Author: Kalantarian Kevo

EUROPEAN COURT TO GIVE LEGAL ASSESSMENT OF AZERBAIJANI DISPLACED PERSONS’ SUIT AGAINST ARMENIA

Trend
Jan 26 2012
Azerbaijan

The European court has experience on giving judgments on sensitive
issues, Nicolas Bratza, President of the European Court of Human
Rights said today at the press conference during PACE winter session
expressing his attitude to initial decision of the court on the case of
“Chiragov and Others v. Armenia” which deals with suit of internally
displaced persons from Nagorno Karabakh.

The President of the European Court noted Grand Chamber made its
judgment in early Jan. and that this was very sensitive issue.

“The Grand Chamber examined complaint of the Azerbaijani citizens on
Jan.8 and declared the application admissible. But I cannot say when
final decision will be made. Of course this issue is a political and
sensitive one. However we have experience in dealing with such issues.

This is a quite difficult issue. Nevertheless, we will be able to
give legal assessment,” Mr Bratza said.

Earlier in its decision in the case of “Chiragov and Others v.

Armenia” the European Court of Human Rights, sitting as a Grand
Chamber, has by a majority declared the application admissible. The
Court will deliver its judgment at a later date.

Some 6 displaced persons from Lachin, applicants Elkhan Chiragov,
Adishirin Chiragov, Ramiz Gebrayilov, Akif Hasanov, Fekhreddin
Pashayev and Sagatel Gabrayilov demand that Armenia repairs material
and moral damage to them. The case concerns the applicants’ complaint
that they were forced to flee from their homes in 1992 during the
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The applicants complain in particular about the loss of their
properties in Lachin.

Due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the applicants were forced to
flee on 17 May 1992. They have not been able to return to their homes
and properties since.

They also complain that there is no prospect for them in the
foreseeable future to be able to use their property as the Armenian
Government continues to refuse to allow them to return to Lachin. Nor
have the Armenian authorities made any attempt to compensate them
for their losses.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian
armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992,
including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The
co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – Russia, France, and the U.S. –
are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.

EXECUTIVE SUPERVISOR OF EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: “SECURITY OF ARMENIA WILL BE ENSURED IN THE CONTEST IN BAKU”

APA
Jan 25 2012
Azerbaijan

Baku. Ulkar Rashidgizi – APA. Armenia will participate in the
Eurovision-2012 Song Contest in Baku, Executive Supervisor of the
Eurovision Song Contest Jon Ola Sand said at the press conference in
Baku, APA reports.

He said that like other countries security of Armenia will be ensured
during the contest: “I am sure that Armenia will participate at the
contest. We regularly keep in touch with them. Armenia is preparing
to the contest”.

WE RESOLUTELY CONDEMN DECISION OF FRENCH SENATE, ENUR ASLANOV

State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
January 25, 2012 Wednesday

Azerbaijan resolutely condemns decision of the French Senate,
commenting the bill adopted by the Senate of France penalizing negation
of the Armenian genocide, at the presentation of the edition The
Azerbaijani-Turkish relations in the latest 20 years: successes and
opportunities, Enur Aslanov, the head of the political analysis and
information department at the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration,
told journalists.

Aslanov said the Azerbaijani governments position to this end
is clear. The State of Azerbaijan has made relevant statement. It
would be better France assessed the Khojaly massacre that happened
only 20 years ago, instead of interfering the history. If the French
senators are so eager to back the truth, they have to give appropriate
assessment to the Khojaly genocide, too, he emphasized.

Noting the French Senate`s decision is a blow to freedom of expression,
Aslanov said the bill would restrict freedom of scientists to
investigate the historical events. We, therefore, condemn this
decision and hope the French leadership would take rational and
constructive position.

THE BIGGEST LIES OF ALL, ‘A FREE WORLD’

Hurriyet
Jan 26 2012
Turkey

Last week I wrote an article titled “Why censorship is easy in
Turkey.” After this week’s events maybe I should write an article
with the title “Why censorship is easy all around the world.”

You must have all heard of the French National Assembly’s ban on
refusing the Armenian genocide claims. This was something to be
expected. After all, it is not the first time a person like Sarkozy
leading a country far greater than him takes decisions like this. The
most surprising news to me was the arrest made by Dutch authorities.

