Author: Jalatian Sonya

Presidential leadership

-09-24-presidential-leadership
Published: Thursday September 24, 2009

With the publication on August 31 of the agreement negotiated between
Turkey and Armenia on the establishment of bilateral relations,
Armenian society naturally began an intensive debate about the
agreement.

A vigorous debate about the first Armenian-Turkish agreement is not
only natural; it is useful. It gives us an opportunity to reaffirm
certain values and also to rethink some assumptions.

Thus, Armenians in Armenia and the diaspora alike are reaffirming a
commitment to cultivating healthy relations with neighboring states.

Likewise, Armenians in Armenia and the diaspora alike are reaffirming
a commitment to pursuing universal affirmation of the Armenian
Genocide – and restitution for the people, the civilization, and the
patrimony destroyed by the Turkish state.

At the same time, Armenians are rethinking the assumption that Turkey
and Azerbaijan necessarily share the same interests and will always
cover for each other. Of course, Turkey will have to provide more
evidence of its commitment to its stated foreign policy of zero
problems with neighbors, but Armenians stand ready to consider that
evidence in good faith.

Another assumption long held is that the route to Turkey’s recognition
of the Armenian Genocide will go through recognition of the Genocide
by world powers. It is now possible to conceive of alternative
scenarios. These will become more credible if Turkey takes specific
steps like decriminalizing acknowledgement of the Genocide.

While this debate continues in Armenian society, a couple of
tendencies ought to be avoided.

One thing to avoid is making personal attacks. In the face of
President Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda – addressing the financial
and economic crisis he inherited and putting into place more effective
government oversight of financial institutions, winding down the
occupation of Iraq, intensifying the Afghanistan war, and calling for
massive changes in the U.S. healthcare system, among other things –
some of his opponents have taken the low road of questioning his
character and his patriotism. Armenians need to avoid taking that
road, which is a poor and ugly substitute for debating the substance
of issues.

Another thing to avoid is self-depreciation. How often do we hear
people saying "Armenians are naïve; Turks are clever." We really
need to respect ourselves and give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.

In this matter, the Armenian government has an important role to
play. It needs to engage and persuade civil society. Just as President
Obama has taken to the airwaves to explain his policies, advocate for
them, and respond to his critics, Armenia’s President Serge Sargsian
has begun an intensive outreach effort. Having called for such an
effort in our recent editorial, "A time for more public diplomacy,"
(July 18), we are pleased now to welcome it.

The president invited the leaders of all of Armenia’s political
parties to a lengthy consultation. He met with the heads of media
organizations last week. He is heading out to the Middle East, Europe,
and the United States to consult with the leaders of community
organizations. He cannot expect to persuade everybody, but most people
will listen respectfully and make the effort to understand the
president’s policy choices. He, in turn, will have a chance to hear
people’s concerns and – in a manner analogous to President Obama –
consider reflecting them in his policies.
We look forward to continuing this engagement.

Christian Science Monitor

Iran’s nuclear crisis: Obama could play the human rights card

One issue that should be put on the table is what Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put on display this week in New York: Iran’s
religious minorities.

By Jamsheed K. Choksy and Nina Shea
from the September 26, 2009 edition

Bloomington, Ind.; and Washington – Today’s announcement by President
Obama and European leaders that Iran is building a secret underground
nuclear facility adds fresh urgency to an issue that’s been festering
for years. Tensions will now be considerably higher among negotiators
at the planned Oct. 1 meeting about Iran’s nuclear program.

Already, there is talk of much-harsher sanctions if Iran does not meet
international demands in the next two months. "Everything must be put
on the table now," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

One issue that should be put on the table was displayed by Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week in New York: Iran’s religious
minorities.

Iran’s deplorable record on human rights is often treated as separate
from the nuclear issue. It’s not. If Iran’s government can’t be
trusted to treat its own citizens with basic dignity, how can it be
trusted with nuclear technology?

