ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF POLAND HOLDS PROCESSION IN MEMORY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS
Noyan Tapan
April 29, 2008
WARSAW, APRIL 29, ARMENIANS TODAY – NOYAN TAPAN. On April 24, the
Armenian community of Poland held a silence procession dedicated
to the memory of Armenian Genocide victims. The peaceful procession
started from the Blessed Virgin church and finished near the Embassy
of Turkey with an action of protest. The demonstrants carried flags,
placards, and candles.
AHARON CHILINGARIAN APPOINTED FIRST DEPUTY HEAD OF STS
Noyan Tapan
April 28, 2008
YEREVAN, APRIL 28, NOYAN TAPAN. People expect changes to be made in
tax administration sector too, and Armenia has no right to yield
to regional countries in this sestor’s development, even though
international organizations noted that tax administration is not
so good in the country, the Armenian prime minister Tigran Sargsian
stated on April 28 when introducing the first deputy head of the RA
State Tax Service (STS) Aharon Chilingarian to the STS staff.
Describing A. Chilingarian as an honest and decent person, the prime
minister said that he is also one of the best experts in this sphere.
In the State Tax Service, A. Chilingrian will coordinate the program
of reforms in tax administration. Prior to this appointment, he worked
at Aharon Paradigma consulting company.
DINK MURDER TRIAL SHOULD BRING COUNTRYWIDE ACCOMPLICES TO JUSTICE, URGE LAWYERS
Erol Onderoa~^Lu
BÄ°A, Turkey
April 28 2008
15 months later, with a hearing nearly every three months, the court
has still not determined all the responsible parties in Hrant Dink’s
murder trial. The lawyers do not think "a few young men planned
the murder."
The accused murderers of Hrant Dink, the slained editor of bilingual
Turkish-Armenian biweekly newspaper Agos, will appear before the judge
for the fifth time 15 months after the murder. On 28 April hearing
(Monday), the remaining questionings are expected to be completed.
The Istanbul 14th Criminal Court, which tries the 19 defendants,
eight of whom are arrested, had demanded at the previous hearing that
the physical surveillance reports and telephone records concerning the
arrested defendants Yasin Hayal and Mustafa Ozturk. It is established
now that Yasin Hayal was under the surveillance of the Trabzon
Police Department, a major province in the eastern Black Sea region
of Turkey, and is accused of inciting the killing, facing strict
life imprisonment. Similarly accused Mustafa Ozturk is a member of
Alperen Ocakları (translated roughly as Hero-Saint Hearths), a far
right nationalistic youth group linked to the Great Unity Party (BBP).
It is not known whether the reports will show a connection between
the Trabzon police, Alperen Ocakları and the Great Unity Party (BBP).
However, during the previous trial, the court had removed the
obligation that the head of BBP Trabzon provincial organization YaÅ~_ar
Cihan, the member of the Central Decision and Executive Committee of
BBP Halis Egemen and the two other people should join the hearings. Not
arrested, these defendants are charged with sentences of up to ten
years in jail for "being members of a terrorist organization."
Lawyer Cinmen: It was planned in Alperen Ocakları, the killers were
protected According to Ergin Cinmen, one of the lawyers of the slained
victim, who petitioned the court on February 22, there are indications
that the murder was planned at Alperen Ocakları: the statement
by Erhan Tuncel, who is being tried as the "inciter brother," that
"I still have the key to Alperenler Ocagı"; his picture with the
BBP leader Muhsin Yazıcıoglu; the fact that his place of work is
Alperen Ocakları and that his Alperen Ocakları connection was Ozturk.
The lawyers of the slained victim think that the killing of the
journalist on January 19, 2007 is not "a murder planned together by
a few young men and executed in spite of the authorities; they claim
that the local security units supported this group.
Ä°stanbul Police Department under investigation; except Cerrah
The court did not see the need to connect the ongoing trials of
the two police officers in Samsun, a Black Sea town near Trabzon,
and the two gendarmerie officers in Trabzon with the hearings of the
Dink trial. The police officers are accused of dereliction of duty,
as they had their picture taken with the accused triggerman O.S. and
the gendarmerie officers are accused with not preventing the murder
and hiding the evidence.
Following the lack of jurisdiction decision by Istanbul Chief
Public Prosecutor’s Office, Fatih Public Prosecutor’s Office,
also in Istanbul province, had opened an investigation into the
involvement of Istanbul’s chief of police Celalettin Cerrah and the
other Istanbul police department officers who are accused of not
taking into consideration the warnings before the Dink murder.
Recently, it had made it into the headlines that the Provincial
administrative Council of the Istanbul Governorship allowed the
investigation proceed only for Ahmet Ä°lhan Guler, the Head of the
Intelligence Office for the Istanbul Police Department, and the six
police officers but kept Cerrah out of it.
Upon hearing the confession "It was not us, but our superiors
who neglected their duties" of the two gendarmerie officers who
are tried for dereliction of duty in Trabzon, the lawyers of Dink
family petitioned the Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office for having
Trabzon’s former Gendarmerie Regiment Commander Colonel Ali Oz and nine
gendarmerie officers brought to the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s
Office to be tried in the murder case.