I lived two years in Holland and thought it was a country of regulated
freedoms where it was possible to do everything under the supervision
of the state. That was magical, I thought. However, even the Dutch have
to obey American requests, I guess. According to Hurriyet Daily News,
an Estonian citizen has been jailed for 60 days after being arrested
by Dutch police at the request of American authorities investigating
the file-sharing website Megaupload.

New Zealand police arrested four other suspects last week: Megaupload
founder Kim Dotcom, Bram van der Kolk, 29 (from the Netherlands but
a New Zealand resident), Finn Batato, 38, and Mathias Ortmann, 40,
the latter two both from Germany. All will be handed over to American
authorities in order to be prosecuted in the United States.

Dotcom was arrested by the FBI on Friday while celebrating his 38th
birthday party inside his rented $30 million Auckland mansion. Dotcom,
a German native who legally changed his name from Kim Schmitz in the
last decade, has been charged with criminal copyright infringement
and conspiracy to commit racketeering.

According to Billboard magazine, computers and documents were also
retrieved and more than NZ$10 million ($8 million) was seized from
financial institutions. Luxury cars, including a pink Cadillac and a
Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe, were removed from the property,
which Dotcom had been blocked from buying by NZ authorities last year
as he did not meet the criteria of the “good character” test.

The FBI said those arrested have been accused of “running an
international organized criminal enterprise allegedly responsible
for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted
works through Megaupload.com and other related sites.” The alleged
copyright theft generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds
and caused more than $500 million in harm to copyright owners.

“This action is among the largest criminal copyright cases ever
brought by the United States and directly targets the misuse of a
public content storage and facilitating intellectual property crime,”
the FBI said.

The FBI shut down the Hong Kong-based website, Megaupload.com, posting
an anti-piracy notice on the site saying the domain name has been
seized and that a federal grand jury has indicted several individuals
and entities, charging them with conspiracy to commit racketeering,
conspiracy to commit copyright infringement, conspiracy to commit
money laundering and criminal copyright infringement.

According to the New Zealand Herald, Dotcom’s lawyer Paul Davison told
the court today that Dotcom will not try to restart Megaupload or any
other website while he is on bail and the matter is before the courts.

It seems to me that the world leaders really cannot stand for
information to be shared equally and cannot stand matters being
discussed as freely as possible. With these types of extensive measures
they are saying people of the world can discuss things so-called
“leaders” allow and share information as long as the leaders control
the content and the method of sharing. What a wonderful world it is,
isn’t it?

OPEN LETTER TO FRENCH LAWMAKERS

Hurriyet

Jan 26 2012
Turkey

Honorable members of the Senate and of the National Assembly,

There is something rotten in our Republic. The adoption by the two
chambers of a law criminalizing a thought crime (denial of Armenian
“genocide”) is both a shame for French democracy and a violation of
the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.

The September 2005 Declaration by the civic organization “Liberty
for History” had warned about the dangers of so-called memory laws.

“History should not be a subject of law-making. In a free state, it is
neither for the parliament nor for the judiciary to define historical
truth.” Reports have amply elaborated on the risks incurred. Yet
their findings have been ignored.

The text supported by a minority of deputies and senators is
“anti-liberty, inquisitorial and obscurantist,” as Senator Josselin
de Rohan said in May last year when the bill was voted down in the
Senate. His courage and honesty to say it like it is must be commanded.

The bottom line is that the saga of the Armenian question in our
Parliament has had nothing to do with the search for the truth.

History has been utilized as an instrument for electoral reasons under
the pretence of morality with consequences worthy of a totalitarian
regime, namely state-imposed historical truths.

Shame on those who have voted in favor of this law, and on the many
who avoided responsibility altogether by abstaining or staying away
at such a critical time! The sound of their silence will resonate
for a long time.

I hereby inform you that in spite of this vote, I have not formulated
an opinion on the events which occurred during a civil war in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915 and affected so tragically both the Muslim and
Armenian communities. I believe that history does not belong to anyone,
and it is certainly not for the French or indeed any other Parliament
to write the history of other nations. It would be a tragic mistake
for the U.S. Congress to follow the path down this road.

Come what may, I intend to remain the master of my own conscience and
do not recognize the right of the state – any state – to impose on
me a historical “truth” with the force of the law. “The totalitarians
in our midst,” as Friedrich von Hayek would put it, will not dictate
my thoughts.