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s theatrics involved including five religious minority
parliamentarians in his entourage to the UN General Assembly, this
week. This act shows how eager Tehran is to be accepted back into the
community of nations. Thus, the human rights card could be
considerable leverage for Western powers in coming weeks.

When he addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23,
Ahmadinejad professed concern for "justice, freedom, and human
rights." He apparently thought his five props would help him project a
tolerant, peace-loving face. It was a stiff performance.

Iran is one "big and unified family" with full legal rights for
religious minorities, he declared when choosing these minority
representatives, according to official reports. Yet these people could
not refuse.

Not o
uld they be punished if they resisted, their religious communities
would suffer the hard-line regime’s reprisals as well. "Communal
welfare is important," a well-placed Iranian religious leader
explained before the New York trip. "So absence will not be possible."

Iran’s Constitution technically grants all citizens freedom of
worship, sanctity for holy sites, equal standing under the law, and
access to employment. But the Islamic Republic has destroyed its great
cultural patrimony and reduced freedoms to unconvincing, exploitative
acts of propaganda.

Under the Constitution, the election of these five representatives is
one of the few rights afforded the four "recognized" religious
minorities predating Islam in Persia. These minorities live
essentially as dhimmis, the protected though subjugated "people of the
Book" of medieval times.

Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, they have been barred from high
government office. Their religious ceremonies and celebrations are
subject to police raids to ensure they abide by "Islamic standards."

Their synagogues, churches, fire temples, and tombs (including that of
the prophet Daniel) are frequently defaced with monumental photos of
ayatollahs and other propaganda. Their schools are administered by
Iran’s Education Ministry, which imposes a state-approved religious
textbook and typically appoints the principals.

Any non-Muslim found guilty of a Muslim’s death faces capital
punishment, though the opposite does not hold true. Store owners often
are compelled to display prominent signs indicating they are najasa or
ritually unclean. Non-Muslims experience high unemployment at more
than double the national average of 12.5 percent, especially as they
are discriminated against in employment by the large state sector.

Apart from the four heritage religious minorities (Jews, Armenian
Christians, Assyrian-Chaldean Christians, and Zoroastrians) that are
allotted parliamentary seats, there are other groups who have even
fewer rights. Bahais, treated as heretics from Islam, have
ns. They can be robbed and murdered with impunity since Iranian law
declares that their blood is mobah or can be spilt. Major Bahai
shrines have been demolished and the people can assemble only in
secrecy.

Religious discrimination and persecution were not always the norm in
Iran. In the Persian empire of antiquity, Cyrus the Great established
a policy of religious tolerance. His attitude of acceptance is
sometimes described as the first charter of human rights.

Collectively, Iran’s non-Muslim communities have dwindled from
approximately 10 percent of the country’s 70 million people to 1979 to
no more than 2 percent today . Under constant pressures because of
their religious faiths, they have fled the country since the 1979
Islamic revolution in far greater proportions than Muslim Iranians.

Members of Iran’s religious minorities and other oppressed groups have
indicated they expect the US administration to press Ahmadinejad’s
regime into ameliorating their situation. They seek viable, lasting,
solutions based on implementing the rights that Iran’s Constitution
claims all citizens enjoy.

If Ahmadinejad’s regime meets obligations to its fellow Iranians, then
it is more likely to fulfill agreements with the international
community. Transparency and well-being, rather than secrecy and
aggression ` as reflected yet again by the recently revealed nuclear
facility ` are necessary in Iran’s national and international affairs.

Ultimately, when free to express their beliefs and ideas, Iran’s
people will be the best guarantors of their nation’s fidelity in world
affairs.

As Britain, China, France, Germany, the US, and Russia sit down with
Iran on Oct. 1, they should see Ahmadinejad’s posturing for what it is
and use the meeting to address not only the issue of nuclear strategy,
but also human rights.

The current Iranian regime’s three-decade-long record of intolerance
and violence cannot be ignored.

Jamsheed K. Choksy is a professor of Iranian studies and former
director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at I
niversity and serves as a member of the US National Council on the
Humanities. Nina Shea directs the Hudson Institute’s Center for
Religious Freedom and serves on the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom. The views expressed here are their own.