The purpose of the lawyers is to combine the trials of police and
gendarmerie officers in Samsun and Trabzon and perhaps the possible
trial of Cerrah and the officers tied to him in Istanbul with the
Dink’s murder trial.
–Boundary_(ID_hI8acMwImraidDf1aRbUAA)–
Economic Times, India
April 27 2008
Armenian PM welcomes Turkish dialogue request
27 Apr, 2008, 2205 hrs IST, PTI
YEREVAN: Armenia is ready to start dialogue with Turkey on improving
relations if Ankara does not set preconditions to talks, Armenia’s new
prime minister said on Sunday.
The two neighbours have no diplomatic links after Ankara severed ties
in protest against Armenian control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region
over which Armenia fought Turkey’s ally Azerbaijan in a war in the
early 1990s.
"I confirm the readiness of the government of Armenia to engage in
constructive dialogue and establish relations without preconditions,"
the press office of the Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sarksyan said
he wrote in a letter to Turkey.
An Armenian backed administration controls the Nagorno-Karabakh
region. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the
mountainous area.
Last week Turkey’s foreign minister said he had sent Armenia a letter
calling for dialogue. Armenia is a mainly Christian state of around 3
million which lies on the edge of the Caucasus which hosts a pipeline
pumping oil to Europe from Asia. Armenia also accuses Turkey of
genocide during violence at the end of World War One.
Turkey denies the accusations and says that both Christian Armenians
and Muslim Turks died in fighting. "I assure you that our efforts will
be aimed at ensuring peace, tolerance and stability in our region,"
Sarksyan told Turkey in the letter. Sarksyan took over as prime
minister earlier this month. He had previously been central bank
chief.
Zenit News Agency, Italy
April 26 2008
Mass in Rome Marks Armenian Massacre
Monsignor Hopes World Comes to Recognize Genocide
By Robert Cheaib
ROME, APRIL 25, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A Mass in Rome celebrated by the
rector of the Pontifical Armenian College was among many events
marking the 93rd anniversary of the slaughter of thousands of
Armenians.
Monsignor Hovsep Kelekian celebrated the Mass in the Armenian church
of St. Nicholas of Tolentine.
He lamented the lack of an official international recognition of the
"’metz yeghern (great calamity) of the genocide" and expressed his
hope that "the genocide of the Armenian people be recognized by the
whole world" because "it is a fact."
In 1915 and the following years, vast numbers of Armenians were killed
within the Ottoman Empire as it broke apart. April 24, the day the
massacre began, is marked as Genocide Day in Armenia. The massacre
began that day when hundreds of intellectuals, doctors, lawyers,
journalists, priests and other representatives of the Armenian culture
and politics were arrested and eventually killed.
"We have gathered today to honor our martyrs and give thanks to our
relatives who gave us this life we live today," Monsignor Kelekian
said. "We hope that we can faithfully transmit to our descendants what
we have inherited — our faith and our Armenian culture."
After the Mass, prayers were said before the Khatc’kar memorial
erected in 2006 in memory of the victims.
The memorial Mass for the some 1.5 million victims was one of the
events of the awareness campaign led by the council of the Armenian
community of Rome.
L’Osservatore Romano today noted a petition from recently elected
Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian that the international community
recognize the massacre. He said Thursday that such recognition is a
priority of his presidency.
Armenia’s goal is not revenge, Sarkisian added. "We are willing to
establish normal relations with Turkey even tomorrow, without
preconditions, but the denial of the genocide has no future, above all
now that many countries around the world have united their voices to
the chorus of the truth."
L’Osservatore Romano noted that 22 countries recognize the massacre as
genocide. Turkey denies that the killings were a systematic "genocide"
and considers it a crime to use that term to refer to the event.
[Marta Lago contributed to this article]
KAROYAN CALLS FOR TURKISH RECOGNITION OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE OF 1915.
Famagusta Gazette, Cyprus
April 24 2008
House President Marios Karoyan has reiterated the support of the
House to the demand of the Armenian people for the recognition of
the Armenian genocide of 1915.
In an address, at an event organised by the Committee in Memory of
the Armenian Genocide, Karoyan noted that "We recall the huge crime,
we honour the victims of the Armenian genocide and we condemn once
again the atrocious crime and the criminals."
Karoyan called on Turkey to recognise and admit its crime and to
apologise to the Armenian people and humanity as a whole.
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MARKED IN A NUMBER OF GERMAN CITIES
ARMENPRESS
April 24, 2008
YEREVAN, APRIL 24, ARMENPRESS: On the initiative of the Armenian
Central Council and with the support of German Diocese of the Armenian
church a service was conducted today in Frankfurt church to commemorate
the victims of the Armenian genocide.
An official from the Armenian Central Council told Armenpress that
at the event present were political, cultural and scientific figures.
Professor from Leipzig university Georg Megle, official of the
Evangelic Church Council of Germany and the EU Stefan Reimer,
Archbishop Garegin Bekchian delivered speeches.