Vote-seeking politicians turned our Parliament into a tribunal. Their
actions are not only unconstitutional but by creating a useless and
harmful diplomatic crisis with an allied country and a friendly nation,
they have acted against the best interest of the nation. The damage
they have caused will take years to repair. And, when the President
of the Republic signs this “liberticide” law to please the French
Armenian community, he will dim further the light of freedom of
opinion, of thought and of scholarship in our country.

President Sarkozy will have to bear the responsibility for the
economic consequences of this folly and for pouring oil on the ashes
of communitarianism in a society weakened by recession. At a time when
France needs statesmanship and vision, what the people are getting
is a spectacular deluge of hyper-electoral agitation and short-termism.

With this law and the rise of technocratic governance in the EU,
it has become painfully obvious that the democratic and leadership
deficit can only get bigger. Be it in Paris or in Brussels, when
interest groups rule with their diktats “lobbycracy” is what we have,
not democracy. But I refuse to bow to unscrupulous politicians,
bureaucrats and lobbyists intent on taking us step by step on the
road to managed democracy and authoritarianism.

“So that liberty can live, men will always have to stand up against
indifference or resignation”, Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834).

Yours sincerely,

Sophie Quintin Adalı is an analyst for unmondelibre.org, the
Francophone project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. The
views and opinions expressed in this open letter are the author’s own.

ARTIST KAROLIN FISEKCI SPEAKS AT FATIH ALTAYLI’S PROGRAM

Hurriyet
Jan 26 2012
Turkey

Turkish Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk has denied having a relationship
with Turkish-Armenian artist Karolin Fiþekci via an official notice
issued by his lawyer Jan. 23 in which he requested she stop making
statements about him to the press.

Despite the warning, Fiþekci discussed the topic of her supposed
relationship with Pamuk as a guest of Fatih Altaylý’s program “Teke
Tek” on Haberturk TV on Jan. 23.

“I did not want to hide it,” Fiþekci said. “It was a secret during
our relationship, and I had to respect Pamuk’s private life. But
when it was revealed, people said many things, and I spoke in order
to clarify the situation.”

When asked if she was looking to gain fame through Pamuk, Fiþekci said,
“How many painters are known in Turkey? Everyone knows Bedri Baykam
on the street. Painters do not appear in the media. I showed Pamuk’s
human side. Yes, he was known through his books, but I wanted people
to know him through me, too.

Karolin Fiþekci “We met during the opening of an exhibition on April
16, 2009, in Istanbul. I had an article I wanted to send to him. He
gave me his email address, and after that we came together […] We
were often together over the past 2.5 years,” she said.

Offended by the notice

Fiþekci said she was offended by the statement made by Pamuk. “We have
lots of emails between us, but I do not want to reveal them. People
have said I am a liar, a schizoid. I was shocked when I received the
official notice. I laughed, too. A person who sees our messages can
also see the relationship between us. He did not personally tell me
to not speak; instead I got the notice. For me, a man should speak
by looking a woman in the eye.”

Fiþekci said her friends from the art world supported her and had
recommended a lawyer to her. “This is a kind of violence. Violence
does not only mean beating someone. This notice is like a threat. I
do not know about the legal process. The reaction from the media has
also been weird. They almost swore at me.”

She said she felt bad about the situation but did not have a desire
for revenge.

“We have not seen each other for about two months. We have not
spoken following the release of these statements. He says there is
no relationship, but I say there is. If he had warned me to not speak
about it, I would not have spoken.”

Size Matters II

asbarez
Friday, January 27th, 2012

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

Turkey’s chest thumping, arrogant, threats against France, over the
anti-denial legislation that passed both houses of the French
legislature, betray Turkey’s inherent weakness, stemming from its
refusal to come to terms with and atone for its past misdeeds, and the
Armenian Genocide isn’t its only transgression against humanity.

Much like an adolescent whose body is big but whose brain still
doesn’t know what to do with it, Turkey is thrashing about, lumbering
bewildered, and trying to find its way and place in the international
community. An just like its youthful human analog, it hasn’t yet
learned that being straightforward will help it progress.

Does anyone recall Turkey being quite this loud in its knee jerk,
denial-policy-based reaction before? Was it this intense a decade ago
with France’s recognition of the Genocide? How about the UN’s
acceptance of its special rapporteur’s findings about the Armenian
Genocide? Or the U.S. House of Representatives’ passage of Armenian
Genocide resolutions? Or the U.S. arms embargoing arms to Turkey over
its invasion and occupation of Cyprus? Or the decades long farce of
the EU keeping Turkey as `always a bridesmaid never a bride’?

