Author: Jabejian Elizabeth

Los Angeles Times, CA
Jan 29 2007

State probes group tied to L.A. County sheriff
Investigators are focusing on the body’s charitable fundraising. Many
of its members have donated to Lee Baca’s campaigns.
By Stuart Pfeifer, Times Staff Writer
January 29, 2007

A state attorney general’s investigation of a private group
associated with Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is focusing on
its charitable fundraising, according to documents obtained by The
Times.

Members of the Homeland Security Support Unit – made up of local
businessmen, many of them contributors to Baca’s political campaigns
– have been asked to supply the attorney general with evidence of any
payments made to the group or its leaders.

Baca suspended the unit last year amid concern about identification
cards that had been issued to members, a department spokesman said.

The cards included Baca’s name and made the group appear to be an
official part of the Sheriff’s Department.

The attorney general’s office, which oversees charity organizations
in California, has sent group members questionnaires that ask whether
they donated to Baca’s group or to two similar civilian law
enforcement support groups in Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
The questionnaire, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, also
asks for copies of any checks that were written to the groups or
their directors.

A spokeswoman for the attorney general declined to discuss the
investigation. The agency has the authority to pursue monetary
damages from charities that mismanage contributions.

The Homeland Security Support Unit held fundraising events but was
not registered as a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, records show.
Contributors at those events were asked to make checks payable to
Armenian Vision Outreach, a nonprofit that is also a subject of the
investigation, according to documents reviewed by The Times.

Gary Nalbandian, owner of a Glendora tire store, served as director
of Baca’s Homeland Security Support Unit. Before he was named to that
position, he had been instrumental in raising political contributions
for Baca.

The attorney general’s questionnaire asks members whether they wrote
checks or paid cash to Nalbandian or assistant directors Gary
Jerjerian and Ramzi Bader while "believing that all or a portion of
the money was to be used for charitable purposes, for example: for
scholarships, grants, orphanages [or] equipment for law enforcement."

Nalbandian declined last week to discuss details of the
investigation.

"The attorney general [investigators] are the experts. If there is
something, they’ll find it," Nalbandian said. "I have nothing to talk
about."

Baca said the homeland security group, which included many members
from the Armenian American community, was intended to provide tips
about potential terror threats and assistance with translating
foreign-language documents.

The group was one of more than a dozen citizens’ groups that Baca
launched to help the Sheriff’s Department reach out to the community.
It was not incorporated or authorized by anyone other than Baca.

The attorney general’s office, which opened the financial review last
fall, also is preparing an opinion on whether law enforcement
officials in California can issue souvenir badges or identification
cards to civilians. State law makes it a misdemeanor to distribute
badges to the public that could be confused with those issued to
sworn law enforcement officers.

In addition to Baca’s homeland security unit, Nalbandian launched the
civilian Bureau of Justice for San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Mike
Ramos and the Sheriff’s Executive Council for Riverside County
Sheriff Bob Doyle.

Baca, Ramos and Doyle accepted thousands of dollars in political
contributions from members of the groups. Ramos and Doyle issued
badges to members but later revoked them.

Baca did not issue badges; members of his group received laminated
identification cards.

Critics said the badges and identification cards appeared to be
rewards for political contributions and had the potential for abuse.
Two members told The Times last year that they flashed their badges
to law enforcement officials, one to gain access to a secure area at
Bob Hope Airport, the other when he became the subject of a criminal
investigation.

Raffi Mesrobian said he displayed both his Los Angeles County
sheriff’s ID card and Riverside County sheriff’s executive council
badge when state agents served a search warrant at his Glendale
naturopathy office during a 2005 investigation. He was charged last
year with grand theft, fraud and practicing medicine without a
license. Mesrobian pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department opened an internal
affairs investigation of Nalbandian, who is also a volunteer reserve
deputy, more than six months ago and has not decided whether to
suspend him while the inquiries are pending, department spokesman
Steve Whitmore said.

Nalbandian also holds a sheriff’s concealed weapons permit. The
department has not tried to revoke that.

