Author: Kalashian Nyrie

ARMENIAN OPPOSITION DECLARED HOLDING RECURRENT RALLY
14.04.2004 18:13
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The recurrent rally of the united Armenian opposition will
take place on April 16 at 6 p.m. local time, deputies representing
opposition Justice bloc in the Armenian National Assembly Shavarsh Kocharian
and Albert Bazeian told journalists today. In their words, the decision was
taken at today’s sitting of the political council of the bloc.

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
Thousands of Armenians celebrate the Easter in Antelias
It was a special day in Antelias at the headquarters of the Armenian
Catholicosate of Cilicia on the Easter Sunday 11 April 2004. Thousands of
people attended the Eucharistic celebration at the cathedral in Antelias.
The Eucharist was celebrated by His Holiness Aram I.
In his sermon, His Holiness described the Easter as the celebration of life.
“Through His Cross Jesus conquered the death and gave us abundant life. The
God given life in Christ is a quality of life that generates service,
humility and commitment. Therefore, we must perceive and practice our life
in a way that makes the Gospel massage a living reality in our lives”.
Speaking about the Armenian Church and communities, His Holiness emphasized
the crucial importance of collaboration: “One-sided approaches will always
create internal tensions in our communities. Bias attitude will create more
and more problems. What we need is sincere and comprehensive collaboration
engaging all our organizations and active forces. We must also continue
supporting Armenia, our homeland. Nowadays, Armenia is facing tremendous
problems. It is my prayer and firm expectation that opposition and
government initiate a process of dialogue reaching a mutually acceptable
consensus. This is the only way to take the country out of the prevailing
stagnation and uncertainty” concluded His Holiness.
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The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the
jurisdiction and the Christian Education activities in both the
Catholicosate and the dioceses, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

Authorities to prevent “political extremism”, says Armenian president
Mediamax news agency
13 Apr 04
YEREVAN
Ashot Kocharyan, the spokesman for the Armenian president, today
presented the president’s position on recent events in the country.
This is the full text of the statement submitted to Mediamax news
agency by the Armenian president’s spokesman:
“In recent days the behaviour of the aggressive political minority, in
particular, the calls for a change of authorities and violence,
unsanctioned rallies and marches, has acquired the form of political
extremism. This is especially dangerous for a country, which is
devoted to democratic values and is carrying out radical economic
reforms, as it endangers its stability and the prestige it has gained.
“In the prevailing situation the law-enforcement agencies were obliged
to ensure public order within the framework of the law. The police
intervened when the normal work of the National Assembly and Armenian
president had been disrupted by the opposition’s actions, which in
this way also endangered the country’s constitutional structure. The
protesters did not obey the legal demands of the police and
demonstrated disobedience.
“All state structures are acting within their constitutional
authorities, fulfilling the obligations imposed on them to ensure the
normal life of the country and people.
“The authorities will use all legal means to prevent new displays of
political extremism.”

Kresty Inmates Receive Easter Eggs, Loaves
By Irina Titova
STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, April 13, 2004 SPTimes
More than 4,000 inmates of Kresty, one of the St. Petersburg’s oldest
and most notorious prisons, received painted Easter eggs and loaves of
Orthodox Easter bread, or kulich, on Sunday.
“The chance to attend an Easter service here, in Kresty, gives great
relief to my soul,” said Alexander, 20, one of about 70 Kresty inmates
allowed to attend the holiday service in the prison’s Alexander Nevsky
Church.
Millions of Orthodox believers celebrated Easter on Sunday. Although
the church uses the Julian calendar which usually means religious
festivals are celebrated at a different time to those in the West,
this year the western and Orthodox Easter coincided.
Thousands across Russia went to midnight masses, painted eggs, and
bought or baked themselves kuliches, made from sweet dough with
raisins.
During the last decade religion, which underwent a revival after the
end of the Soviet Union, has come to prisons. Many of their churches
have reopened and new churches have been built in some.
“I know it’s hard for you to be here,” said Father Alexander, who led
the service at Kresty. “But on this holy day of Easter you should
repent and think of how to improve yourselves and lead a good life.”
The other prisoners, who for security had to stay in their cells,
looked out from their tiny cell windows as Father Alexander passed
along the long corridors performing the traditional Orthodox Easter
procession of the cross, and giving them blessed eggs and bread.
“Christ has risen!” the priest said. “Truly, he has risen!” prisoners
responded, in accordance with Easter customs.
About 4,700 painted eggs and 1,075 kuliches were donated to the prison
by the city’s Armenian community, which traditionally helps the
prison.
Father Alexander said that for many of the prisoners an opportunity to
attend an Easter service or just to receive blessed Easter food, was a
real joy.
“It shows them that they are not outcasts and not damned,” he
said. “It’s very important for them to realize that someone cares
about them.”
Yury, an inmate, said he had almost never been to church before he was
jailed, but had since come to regularly attend services in Kresty.
Kresty prisoners are able to attend weekly services in groups limited
to no more than 20 people because of security fears.
Since the number of believers is much greater than those that can be
accommodated inside the prison church, prisoners have to wait their
turn, sometimes for several weeks, said Alexei Gerasimov, a senior
Kresty officer
Father Alexander said the work of a priest in prisons is rather hard.
“It is hard morally because in prisons a priest deals with spiritually
broken people, who are often depressed or skeptical about many things
and don’t want or can’t repent,” he said.
However, he chose the posting himself after once trying to serve in a
women’s prison, and then feeling immense sympathy for inmates, he
said.
Working in Kresty for the last five years he had seen many examples
how the church can help prisoners to improve their lives, he added.
“They get out of their depression, quit smoking, cursing and plans for
revenge.” he said. “And after their release they resume normal lives,
get happily married and have children.”
Kresty, located in the center of St. Petersburg beside the Neva river
was built in 1893 as a prison for solitary confinement. For a long
time it was the biggest prison of its kind in Europe.
Its name means crosses and refers to its design in which two large
buildings are built in the form of a cross.
For many years, Kresty was a symbol of political repression. Prominent
historical figures, including Leon Trotsky and Anna Akhmatova’s son
Lev Gumilyov, were among its inmates.
Today Kresty serves mostly as a detention center where prisoners await
trial, often for years. Built to hold about 1,500 people, Kresty holds
at least four times as many inmates.