"Shadow" competition for schoolchildren to be launched in November
25.09.2009 16:00 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Shadow" contest-festival for schoolchildren in
Yerevan will be held in November, 2009. Students are invietd to submit
games, documentaries and photographs demonstrating their attitudes to
injustice in various spheres of life.

Photos collages are also accepted to the competition. Video-reels can
be shot by cell phones.

Applications to take part in the competition are accepted until
November 5, 2009 in the "Media" center.

PARLIAMENT TO DISCUSS ARMENIAN-TURKISH PROTOCOLS ON OCTOBER 1

PanARMENIAN.Net
24.09.2009 16:09 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ It’s very pity ARF-Dashnaktsutyun decided to change
its position now instead of doing that 10 years ago, Heritage faction
MP Zaruhi Postanjyan told today a press conference in Yerevan. The
party should have taken such steps when there was no democracy
and freedom of speech in the country, she said. "Dashnaktsutyun
formed part of coalition and could influence the situation in the
country. When it was a coalition party, Armenian-Turkish Protocols
were already written, and Dashnaktsutyun supported Serzh Sargsyan. A
question arises as to why party quit coalition now that the country
is in the run-up to making such serious decision," Postanjyan noted.

Commenting on some parties’ statements that Heritage fails to take
decisive steps with regard to recently signed documents, she said,
"We have organized parliamentary hearings on Armenian-Turkish
Protocols. They are scheduled for October 1." The party, according
to her, proposed Government to conduct referendum on Protocols and
applied to Constitutional Court to organize discussions and receive
the court’s assessments on documents.

ARFD parliamentarian Ruzan Arakelyan stressed in turn that their
party never avoided admitting its mistakes. "Dashnaktsutyun, as
coalition party, averted events that might have dire consequences for
the country," Arakelyan said, adding that Dashnaktsutyun had helped
provide solution to many problems related to Karabakh conflict.

Dashnak MP also noted that Ms. Postanjyan made exaggerations by
saying that parliament hearing were organized upon their party’s
initiative. "Those hearing were organized by the demand of Foreign
Relations Committee Chair Armen Roustamyan," she said.

With regard to Zaruhi Postanjyan’s next question, Arakelyan referred
to the coalition agreement which stipulated for ARFD’s quitting
coalition in case of violations. Armenian -Turkish Protocols became
one, she added.

Editorial: Time to get real on prison crowding

The Sacramento Bee
PUBLISHED FRIDAY, SEP. 25, 2009

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his team continue to suffer from
multiple-policy disorder on prison overcrowding.

On one side, the governor declares a state of emergency and says it is
absolutely possible to reduce prison population without harming public
safety.

On the other side, his administration presents a plan to a three-judge
federal court panel that says population reductions "cannot be accomplished
without unacceptably compromising public safety."

This latest proposal, turned into the court last Friday, is make-believe
and won’t fool anyone. The aim is supposed to be to get California’s 33
prisons – designed for 80,000 prisoners – down to 137.5 percent of capacity
over two years. That requires going from 150,000 today to 110,000 inmates
by July 2011.

Yet the Schwarzenegger administration presented a largely "build it and
they will come" strategy, instead of a population reduction strategy. The
plan relies heavily on construction – 764 beds the first year, 2,364 the
second year, 3,904 the third year, 12,500 the fourth year, 16,150 the fifth
year and 18,650 in the sixth year. Yeah, right.

The judges already have expressed deep skepticism about this in their
August opinion, calling construction a merely "theoretical remedy" when
everyone knows that construction remains "years away." They question
whether construction of new prison space is "an actual, feasible,
sufficiently timely remedy."

Second, the Schwarzenegger plan relies on sending more inmates to
out-of-state prisons (1,250 the first year, 2,200 the second and 2,500 each
year after). It also relies on turning foreign prisoners with deportation
orders over to the federal government (300 in the first year and 600 each
year after). Yet these options make hardly a dent in the prison population.