"The Sheriff’s Department wanted to wait until the conclusion of our
own investigation and the attorney general’s inquiry and then take it
from there," Whitmore said of the concealed weapons permit.

Concern about official-looking badges escalated last month when a
Compton man was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a state
official after flashing a badge that had been issued by the office of
Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton). The man allegedly showed the
badge, which identified him as an "assembly commissioner," to Redondo
Beach police officers who were attempting to question him about
playing loud music.

In response to that incident, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez (D-Los
Angeles) this month banned the distribution of Assembly badges to the
public.

The attorney general’s office, responding to a request from the
Riverside County district attorney, is expected to issue a legal
opinion this spring about whether sheriffs and police chiefs can
issue badges to the public as Doyle and Ramos did.

Gulf Daily News, Bahrain
Jan 28 2007

Russia plans refinery for Iranian oil

MOSCOW: The oil division of Russian energy giant Gazprom is planning
to build a refinery in Armenia to process oil coming from
neighbouring Iran, a Russian newspaper said yesterday.

The plan would involve pumping oil into Armenia from the Tabriz
region of northern Iran along a 200km pipeline, then transporting the
refined oil products back into Iran by rail, the Kommersant daily
said.

"We are looking into building a refinery in Armenia, but we cannot
give details for the moment," Natalya Vyalkina, a spokeswoman for
state-controlled Gazprom Neft, said.

Kommersant quoted analysts as saying that the project would be
"essentially political" since the high transport costs involved would
bring little economic profit.

Russia has close economic ties with Iran and is building a nuclear
power station in southern Iran. Moscow long resisted the imposition
of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Armenian-Turkish Unity at Slain Editor’s Funeral

New York Times, NY
Jan 24 2007

ISTANBUL, Jan. 23 – More than 50,000 mourners, including senior
Turkish and Armenian officials in a rare display of unity, poured
into the heart of Istanbul on Tuesday to bid farewell to Hrant Dink,
the Turkish-Armenian journalist who was gunned down outside his
offices last week, a death that many Turks hoped would be a catalyst
for change.

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Mourners at the office of the newspaper, Agos. In a show of unity,
some held signs saying "We Are All Hrant Dink" in Turkish and Armenian.

The Armenian patriarch in Istanbul, Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan, spoke
out during Mr. Dink’s funeral against curbs on freedom of expression
and encouraged the thaw in relations between Armenia and Turkey that
has become evident since the slaying.

"It is unacceptable to judge and imprison someone because of his
thoughts, let alone to kill him," the archbishop said during the
hourlong service at the Holy Mother of God Armenian Patriarchal
Church. "It is mystical that his funeral turned into an occasion
where Armenian and Turkish officials gathered together."

Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Armenia were frozen and
their border closed in 1993 after years of grievances, chiefly over
the mass deaths of Armenians at Turkish hands in 1915, during World
War I. Many scholars and most Western governments accept that more
than a million Armenians died in what they describe as a genocide,
but Turkey says that there were deaths on both sides and that they
were an unfortunate result of the war. But on Tuesday, in what was
widely regarded as an important symbolic step, Turkish and Armenian
officials appeared at Mr. Dink’s funeral services.

Top Turkish officials – Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin;
Interior Minister Abdulkadir Aksu; the Istanbul governor, Muammer
Guler; and the head of the security forces, Celalettin Cerrah –
were seated in the front row. Two generals were also present.

The Armenian deputy foreign minister, Arman Kirakossian, was seated
behind the Turkish governmental officials, with Karen Mirzoyan, the
permanent Armenian representative to the Organization of the Black
Sea Economic Cooperation.

Religious leaders included the archbishop of the Armenian Church of
America, Khajag Barsamian. Impressed by the strength of the public
reaction to Mr. Dink’s death, Archbishop Barsamian said in an interview
that "his soul will be in peace when he sees that his assassination
created some positive steps between two countries."

Saban Disli, foreign relations officer of Turkey’s governing Justice
and Development Party, agreed that public revulsion with the killing
could improve relations.