ChronWatch.com
April 08, 2004
History’s Lesson: The Defenseless Are in Peril
Posted by Dennis Campbell
It has been 10 years since bloodthirsty Hutus in Rwanda
massacred nearly one million rival Tutsis. Of course, someone might
say, that was in Africa, renowned for its savagery, and could never
happen in America.
And perhaps he would be right. We enjoy the many freedoms and
rights and privileges that come with our tradition of Western
civilization. Yes, that culture, propagated by those Dead White
Males so despised by the inhabitants of the political left, that is
routinely disparaged by the bozos, buffoons and bullies
indoctrinating your kids whose college tuition is draining your bank
account.
The proclivity of humans toward slaughtering those who are
different – culturally, religiously, politically – is historically
well-documented.
In December 1937, invading Japanese soldiers began the
infamous Rape of Nanking, China, that ended with the death of more
than 350,000 Chinese.
On November 9, 1938, Nazi Brownshirts in Adolf Hitler’s
Germany began a two-day rampage called Kristallnacht, or Night of
Broken Glass, during which scores of German Jews were murdered, a
thousand synagogues burned and tens of thousands Jews arrested and
sent to concentration camps.
In 1915, Turkish Muslims (adherents to the ”religion of
peace”) butchered between one million and two million Armenians.
More recently, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Bosnia
and Croatia were killed in that region’s notorious ”ethnic
cleansing.”
This could go on ad infinitum, and the question arises, ”What
is the point?”
The point is this: The unfortunates cataloged above had no
means of self-defense. In short, they had no guns.
Where I live, in the Southwestern portion of America, when a
bad guy comes to take my home, kill me and my family and commit
atrocities against us, he is likely to be dissuaded when confronted
by the barrel of my 12-gauge shotgun.
But after Adolf Hitler disarmed Germans, how were they able to
defend themselves? When unarmed Tutsis were attacked by Hutus, how
were they to defend themselves? When helpless Chinese citizens were
set upon by Japanese soldiers, how were they to defend themselves?
With this in mind, any American with the brains God gave a
fruit fly should fight hammer and tong against the efforts by the
left to disarm the populace.
We should fight against registering guns, because registered
guns become confiscated guns.
We should fight against limits on magazine capacity, just as
the Bedouin fights against the camel’s nose under the tent.
This is a war, one that must be waged unrelentingly and with
discernment.
The left will couch its rhetoric in emotion and
misrepresentation.
We will be told that thousands of children die every year
because of guns – a lie and a bizarre manipulation of data that
classifies a 24-year-old South Central Los Angeles gang member as a
child.
We will be told that the higher the incidence of gun
ownership, the higher the incidence of crime – a lie that has been
refuted by myriad studies definitively proving that high gun
ownership means lower crime rates.
At the same time, we will be denied vital information by a
leftist news media that uses its power to control the dissemination
of information to influence an issue where it stands clearly in the
wrong.
We will not be told that when guns were confiscated in England
and Australia, violent crime increased dramatically.
We will not be told of the thousands of incidents in which a
gun was used by a law-abiding citizen to thwart a crime.
We will not be told that our Founders, who wrote the Second
Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing our right to bear arms,
were solidly in favor of private gun ownership.
Why this relentless effort to disarm America? It has nothing
to do with the safety of our children or the fight against crime. It
has everything to do with a political philosophy that, contrary to
the principles undergirding the founding of America, believes in less
freedom for you and me, not more, and desires a citizenry that can be
controlled and manipulated.
It is a philosophy that has overtaken a party that calls
itself ”Democratic,” but is not, a party that is a twisted
distortion of what it once was, unrecognizable to Democrats of a
half-century ago.
The man who threatens me and the man who would disarm me have
the same goal in mind: A desire to deprive me of life, liberty and
property.
We should fear both, but there is a common-sense way to
approach each of them: Shoot the former, and vote against the latter.
For freedom’s sake.
Dennis Campbell is a freelance writer and former newspaper reporter
and editor. He resides in New Mexico and receives e-mail at:
[email protected].

