for me. I
wander around on the roof, taking pictures and admiring the view of
the town. But when I get back, I find the door locked from outside.
It took some banging and screaming before the caretaker came and
opened the door rather sheepishly.
Yazd has many traditional houses that are well preserved. One such is
Khan-e-Lari, the mansion of Lari, a rich merchant. It has exquisite
stained glass windows and carved alcoves, and many fruit trees in the
courtyard. Not very far from there is Alexander’s Prison, its
ornamental dome belying its sinister history. I also visit the 11th
century monument of the Seljuk period, called 12 Imams, although not
one is actually buried there.
I wander around Amir Chakmagh Square – the striking landmark named
after the Governor of Yazd. Amir Chakmagh is the most visible face of
Yazd, found in picture postcards and tourist brochures. The monument
is a study in Islamic architecture, an ode to symmetry and form. But
it is just an ornamental facade lacking depth, and seems to serve no
discernible purpose. With no one to explain its origin and purpose, I
saunter off to the nearby bazaar. I had expected Yazd bazaar to be as
glamorous and interesting as the Shiraz and Isfahan bazaars, but it
was a let-down. At the entrance is a vendor selling just-hatched
chickens dipped in lurid pink, green, red and blue colours. Inside
the covered market there are rows and rows of plastic goods, pots,
pans and electrical items. Not a single shop sold Yazd’s famed
brocade or carpets. I retrace my steps back to the Silk Route Hotel
for a well-earned cup of tea under the starry skies.

WorldNetDaily, OR
April 16 2005
Christian soldier beaten, imprisoned
Punished for sharing faith, literature with colleagues
By Michael Ireland
© 2005 Assist News Service
Baptist conscript Gagik Mirzoyan — who is conducting unarmed service
in the army of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh republic — has been
beaten and punished with more than 10 days in detention since the
beginning of April for sharing his faith with other soldiers and
possessing several Christian calendars.
Felix Corley, writing for Forum 18 News Service, says Mirzoyan’s
relatives and friends told Forum 18 from Nagorno-Karabakh Thursday
that before being transferred to an unknown location, Mirzoyan was
threatened with a prison sentence of two years.
Nagorno-Karabakh is disputed terrority that lies between Armenia and
Azerbaijan in the former Soviet Union.
Forum 18 says it has been unable to reach V. Davidov, commanding
officer of Mirzoyan’s former unit in Nagorno-Karabakh’s south-eastern
Hadrut region, to find out why he ordered or allowed one of his
troops to be beaten and detained merely for expressing his faith and
possessing religious calendars.
“Forum 18 also tried to find out from the defense ministry why
Mirzoyan has been punished, but an official at the ministry told
Forum 18 from the capital Stepanakert yesterday that the minister,
General Seyran Ohanyan, was out of the office and that no-one else
was immediately available. Telephones also went unanswered at
Nagorno-Karabakh’s foreign ministry,” Corley writes in his report.
Corley said that on Monday, relatives and friends went to military
unit 42009 in Hadrut to see Mirzoyan after hearing that he had been
beaten and given 10 days of detention at the guardhouse.
“When we got there he had already been held under arrest for 12 days
but still had not been freed,” they told Forum 18.
They reported that when they were able to see Mirzoyan, the “results
of beatings” were visible on his face. Military personnel at the base
told the visitors Mirzoyan would be freed the following day, Tuesday,
and they would then be able to talk to him.
Corley writes: “Despite these promises, Mirzoyan continued to be
detained and during the day was threatened by the head of the unit’s
political department and by an official of the prosecutor’s office
that a case against him would be drawn up, handed to the prosecutor’s
office and he would be sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. Forum 18
has been unable to discover what charges are being or might be
levelled against Mirzoyan.”
Mirzoyan’s relatives and friends told Forum 18, “Through the grace of
God we were later able to have a 10-minute meeting with brother Gagik
and discovered that he is being persecuted for preaching the Gospel
and because they found several Christian calendars in his possession.
Now he has been taken away to an unknown destination and they are not
saying where he is and what has happened to him.”
Mirzoyan was called up in December, Corley said.
Corley writes: “After refusing to serve with weapons and swear the
military oath because of his faith Mirzoyan was beaten and pressured
by the commander of the unit to which he was transferred and Fr.