Only a couple of elements in the plan mark real reductions in California’s
state prison population: Expanding "good time" credits for inmates who
follow prison rules and participate in education or work programs, and
diverting technical parole violators to community correctional systems
rather than incarcerating them in state prison for a few months.

And one element is totally missing from the Schwarzenegger package that the
court should consider: The need to enforce the state’s existing law on
early medical release.

Assembly Bill 1539 by Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, D-Burbank, signed into
law by Schwarzenegger in 2007, established a process to release inmates who
are unable to perform activities of basic daily living inside a prison and
who pose no threat to public safety.

Yet fewer than a dozen prisoners a year are released. State prisons are not
supposed to be long-term health care providers for elderly, ill prisoners
who pose no threat to society.

The Schwarzenegger administration’s perfunctory plan shows that it will not
go the extra mile to reduce prison population.

It does show, however, that he intends to go the extra mile to appeal the
overcrowding case to the U.S. Supreme Court. His priorities are exactly
backward.

ABSENT FOR 2-3 WEEKS

5268.html
13:15:06 – 22/09/2009

Khachatur Sukiasyan’s office informs due of health problems Khachatur
Sukiasyan will be absent from the republic for 2-3 weeks.

Activist under investigation

Mariam Sukhudyan, a local environmental activist, faces up to 5 years
after alleging cases of child abuse in a Yerevan boarding school. This
seems to be part of a growing trend of governments in the region
targeting youth activists

23.09.2009 Da Yerevan, scrive Onnik Krikorian

Mariam Sukhudyan is an environmental activist that recently fought
against the cutting of the Teghut forest in the north-east of Armenia.
She has previously been a volunteer in a boarding school, and she now
faces up to 5 years imprisonment for being part of a group of volunteers
alleging that staff at the Nubarashen #11 specialized boarding school in
Yerevan, the Armenian capital, routinely mistreated children in their
care. A teacher was accused of sexual abuse by at least two children
with the allegations forming the basis for a special report broadcast on
the main Armenian Public TV last November.

`According to the children’s accounts, they are subjected to beatings
and other forms of physical punishment,’ the group wrote in a joint
statement posted online. `We personally witnessed needlessly harsh
treatment of children by teachers and night guards. The school director
and other administrative workers use children as a free labor force in
their homes and summer houses,’ continued the statement signed by
Sukhudyan and eight others.

For those with experience of Armenia’s dilapidated Soviet-era boarding
schools, such allegations are unlikely to raise many eyebrows.

Since independence, such institutions remain the main depository for
children with learning or physical disabilities as well those from
socially vulnerable families. Conditions are sub-standard and directors
receive funding on a per-capita basis. Thus, critics of the system
argue, staff oppose plans supported by international organizations to
return children to their biological parents, place them in foster care,
or to integrate them into mainstream education.

Although the number of children enrolled in such schools has declined
from 12,000 to 5,000 in recent years, children from extremely poor
families are still known to attend in order to receive food and, in some
cases, clothing donated to the institutions. At one specialized boarding
school for the blind and visually impaired in Yerevan, for example, 60
percent of children have no problems with their sight.

`With the declining level of services in residential institutions, the
current trend is creating an underclass of children marked by poverty,
stigmatization and a lack of proper care and education who are likely to
lack opportunity as adults,’ reported the World Bank in 2002. `To the
extent that such children end up in institutions for the mentally
disabled, which offer only a special education syllabus for children
with mental disability, their development will be seriously hampered by
lack of educational opportunities.’

Speaking to Al Jazeera English last week, World Vision Armenia’s Child
Protection Officer Kristine Mikhailidi went even further, noting that
regardless of which children attend, conditions are of significant
concern. `Physical abuse is always there. They are yelling, they are
beating on these kids and all these things are happening. Closed
facilities, no interaction with the other society, no one is coming in,
they don’t have skills to work with these kids – all this brings to an
abusive situation.’