Azer Tag, Azerbaijan
April 9, 2004
AZERBAIJAN, SWITZERLAND: RELATIONS HIGHLY ASSESSED
[April 09, 2004, 14:05:23]
Foreign minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov met the Chief of the
Political Directorate Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Mr.
Blaise Godet on 8 April.
Minister Elmar Mammadyarov gave a high assessment to the relations
between Azerbaijan and Switzerland, underlining that he adheres
strengthening of bilateral links and widening of cooperation in
numerous spheres, the defense ministry’s press service told AzerTAj.
Then, minister Elmar Mammadyarov updated the guest on the hard living
conditions of the refugees and IDPs who were ousted from their
homelands as a result of the Armenian -Azerbaijani Nagorny Karabakh
conflict and on the work done for settlement of the problem. The
Minister also stressed the necessity of solving the conflict in the
frame of internal law and principles by the efforts of the
international community.
In the course of meeting, head of the foreign policy department of
Azerbaijan highlighted on the situation in the region, economic
reforms in the Country, development of the oil industry and other
accomplishments gained last years.
In turn, Mr. Blasé Godeth noted that Swiss Confederation attaches
great importance to expansion of bilateral relations between
Azerbaijan and his country. Touching the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorny
Karabakh conflict, expressed hope that the problem would be settled
in peaceful and in the frame of international law.
The parties also had exchange of views on a number of issues of
mutual interest.

Azat Artsakh, Republic of Nagorno Karabakh (NKR)
April 8 2004
FATHERLAND AND ARMY START AT THE BORDER
Meeting the proposal of the RA TV companies, the NKR Ministry of
Defence invited a group of journalists to the NKR Defence Army to get
acquainted with the life of the servicemen. On April 2, headed by the
press secretary of the minister, colonel S. Shahsuvarian, 27
journalists representing 10 TV companies of Armenia visited different
military units of the NKR Defence Army, and border installations. The
journalists visited the educational strategic center `Asparezâ’,
watched the training. The journalists had an interview with the NKR
minister of defence Seyran Ohanian. The NKR minister of defence
mentioned that the situation at the border is quiet. As to the present
condition of the army, he mentioned that day by day the level of the
military training, supply of arms and equipment, the engineering
structures are improved. The minister mentioned that the NKR Defence
Army is successfully fulfilling the role of the defence of the border
of the motherland, the servicemen control the situation and the
situation in Yerevan can in no way influence the service.
ARMEN DANIELIAN

Armenian opposition spearheads campaign to change “undemocratic regime”
Arminfo
6 Apr 04

YEREVAN
“By giant waves of national struggle, we shall rid the country of the
undemocratic regime, return power to the people and establish jointly
a fair state,” the Republic [Anrapetutyun] Party issued this statement
today.
According to our source, the Republic Party condemns the illegal
“ruling regime” and states that all efforts to settle a score with the
opposition are doomed to failure. The statement said that “the illegal
regime has again resorted to lowliness and arrested well-known
journalist Suren Surenyants on the trumped-up and false
charges. “Bringing to book for political views is an act
characteristic of the dictatorial regimes, and the dictator must be
removed for the establishment of a democracy in the country,” the
statement said.
Let us recall that today the first instance court in Yerevan’s Kentron
and Nork-Marash communities extended Suren Surenyants’ term in custody
by two months.

A1 Plus | 18:13:29 | 05-04-2004 | Politics |
DASHNAKS’ UNILATERAL MOVE
Dashnak party said Monday it was ready to offer some cabinet minister
portfolios to the opposition activists to ease tension.
Kocharyan’s bitter opponent and key rival in presidential elections Stepan
Demirchyan rejected the proposal on Monday saying the opposition is
struggling for constitutional law restoration, not for portfolios.
Commenting on the coalition move he denounced the offer as hypocritical.
Coalition does nothing without Robert Kocharyan’s and Serge Sargssyan’s
instructions.
—

A1 Plus | 15:27:44 | 05-04-2004 | Politics |
ANOTHER ARREST
Member of “Republic” party’s council Suren Surenyants was taken in the
police custody on Sunday. No formal charges are bought against him so far.
A criminal case is believed to be opened.
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