The reason Turkey is so voluble and strident in its reaction is its
self-perception as being in a much stronger position than it used to
be. And there’s some truth to this. Its economy has been growing
rapidly (though some argue unsustainably). Its population exceeds
that of every European country except Russia and Germany (though a
quarter of that is actually Kurdish). It has had relatively better
governance for a decade now. It feels young, strong, and surging. It
has all the attributes that coupled with immaturity, overweening
pride, and insecurity lead to bullying.

So it’s clear that bigger can mean badder.

That’s why it is an insoluble mystery to me why that same lesson is
not applied by many in society to another institution that is a
manifest example of `bigger-badder’. I refer to those who reflexively
defend large corporate interests.

Corporations are set up as vehicles for conducting business to make
money. That is their primary purpose (with the exception of those
organizations that incorporate as a legal necessity, even though their
purposes are charitable or civic). When an organization gets big, it
unavoidably becomes less personal, and the money making impetus
becomes the sole organizing theme and unifying factor. So far this is
not a problem.

But, as with any human endeavor, there are costs and tradeoffs. The
efficiencies that accrue to big companies enable them to get ever
bigger, and with their financial prowess, deform the functions of
their surrounding societies, bending them to better suit their
purposes. This happens at a cost to the individual citizens of these
societies, usually impinging on their freedoms and voice in
governance.

The only way to counterbalance this deformation is through control,
limitation, of corporate activity. A single citizen is clearly not up
to such an onerous task. That’s where the citizenry’s representative,
the government, comes in. It is the only agent capable of
counterbalancing corporate power.

However, big government can be just as effective a choker of
individual liberty as any money-addled corporation. So citizens must
be aware of and involved in their government, otherwise, `clookhuh
g’arneh, g’erta’ (it will run amok). As paraphrased from a 1790
speech by John Philpot Curran in his ` Speech Upon the Right of
Election’, `eternal vigilance is the price of liberty’.

Corporations of course, act to subvert the only power able to check
theirs, so citizens must be doubly vigilant. A current example of
this awareness/engagement requirement is the effort now underway to
restore corporations to what they rightfully are, legal constructs
that exist based on the government’s permission. Two years ago, in
its `Citizens United’ decision, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively
granted `personhood’ to corporations, a huge threat to every human
citizen. Now, many are out to remedy this abomination.

Big Turkey is bad. Big Corporations are bad. `Citizens United’ is
bad. Please explore this issue and get involved in taking back your
government and powers as a citizen.

Norway apologises for deporting Jews during Holocaust

14:52, 28 January, 2012

YEREVAN, JANUARY 27, ARMENPRESS: The Norwegian prime minister has
apologised for the role his country played in deporting its own Jews
as Europe marks Holocaust Remembrance Day, Armenpress reports citing
BBC.

“Norwegians carried out the arrests, Norwegians drove the trucks and
it happened in Norway,” Jens Stoltenberg said in a speech.

It is believed to be the first time a Norwegian leader has been so
explicit about collusion under Nazi occupation.

More than a third of Norway’s 2,100 Jews were deported to death camps.

Others fled to neighbouring Sweden, which remained neutral during World War II.

Norway acknowledged its role in the Holocaust in 1998 and paid some
$60m (£38m) to Norwegian Jews and Jewish organisations in compensation
for property seized.

However, the payout fell short of a full apology.

7 Armenian chess players to participate in Moscow Open

January 28, 2012 – 16:48 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – On January 28, Moscow Open 2012 chess festival kicks
off, with 7 Armenian chess players participating. Avetik Grigoryan
will face off against Ray Robson (U.S.) in the second round of RSSU
International Chess Cup.

Men’s chess line-up for Russian Cup has been announced as follows:
David Shahinyan, Arthur Karagezyan, Tigran Harutyunyan and Manuel
Petrosyan.

Women’s line-up is as follows: Lilit Galojan, Evgeniya Doluhanova and
Karina Ambartsumova.

Residents in Armenia’s Aragatsotn Region in snow blockade

news.am
January 28, 2012 | 18:23

YEREVAN. – Nigavan village residents in Armenia’s Aragatsotn Region
have appeared in blockade as a result of snow, one of the farmers
Gurgen Muradyan alarmed Armenian News-NEWS.am, adding all the roads
are closed and no cleaning works are conducting.

Armenian News-NEWS.am turned to Armenian Road Directorate on this
regard, which assured to report it to their branch.