Nubrashen’s staff refutes such criticism, although the teacher accused
of sexual abuse resigned soon after the allegations were made. `They are
lying,’ Donara Hovhanissyan, Nubarashen’s Head of Education responded
when asked by Al Jazeera’s Matthew Collin about Sukhudyan and her
colleagues. `Because they were so young and inexperienced, they didn’t
understand that every child here has mental disabilities and very active
imaginations. It’s very easy for them to make something up.’

Nevertheless, although she admits she never witnessed any sexual abuse
in Nubarashen, Sukhudyan stands by the accusations made by the children.
`This little girl who was speaking about serious sexual abuse was
terribly distressed; she was in such a state that I was saying we
shouldn’t ask any more questions because she was in such emotional
distress.’ she told Collin.

However, while police did open a case based on the accusations aired by
Public TV, they eventually turned on Sukhudyan in August this year just
as her environmental activities increased. The 29-year-old now faces up
to five years in prison on charges of false denunciation while her
supporters believe that the action is part of a growing trend of
governments in the region targeting youth activists.

Sukhudyan has no links to any political party, government or opposition
alike, and is better known as one of the main environmental activists
protesting plans to mine copper and molybdenum deposits in the
north-east of the country at the expense of local forests. Conveniently,
while police investigate the charges against her, the activist is
confined to Yerevan and is unable to continue her environmental
activities outside the capital, and especially in Teghut.

`I can’t help but link this case with Teghut because I’m not the first
activist to be subjected to such pressure,’ Sukhudyan told RFE/RL last
month. `This may be a good opportunity [for the authorities] to break
our movement and force me to shut up.’

Certainly, the fact that Sukhudyan is the only one of many alleging
abuse in Nubarashen to be investigated by police raises many questions
and a number of civil society activists and organizations have already
condemned the case against her. `It looks like active citizens are not
encouraged in our country,’ Sona Ayvazyan, a specialist at the Armenian
affiliate of the international anti-corruption watchdog Transparency
International, told RFE/RL last month.

`The authorities seem to be trying to eliminate such citizens one by
one. Mariam is simply the latest victim, and we don’t know who will be
the next.’

—

Last week, the author worked with Al Jazeera English’s Matthew Collin on
a news report for the satellite TV station on Mariam Sukhudyan and
Nubarashen #11. The report aired on 13 September 2009.

articleview/11868/1/404/

‘ARMAVIA’ TO DIRECT 20 – 25 PILOTS FOR TRAINING TO CONDUCT NEW AIRPLANES

ArmInfo
2009-09-22 11:46:00

ArmInfo. air company will direct 20 – 25 pilots for training to
conduct new airplanes, Director General of Armavia Norayr Belluyan
told Arminfo correspondent.

‘We shall direct pilots for training to conduct CRJ-200, as well as
pilots of A-320, which will be trained to conduct Cy-100 Superjet’,
– he said and added that at present young pilots are in Portugal to
be trained for Airbus conducting.

As for the staff policy of the company in general, he said that
despite the crisis the company is not going to axe the staff, though
some workers are axed since their work is not satisfactory. On the
other hand the company needs new qualified employees. At present 460
workers are employed at Armavia.

PRESS RELEASE
Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
630 Second Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Tel: (212) 686-0710
Fax: (212) 779-3558
Web:
Email: [email protected]

The Eastern Diocese’s Communications Department is welcoming college interns
interested in hands-on photo, video, and reporting experience. Interns will
not be paid, but will have the opportunity to collect published clips and
learn about video production and online communications tools. Hours are
flexible. For more information, please call Karine Abalyan at 212-686-0710,
or email [email protected].

PRESIDENT OF ARMENIA AND HILLARY CLINTON DISCUSS ARMENIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS

Tert
Sept 21 2009
Armenia

On the evening of September 19, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan had
a telephone discussion with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

During the conversation, issues related to the current stage of
establishing Armenian-Turkish relations were discussed, as reported
by the President of the Republic of Armenia’s official website.