"With the help of a supportive public opinion, the best approach
to resolve conflicts between the two countries is to assess issues
altogether, rather than considering them one by one in a deadlock,"
Mr. Disli said. "The only obstacle that can hinder our good will to
open the borders and re-establish dialogue with Armenia would be the
destructive lobbying of the Armenian diaspora against Turkey."

Earlier, with hundreds of police officers in riot gear and with
traffic barred on the main thoroughfares, normally chaotic sections
of Istanbul were subdued as ethereal Armenian music played from
loudspeakers along Republic Avenue; Turks of various ethnicities
stood shoulder to shoulder, many in tears.

Many mourners waved circular placards reading "We are all Hrant Dink"
in Turkish on one side and in Armenian on the other.

Still other signs read "Murderer 301," a reference to the law under
which scores of writers and intellectuals, including Mr. Dink and
the Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk, have been prosecuted in lawsuits
filed by nationalists.

Mr. Pamuk was provided personal security by the police on Tuesday,
the CNN Turk Web site reported. Mr. Pamuk was escorted by policemen
in plainclothes as he left for a book fair in Egypt.

Mr. Pamuk has refused offers of personal security from authorities
in the past, the Web site said.

Article 301, which criminalizes the act of insulting "Turkishness,"
remains a roadblock to Turkish entry into the European Union, which
is urging Turkey to amend it.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has shown some willingness to
have the law reworded, asking nongovernmental civic organizations
late last year to come up with a draft to submit to Parliament. No
single version has been agreed upon, but the killing of Mr. Dink
seems certain to spur the debate.

During the march, an elderly woman of Armenian descent, crying on
the street, said it was "important to remember that Turkey became
a republic with our blood, too." She asked not to be identified,
saying she feared someone might shoot her, too.

The police said that Ogun Samast, 17, had confessed to shooting Mr.

Dink and that he said he had been given the weapon by Yasin Hayal,
a nationalist convicted in the bombing of a McDonald’s restaurant
in 2004.

Mr. Hayal has been detained in connection with the Dink case. Both
men are from Trabzon, on the Black Sea in far eastern Turkey, a city
known as a nationalist stronghold.

One of the mourners, Nazli Ilicak, a journalist, said that while
Muslim Turks felt a strong sense of shame at the killing of Mr. Dink,
the government "will find it hard to turn this dynamism into a real
step for peace with Armenia before the elections this year, especially
in the shadow of increasing nationalism."

Murdered journalist’s funeral is a silent rally of defiance
By Suna Erdem in Istanbul

The Times/UK
January 24, 2007

A 100,000-strong crowd of Turks, ethnic Armenians and foreigners followed
Hrant Dink’s coffin (Reuters)

Turkish dissent law under spotlight
Big international presence at service

Tens of thousands of mourners marched in silence through Istanbul
yesterday behind the coffin of the Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant
Dink, who was shot dead by a teenager with suspected nationalist links.

Carrying black banners bearing the slogans "We are all Armenian"
and "We are all Hrant Dink", the 100,000-strong crowd of Turks,
ethnic Armenians and foreigners walked nearly five miles (8km),
expressing their anger without chanting but with their quiet presence,
as requested by Mr Dink’s widow, Rakel.

In an emotional speech outside the offices of Agos, the Turkish
Armenian newspaper, where Mr Dink, its editor, was shot, Rakel Dink
urged the mourners to work for an end to the hostile nationalistic
environment that still has many Turks in its grip despite recent
liberal reforms.

"Do not be satisfied with this much, do not be satisfied with today,"
she cried out to the crowd. "The killer was a baby once. We cannot
achieve anything if we do not question the darkness which creates a
murderer out of a baby."

Mr Dink, along with several other writers, including the Nobel laureate
Orhan Pamuk, had been prosecuted under the controversial Article 301
of the Turkish penal code for his views on the killing of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks in 1915. Turkey denies strongly that this amounted to
a genocide and treats any departure from the official line with deep
suspicion. Liberal Turks, including Mr Pamuk, say that they believe
that Article 301, which punishes "insults to Turkish identity",
is used to set people up as targets.

Seventeen-year-old Ogun Samast has confessed to the murder of Mr Dink
for " insulting Turks". Another man, Yasin Hayal, jailed recently
for bombing a McDonald’s restaurant, has admitted inciting him. A
university student is being held under suspicion of organising a
nationalist "cell" that included Hayal and commissioned the murder.

The killing of Mr Dink, 52, who had sought reconciliation between
Muslim Turks and Christian Armenians, harked back to the dark decades
at the end of the 20th century when dissenting journalists and other
activists were felled by militants with suspected links within the
state and intelligence apparatus.

The President and the Prime Minister were conspicuously absent at the
service in an Armenian church by the Golden Horn waterway, but the
public and international response has been overwhelming. Ambassadors,
Turkish ministers and MPs, members of the European Parliament and
leading Armenian clerics from across the world crowded into the church.

"He died defending his conscience and beliefs and the right to express
these beliefs," Patriarch Mesrob Mutafyan told the congregation.

Newspaper columnists have been railing against curbs on free speech
and nationalism in a way that would once have been considered
treacherous. "A giant awakened today," the commentator Mehmet Altan
said. "For the first time the Turkish people took a stand which
was distanced from the kind of propaganda by which it is usually
influenced. We gave him in death what we could not in life."

ECUMENICAL PRAYER TO BE HELD IN TBILISI

Tbilisi. January 23. ArmInfo-BLACK SEA PRESS. Tomorrow, on January
24 an ecumenical prayer will be held for the unity of all Christians
with the participation of representatives of all Christian confessions
at Sub Gevork Armenian Cathedral, News Georgia was informed at the
Georgian See of the Apostolic Church of Armenia.

The ecumenical prayer that is held every year at churches of
different Christian confessions will be attended by the Apostolic
Church of Armenia, Catholic, Evangelical-Baptists’ Church and
Evangelical-Lutheran Church.

Representatives of the Diplomatic Missions accredited in Georgia
are also invited to take part in the ecumenical prayer, as well as
governmental officials and NGO representatives.

Goran Lenmarker to visit Armenia in February

ArmRadio.am
22.01.2007 14:00

February 4-6 President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Rapporteur
on Nagorno Karabakh Goran Lenmarker will pay a working visit to
Armenia.

Public Relations Office of RA National Assembly informs that on
February 5 Goran Lenmarker will have meetings with the parliamentary
delegation of Armenia in the OSCE PA and NA Chairman Tigran
Torosyan. Goran Lenmarker is scheduled to meet also RA President
Robert Kocharyan and Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian.

In the framework of a regional visit Mr. Lenmarker will visit also
Baku.

Agence France Presse — English
January 20, 2007 Saturday

Huge outcry in Turkish press after slaying of journalist

Turkish newspapers condemned Saturday the murder of prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink as "a national shame," calling
for his funeral to become a mass event in the name of democracy and
peace in the country.

"The murderer is a traitor," declared the mass-circulation Hurriyet
on its front page, next to a huge portrait of Dink on a black
background, while the popular Sabah headlined: "The greatest
treason."

Both dailies were using the epithet that nationalists have used to
brand Dink and other intellectuals contesting the official line on
the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, which much
to Ankara’s ire, many countries have recognized as genocide.

"Bullets fired on democracy, fraternity and peace," the Milliyet
newspaper trumpeted, while Radikal wrote "We are all Armenians, we
are all Hrants," using one of the chants that thousands shouted
during a protest march in Istanbul late Friday after an indentified
assailant gunned down Dink outside the office of his Turkish-Armenian
newspaper Agos.

"Our Hrant is murdered," the Islamist Yeni Safak headlined,
describing Dink as "an Armenian son of Turkey, a journalist devoted
to democracy and free thought and a brave man."

"Hrant’s murder is our national shame," Milliyet columnist Semih Idiz
wrote.

"The only way to obliterate at least part of it is to bid him
farewell as a nation — from the president to the prime minister,
from the main opposition leader to the army chief," he added.

Many editorialists let their emotions flow at the loss of a
colleague, who was last year given a suspended six-month sentence for
insulting "Turkishness" in an article about the Armenian massacres
and was frequently threatened by nationalists.

"When I heard of Hrant’s murder, I cried and cried — for him or for
my country, I do not know. What I know is that this shame will haunt
us for many years to come," Sabah’s Fatih Altayli said.

Some commentators saw serious implications for Turkish foreign
policy, with the popular Vatan stressing that Armenian campaigns for
an international recognition of the 1915-17 massacres as genocide
would gain strength.

"This incident also plays in the hands of those who want to cut
Turkey’s ties with the West and block its accession to the European
Union," Vatan columnist Okay Gonensin wrote.

Politicians also came under fire for failing to quell what many see
here as rising nationalism among Turks.

"The politicians and the state establishment should see this
assassination, committed in a time of rising fanaticism in Turkey, as
an alarm bell. The target was not only Hrant Dink, but Turkey’s
stability," Mehmet Barlas wrote in Sabah.

RUBEN HOVSEPIAN: HRANT DINK HAD CHOSEN MOST DIFFICULT BATTLEFIELD FOR
HIS STRUGGLE

YEREVAN, JANUARY 20, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. The Turkish
political authorities who are unable to prevent the anti-Armenian
hysteria in the country are the "customer" of assassination of the
Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. Member of the RA National
assembly ARF faction Ruben Hovsepian, writer and publicist, expressed
this opinion at the January 20 meeting with reporters. He said that
the same atmosphere is in Azerbaijan and he did not rule out that such
crimes will be committed in the future too. In his words, in these two
countries, false patriots filled with hatred against Armenians will
still emerge.

In his opinion, condemning H. Dink’s murder, the Turkish prime
minister Recep Erdogan in his speech hinted at the participation of
third force in this crime. Such behavior, according to R. Hovsepian,
is typical of Turkish mentality: in the course of history, after each
massacre of Armenians in various Turkish cities, the government
formulated a document, in which it accused either Armenians or some
third force in what happened. R. Hovsepian predicted that maybe now
the Turkish propaganda machine will accuse Armenian organizations,
noting that it is to their advantage to address the issue of the
Genocide recognition through the murder of the Agos newspaper’s
editor-in-chief.

Speaking about H. Dink’s activities, R. Hovsepian stressed that he
had chosen a most difficult battlefield for his struggle. "To struggle
for the Genocide recognition from remote Australia or the US is one
thing, but to be involved in a effective activity in the heart of
Turkey is quite another," R. Hovsepian noted.

Hrant Dink, a ‘frightened pigeon’

Story from BBC NEWS:
/6283461.stm

Published: 2007/01/20 23:47:58 GMT

The following are extracts from the final article by Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink, published in his newspaper Agos on 19 January,
the day he was shot dead in Istanbul.
At first when an investigation was launched against me for insulting
Turkishness I did not feel troubled. This was not the first time…
I had complete trust in what I’d written and what my intentions had been.
Once the prosecutor had the chance to evaluate the text of my
editorial as a whole, not that single sentence which made no sense by
itself, he would understand that I had no intention of "insulting
Turkishness" and this comedy would come to an end. I was sure of
myself. But surprise! A lawsuit was filed…

In covering every hearing the newspapers, editorials and television
programmes all referred to how I had said that "the blood of the Turk
is poisonous".

I may see myself as frightened as a pigeon, but I know that in this
country people do not touch pigeons

Each time, they were adding to my fame as "the enemy of the Turk".
In the corridors of the courthouse, the fascists physically attacked me with
racist curses.
They bombarded me with insults. Hundreds of threats hailed down for months by
phone, email and post – increasing all the time.
I persevered through all this with patience awaiting the decision that would
acquit me.
Then the truth would prevail and all those people would be ashamed of what
they had done.
‘False information’
My only weapon was my sincerity. But when the decision came out my hopes were
crushed. From then on, I was in the most distressed situation a person could
possibly be in.

The memory of my computer is filled with angry, threatening lines sent
by citizens

The judge had made a decision in the name of the "Turkish nation" and had it
legally registered that I had "denigrated Turkishness." I could have coped
with anything but this.
In my understanding, the denigration of a person on the basis of any
difference – ethnic or religious – is racism, and there was no way
this could ever be forgiven…
Those who tried to single me out and weaken me have succeeded. With the false
information they oozed into society, they created a significant segment of
the population who view Hrant Dink as someone who "insults Turkishness".
The memory of my computer is filled with angry, threatening lines sent by
citizens from this sector…
How real are these threats? To be honest, it is impossible for me to know for
sure.
What is truly threatening and unbearable for me is the psychological torture
I place myself in. The question that really gets to me, is: ‘What are these
people thinking about me?’
Unfortunately I am now better-known than before and I feel people looking at
me, thinking: ‘Oh, look, isn’t he that Armenian guy?’
I am just like a pigeon, equally obsessed by what goes-on on my left and
right, front and back. My head is just as mobile and fast.
‘Heaven and hell
What did Foreign Minister Gul say? Or Justice Minister Cicek? ‘There is no
need to exaggerate about Article 301 (on insulting Turkishness). Has anyone
actually been put in prison?’
As if going to prison was the only way to pay the price. This is the price.
This is the price.

2007 will probably be an even harder year for me

Do you ministers know the price of making someone as scared as a pigeon?
What my family and I have been through has not been easy. I have considered
leaving this country at times…
But leaving a ‘boiling hell’ to run to a ‘heaven’ is not for me. I wanted to
turn this hell into heaven.
We stayed in Turkey because that was what we wanted – and out of respect for
the thousands of people here who supported me in my fight for democracy…
I am now applying to the European Court of Human Rights. I don’t know how
long the case will take, but what I do know is that I will continue living here
in Turkey until the case is finalised.
And if the court rules in my favour I will be very happy and will never have
to leave my country.
2007 will probably be an even harder year for me. The court cases will
continue, new ones will be initiated and God knows what kind of additional
injustices I will have to face.
I may see myself as frightened as a pigeon, but I know that in this country
people do not touch pigeons.
Pigeons can live in cities, even in crowds. A little scared perhaps, but
free.

ABC30.com, CA
Jan 19 2007

Fresno Fuego Kept Pace with Armenian National Team-the Fuego steady
in 3-1 loss to Armenian National Team

01/17/2007 – Despite a 3-1 loss, The Fresno Fuego kept up with the
Armenian National Team who took an early 2-0 lead in the first half.
Team Armenia’s first goal came in the 20TH minute of the first half
on a penalty kick. Team Armenia Forward, Ara Hakboyan’s free kick
went into the upper right hand side of the goal, past Fresno Fuego
goalie, Nick Hammond.

Hammond gave up his second goal of the game later in the 44th minute
of the first half when Armenian forward, Galust Petrosyan’s kick
trickled in from the front of the goal to make it 2-0 Armenia.
In the second half, the Fuego scored its first goal to make it 2-1 in
the 62nd minute when Edgardo Contreras’ kick beat Armenia goalie,
Gevorg Kasparov. Later in the 86th minute of the half, Armenia
forward, Aram Hakobyan, scored the team’s final goal.

4,167 fans attended the second exhibition match ever held at
Chukchansi Park. The first exhibition match was held last July when
the Fuego hosted the Orange County Blue Stars. "It was exciting to
see the Armenian community come out and demonstrate a sense of
nationality," said Fuego Head Coach, Jaime Ramirez. "It was also nice
to see the Fuego fans come out to show their spirit and witness a
game of this caliber."

The Fuego is scheduled to host its next exhibition match Saturday,
February 24th at 7:30pm against Club Deportivo Chivas USA and against
Real Salt Lake on Saturday, March 24th at 7:30pm.

Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased by calling 320-TIXS or
online at . Tickets for the exhibitions games are
priced at $30 for club seats and $25 for premium field seats.
Reserved seats for adults are $17 and $12 for children under 12 years
old and for seniors age 55 and over.

The on-sale date of 2007 regular season tickets will be announced at
a later date. General Admission regular season tickets will be sold
at $9 for adults and $6 for kids and seniors 55 and over.