"Time will come when the denial of the Armenian genocide will at
last be punished in Germany and time will come when the genocide and
violence of the 20th century will be included in the education system,"
the chairman of the Armenian Central Council Shavarsh Hovasapian said.
"It is necessary to break the silence which is being displayed by a
number of European and other countries. Those who keep silence become
participants of the crime. It is a historic mistake that time may
clear the issue. Just the opposite, the developments of recent years
show that history does not forget anything," he said.
The council also urged the Turkish organizations of Germany come to
terms with history and recognize the Armenian genocide.
Commemorating services were also held in Berlin, K?ln, Stuttgart and
other German cities.
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE REMEMBEREDMEREDITH BLAKE
Greenwich Time, CT
April 24 2008
When Hermon Hosvepian was forced by Ottoman Turkish soldiers to
march through the Syrian desert without food or clothing with her
two daughters, all she could do was focus on staying alive.
Her husband had been taken from their home and killed. And during
the grueling march across the desert, one of her daughters died and
one night, while she slept, the other one was taken.
Her daughter Catherine Papalian, who was born in the United States,
recounted this story yesterday at a flag raising held outside town
hall to memorialize the victims of the Armenian Genocide, when 1.5
million to 2 million Armenians living under Turkish rule within the
Ottoman Empire were killed or starved to death from 1915 to 1923.
This morning more than 40 people, most of Armenian descent, gathered
in front of Town Hall and shared stories about their parents and
grandparents who survived.
Sara Mushegian, who organized the event, said her grandparents were
able to escape, spending years in the protective custody of American
authorities in Constantinople. But others were not as fortunate. George
Papailian’s father’s first wife killed herself, out of fear, knowing
the fate that lay ahead, he said.
"There are so many horror stories," said Harry Nakashian, who said
his mother, at 11 or 12, remembered opening the door of her house,
and saw five children dead in a street, who out of thirst, drank some
kind of toxic fluid and died.
Nakashian’s father never could talk about the atrocities, he said.
Mushegian said that organizing the flag raising, honoring the victims
and survivors of the genocide is an important part of Armenian
heritage.
"I feel it’s my duty," she said. "It’s about raising awareness. People
know a little, but they don’t really know."
During the event, First Selectmen Peter Tesei read a proclamation
declaring April 24 Armenian Martyrs’ Day. The flag, with the colors
of red, blue and orange, was raised with the sounds of the Armenian
national anthem.
April 24, 1915, holds special significance since it was the day
that the Turkish government placed under arrest over 200 Armenian
community leaders in Constantinople. It is seen as the start of the
government-ordered genocide.
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS REMEMBERED IN ARGENTINA
Noyan Tapan
April 24, 2008
BUENOS AIRES, APRIL 24, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. A minute of
silence in memory of the Armenian Genocide victims was observed in
football stadiums of Argentina.
According to the press service of the Ramkavar Azatakan Party, the
council of the Buenos Aires Province accepted the proposal of Serjio
Nahapetian, deputy of this province, and applied to the Argentine
Football Federation so that a minute of silence in memory of the
victims of the Armenian Genocide will be observed before all football
matches held in Argentina in April.
EVENT DEDICATED TO MEMORY OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE HELD IN PARIS MAYOR’S OFFICE
Noyan Tapan
April 25, 2008
PARIS, APRIL 25, NOYAN TAPAN. On April 24, RA Minister of Foreign
Affairs Eduard Nalbandian, who was in France on a working visit,
visited Paris Mayor’s Office and made a speech at the reception in
memory of the Armenian Genocide organized by the Mayor’s Office. State,
political, and public officials of France, leaders of Armenian,
Jewish, and Islamic organizations of France, intellectuals, nearly
one thousand French Armenians were present at the reception.
Thanking Mayor Bertrand Delanoe on the occasion of this civil event
which has already become a tradition, E. Nalbandian highly appreciated
wisdom and political courage of the post-war European leaders to
reconcile the peoples of Europe paralysed from wars and hatred for
the sake of peace and solidary future.
"The symbolic characters of Francois Mitterand and Helmut Kohl revive
in our memories, who hand in hand bend their heads in front of the
graves of French and German soldiers who have fallen victims to three
fatal wars from 1870 to 1945. Like their great predecessors General
Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Adenauer, they gained the benefit of
their peoples and entered the mankind’s history forever," said the RA
Minister of Foreign Affairs, adding."I hope that one day the Armenian
and Turkish leaders will together bend their heads in front of the
symbol in memory of the Armenian Genocide and our peoples together
will build a secure future free of the heavy burden of the past "
In his speech, B. Delanoe said that meeting E. Nalbandian’s suggestion,
the park near the monument to Komitas which is in the center of Paris
will be named Yerevan park.
According to the information provided to Noyan Tapan by the Press and
Information Department of the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the same
day in the morning a tete-a-tete talk of E. Nalbandian and B. Delanoe
was held during which the interlocutors exchanged thoughts concerning
the deepening of the Armenian-French discentralized cooperation,
as well as possibilities of implementing a number of programs within
the framework of partnership between Paris and Yerevan.