Petros Yezegyan, the unit’s Armenian Apostolic military chaplain.
Both the defence minister, General Ohanyan, and Fr. Yezegyan
emphatically denied to Forum 18 that Mirzoyan had been beaten.”
The army later agreed that Mirzoyan could serve in a non-combat role
and he was transferred to the unit in Hadrut region, Corley reported.
According to Corley: “Nagorno-Karabakh has no provision for
alternative service for those who have religious or other
conscientious objections to participating in the armed forces. On
Feb. 16 a court in Stepanakert handed down a four-year prison term to
Areg Hovhanesyan, a Jehovah’s Witness who had refused to serve
because of his faith but had expressed a willingness to perform an
alternative civilian service.

Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Iran
April 16 2005
Iran, Armenia discuss boosting consular cooperation
Moscow, April 16, IRNA
Iranian Foreign Ministry’s Director General for Consular Affairs
Rasoul Mohajer met with Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Gegham
Gharibjanian in Yerevan on Friday evening, discussing expansion of
consular ties.
During the meeting, Gharibjanian pointed to the rising level of
Iran-Armenia cooperation, saying the agreements reached at the first
joint consular meeting would consolidate bilateral relations.
Referring to the previous visit of Iran’s President Mohammad Khatami
to Yerevan, he highlighted implementation of the accords signed
between the two sides’ officials.
Mohajer, for his part, said that coexistence of Armenians and Muslims
in Iran was a token of friendship and historical affinities between
them.
He expressed satisfaction over the results of the first joint
consular meeting, urging further negotiations on issues regarding the
residence of Iranian and Armenian nationals in each other’s country.
During the 1st Iran-Armenia Joint Consular Meeting, a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) was signed between Mohajer and his Armenian
counterpart.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Times Herald-Record, NY
April 16 2005
Man accused in plot in U.S. for trial
A man who allegedly photographed rocket-propelled grenade
launchers and other weapons in a plot to smuggle the deadly machinery
into the United States has been brought from Armenia to the United
States for trial.
Herbert Haddad, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney David Kelley, said
Armen Barseghyan would appear in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in
the next week to face charges contained in indictments charging 20
defendants.
Barseghyan was accused in court papers of photographing
rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-to-air missiles and
other Russian weapons that were supposed to be smuggled into the
United States.
The plot was broken up by an FBI informant who posed as an arms
buyer with ties to terrorists, prosecutors said as they announced
charges in the case last month.
In the case, U.S. investigators went to South Africa, Armenia and
the Georgian Republic, put wiretaps on seven phones and intercepted
more than 15,000 calls.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Pan Armenian News
EXHIBITION DEDICATED TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE 90-TH ANNIVERSARY TO BE HELD IN
COPENHAGEN
15.04.2005 06:46
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On the initiative of Momik cultural center and with the
assistance of the Armenian community of Denmark an exhibition of 12 Armenian
painters will be held in Copenhagen April 21-24, Yerkir online reports. The
event is dated to the 90-th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. During the
period of its activities Momik has organized about 40 exhibitions in Armenia
and abroad, where the works of over 50 Armenian painters and masters of
applied art were represented. Since 2002 the center has published a magazine
titled `Armenian Art’ and spread in the Armenian communities of 15
countries. This autumn Momik is going to organize an exhibition dedicated to
the 1600-th anniversary of the invention of the Armenian alphabet.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Armenpress
GEORGIA RESOLUTE TO FOIL SEPARATISTS SENTIMENTS IN JAVAKHETI
TBILISI, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS: Georgia’s defense minister Irakly
Okruashvili said in a yesterday’s interview to Georgian Times newspaper that
the government is resolute to thwart all attempts aiming to destabilize the
situation in the predominantly Armenian populated region of Javakheti.
“We shall work to ensure jobs for local population when the Russian
military base is removed. We shall not allow any separatists sentiments
there,” he said.
Okruashvili also said conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia could be
resolved with the help of “friendly nations.” “The world is changing rapidly
and Georgia’s significance in international politics is also changing.
Georgia is able now to take its voice to friendly nations and solve the
conflicts with their help,’ he said.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress