Author: Kamalian Hagop

DESPITE TURKEY’S REFORMS, GAY COMMUNITY SAYS IT LACKS LEGAL PROTECTIONS

The Associated Press
International Herald tribune, France
May 2 2007

ANKARA, Turkey: In the 1980s and 1990s, Turkish police routinely raided
gay bars, detained transvestites, and banned homosexual conferences
and festivals.

Next month, in a sign of how the state has loosened up, gay activists
will hold forums on several university campuses to discuss their
rights and the discrimination they still face.

Gays in Turkey say they lack legal protections and face social stigma
in a Muslim nation with a secular tradition of government that has
implemented broad reforms in its bid to join the European Union – but
remains heavily influenced by conservative and religious values. For
the most part, they face less pressure than in Egypt, Saudi Arabia
and other Muslim countries where Islamic codes are enforced with
more rigor.

However, Turkey’s homosexuals are jostling for more rights in a
crowded field.

The historical feud between Turks and Armenians, as well as the
concerns of ethnic Kurds and minority Christians, attract more
international attention and pressure for change on the Turkish
government.

"There are so many problems in Turkey," Ali Erol, a member of the gay
rights group Kaos GL, said in an interview in his office in Ankara,
the Turkish capital. "It looks as though gay rights are put down
below in the list of things to be taken care of."

In March, the chief editor of the group’s magazine, also named
Kaos GL, was acquitted of charges that he had illegally published
pornography in a July 2006 issue after a judge noted that copies
were seized before they were put on sale. The editor, Umut Guner,
could have faced several years in jail if convicted.

The issue that got the magazine in trouble showed two images of men
in explicit sexual poses, beside an article that editors described
as an analysis of issues relating to pornography. The magazine first
published in 1994, and became legal when it secured a license five
years later. It comes out every two months, and has a circulation of
up to 1,000.

In recent years, Turkey reworked its penal code to bring it into
line with European standards. The new version does not specifically
ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, although the
issue was discussed at the draft stage.

Justice Ministry officials had said that laws barring discrimination
on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, religion and political views
were enough to protect its citizens.

"There are some ‘hate crime’ articles in the criminal code, but they
are not used appropriately," said Levent Korkut, head of Amnesty
International’s operations in Turkey. "Impunity is a problem in
this area."

He noted that even some Turks who describe themselves as liberals say:
‘"We don’t want to protect these people.’"

Gay sex is not a crime in Turkey, and some clubs and cinemas in big
cities openly cater to homosexuals. Gay and lesbian societies exist
at several universities. But the vast majority of homosexuals remain
discreet in a country where liberal views have yet to make inroads in
rural areas and many urban settings. Municipalities have some leeway
to introduce laws safeguarding "morality," which gay activists view
as a potential threat to their freedom.

Some gays, notably poet Murathan Mungan and the late singer Zeki
Muren, achieved celebrity status and openly acknowledged their sexual
orientation. Similarly, historians and novelists have referred to
a degree of tolerance for gay sex among some sectors of the elite
during the Ottoman Empire centuries ago.

Yet, for many, being homosexual is an exercise in deception. One gay
man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was distraught
years ago because high school classmates kept calling him "ibne,"
a derogatory word for gay in Turkish.

The man, now a university student, said he avoids physical contact
with his boyfriend when they are in public, and passes him off as a
close friend. He said he is often mocked if he wears an article of
clothing that people think is feminine.

Unable to find regular jobs, many transvestites and transsexuals
work as prostitutes, an often dangerous profession that has led to
the murders of some at the hands of clients.

Some deadly "hate crimes" were never publicized because police
did not reveal the sexual orientation of the victims, according to
gay activists. In some cases, they said, gays who were harassed or
physically harmed because of their orientation did not report the
incident or go to court because they wanted to avoid scrutiny.

The European Union has funded gay groups in Turkey, which sometimes
coordinate with the Turkish Ministry of Health and other government
agencies. Kaos GL has links to Lambda Istanbul, a gay group in
Turkey’s biggest city, and will host an "international anti-homophobia"
meeting on university campuses in Ankara next month.

"We want to share and learn the experiences of all gays and lesbians
who struggle against homophobia in the Middle East, Balkans, Europe
and the other parts of the world," the group said in a statement. It
has invited international speakers, including journalists and European
lawmakers who will discuss gay issues in their own countries.

The Kaos GL magazine paid tribute to Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian
journalist who was allegedly slain by extremist nationalists in
January, by printing a somber image of him on the back cover of a
recent issue.

"Those people who murdered Hrant Dink do not like us either,"
Erol said.

RWANDA: KI-MOON RECOGNISES GENOCIDE SURVIVORS
Edwin Musoni

The New Times (Kigali)
May 2 2007

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has recognised Rwandan
genocide survivors calling what happened in Rwanda ‘humbling’. While
officiating the Rwanda Genocide exhibition at the UN headquarters in
New York, Ki-Moon said that the UN’s thoughts were the survivors,
fallen colleagues of the UN family: peacekeepers and civilians who
lost their lives in the line of duty as the Genocide unfolded. "As
we open this exhibition, our thoughts go to the victims of the 1994
Rwandan Genocide, innocent people who lost their lives in such a
short period. May they continue to rest in peace," he said.

The exhibition highlights the failure of the international community
to prevent the Genocide, examines what happened in Rwanda, emphasizes
the plight of victims, particularly those who suffered from sexual
violence and details the warning signs for genocide.

The Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Charles Murigande, told
The New Times on phone yesterday that Rwanda is fully represented
at exhibition.

"We are represented by our Special Envoy to the UN, Dr Zac Nsenga.

Our embassy in New York will follow up the exhibition to the last day,"
he said.

He also added that the Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture, Joseph
Habineza, is in the US and is expected to attend the exhibition.

Meanwhile, media reports say that Ki-Moon recalled his visit to the
Rwandan memorial sites before becoming Secretary-General, saying the
impression would stay with him forever.

"Anybody who visits Rwanda cannot leave without crying, without being
very humbled about what happened and what the international community
failed to react," he said.

The exhibition on Rwanda Genocide at UN Headquarters was postponed
three weeks ago as a result of the Turkish objections to a reference
to the murder of a million Armenians in Turkey during World War I.

But Ki- Moon, in a gesture to Turkey, said the exhibit did not
‘attempt to make historical judgments on other issues’

The exhibition which will be on display for the next three weeks is
sponsored by Aegis Trust, a British non-governmental organization
(NGO) that fights against Genocide.

The exhibition includes information panels and a film containing the
testimony of three female survivors of the Genocide.

NKR PRESIDENT RECEIVED RA DEFENSE MINISTER

ArmRadio.am
30.04.2007 13:40

On April 29 NKR President Arkady Ghukasyan received the newly appointed
Defense Minister of Armenia Makhael Harutyunyan.

NKR President’s Acting Spokesman told ArmInfo that Arkady Ghukasyan
congratulated Mr. Harutyunyan on his appointment as the Defense
Minister of the Republic of Armenia and wished his productive activity
in his responsible mission.

Issues related to the cooperation of the armed forces of the two
republics in the sphere of security and maintenance of the cease-fire
regime at the contact line of the Karabakhi-Azerbaijani conflict
were discussed during the meeting held in presence of the NKR Defense
Minister, Lieutenant General Seyran Ohanyan.

The interlocutors turned to the festive events to be held on May 9.

OTTOMAN EMPIRE AT BARUCH COLLEGE
By: Gregory Zarefes

Baruch College The Ticker, NY
April 30 2007

Bruce Fein is a constitutional and international lawyer who was
a deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration. He is an
experienced columnist for The Washington Post and The Washington Times,
and has appeared multiple times on CNN and C-Span. He spoke at Baruch
College on March 27, regarding the alleged Armenian genocide of 1918
by Ottoman Turks.

Fein began the program by discussing the history of the Ottoman Empire
and the legacy of racial tolerance it had towards minorities.

Although certain taxes were levied against non-Muslims, the Ottoman
Empire had a good human rights record, and in some cases was even a
refuge for Christians from civil war in neighboring countries. This
much is acknowledged by most scholars. Next, Fein argued against
an inaccurate revisionist history. He cited a quote that is often
misattributed to Marie Antoinette, and the death of two princes in
Richard III as two examples of myths that have become ingrained in the
popular consciousness. By repeating these myths, the public at large
is done a disservice, and the full implications of an event cannot
be reasonably assessed. By referring to the massacres as genocide, we
"cheapen" the Holocaust, and do a grave disservice to a real genocide.

A point that Fein made multiple times is that genocide is a systematic
"attempt to exterminate a race or people." Given the Ottoman Empire’s
liberal stance towards minorities, it seems unlikely that such an
Empire would lend itself to the perversion of genocide.

However, given the far-reaching political implications that genocide
would carry, Armenians have a clear motive for portraying the massacres
as genocide.

In 1820, when the Greek War was being fought, Armenians sought the
support of the West, and sought to provoke Turks into fighting a
war for independence. Similarly, on the eve of World War I in 1914,
tensions between Armenians and the rest of the Ottomans were high.

During World War I, in which Armenians fought against the Ottomans,
this was a form of treason, as Armenians were Ottoman subjects.

Given obvious security risks, the Ottomans relocated Armenians, which
was clumsily done. Fein compared this event to the internment of
Japanese Americans during World War II, except that it was hastily
and poorly executed, and resulted in mass casualties. However,
a comparable number of Turks were killed, which substantiates that
this was fighting and massacre, but not genocide.

Fein continued by addressing the evidence that Armenians offer. Much of
it is from either Ambassador Henry Morgenthau (who was, in fact, far
removed from actually witnessing the events firsthand,) or Secretary
of State William Bryan, who was in the United States.

Another piece of evidence that corroborates the Turkish claim is that
Turks have declassified their archives of the period, while Armenians
have not.

Also to be considered is the fact that Armenians have refused
to take the case to World Court, which would seem to damage their
credibility. Fein mentioned that the American Congress is prepared to
vote on the matter, determining whether genocide did indeed occur. He
noted the irony of this measure, to the applause of audience members.

"Politicians do not study history when they vote [on] historical
events, they study constituencies."

He asserted that Armenians are very wealthy and very well organized in
their attempt to portray their version of history. He claimed that the
construction of an Armenian genocide museum in Washington, D.C., as
the byproduct of active petitioning, is an attempt to rewrite history.

When asked whether free speech was the correct tool to resolve the
two irreconcilable versions of history, Fein was skeptical. "Truth
is not self-executed," therefore characteristic Turkish reticence
was part of the problem: in order to defend themselves Turks would
have to vociferously present their [point].

rage/paper909/news/2007/04/30/News/Ottoman.Empire. At.Baruch.College-2887086.shtml

KARAPETYAN FACED SOME OBSTACLES

A1+
[09:14 pm] 01 May, 2007

Gagik Tsarukyan, chairman of "Prosperous Armenia" should have handed
the microphone to Aram Karapetyan, leader of ‘New Times’. Instead,
the Armenian singer Goga got it.

At the sight of ‘ New Times’ party leader, people burst out crying out,
‘ We are here to hear you. We are sick and tired of watching these
naked singers.

We have been cheated for 17 years. Do not be afraid of Tsarukyan!’

Hrazdan City Hall was at day off. Mkhitar Harutyunyan went out of the
office and hurried off the square. He had to explain OSCE observers
that they had arranged a private concert therefore they were to provide
‘ New Times’ representatives with the stage later.

Aram Karapetyan had to take the microphone from Goga and announce
that they would speak out right after children. Aram Karapetyan had to
talk for about 20 minutes without the microphone as the light was gone.

‘As long as Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan are in Armenia, such
things are inevitable. They do their best to split our public. I
assure you the opposition is united. On May 3, we are going to hold
a meeting in Freedom Square. ‘

Aram Karapetyan mentioned that they could prevent the flow of some
authorities. He also reminded the fact that Ministers are not allowed
to do business due to RoA Constitution. Those blaming Aram Karapetyan
for interrupting the concert burst out applauding and crying out,
"He speaks the truth." "New Times" also visited Charentsavan where
the meeting was without any hindrance.

The Armenian Genocide
Original Publication Date: 4/16/2000
(c) 2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Original Headline: Turk slaughter of Armenians is little-known // An
author documents the overshadowed history of genocide during World War I
in the former Ottoman Empire.

By Eric Black; Staff Writer and Big Question blogger
on/?page_id=687

"Who today remembers the extermination of the Armenians?"

That remark was uttered by Adolf Hitler a few days before Germany’s
1939 invasion of Poland, which started World War II.

Hitler said he had ordered death squads to "exterminate without mercy
or pity, Polish men, women and children" who got in the way of
Germany’s aims. They needn’t worry about history’s judgment, he said,
because history had already forgotten the massacre of more than a
million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire just 25 years earlier.

Vahakn Dadrian, who lectured in the Twin Cities last week, has made it
his life’s work to keep alive the history of the Armenian genocide.

Armenians around the world commemorate the genocide every April. April
24 was the date in 1915 when about 300 Armenian intellectual and
professional leaders in the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern
Istanbul) were rounded up, beginning a three-year killing spree.

The Armenian Cultural Organization of Minnesota will mark the tragedy
today with a lecture by Dadrian at the University of Minnesota.

The Armenian genocide ranks as one of the 20th century’s biggest cases
of organized mass murder based on ethnic and religious differences. But
it is far less well-known than the biggest case – the Nazi-organized
slaughter of Jews, Gypsies and others – and several more recent ones
such as those in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Dadrian, director of genocide research at the Cambridge, Mass., and
Toronto-based Zoryan Institute and author of a 1995 book, "The History
of the Armenian Genocide," has devoted his adult life to documenting
the tragedy. And Dadrian is among the founders of a field known as
comparative study of genocide. He spoke twice in recent days, at St.

Cloud State University and at the Jewish Community Center of
Minneapolis, on his comparison between the Armenian genocide and the
Holocaust.

Modern Turkey, successor to the Ottoman Empire, denies that the deaths
of the Armenians were part of a program of genocide. Many countries,
including the United States, out of deference to the Turkish position,
have avoided officially recognizing the tragedy as a genocide. In April
1999, for example, President Clinton’s statement on the anniversary
referred to the "deportation and massacre" of "so many innocent lives,"
but he avoided using the term "genocide."

Dadrian said a resolution pending in Congress, with more than 100
cosponsors, would recognize the genocide and authorize the United
States to create an archive to preserve materials documenting the case.

Turkish denial

In the 19th century, Armenia was part of the declining Ottoman Empire.

Anti-Armenian sentiment was a staple of Turkish politics. In 1894-96,
more than 150,000 Armenians were slaughtered, Dadrian said.

Early in the 20th century, the Ottomans lost their extensive holdings
in the Balkan peninsula in a war that started with nationalist
movements among several of the subject populations. Similar nationalist
sentiments were stirring in the Armenian regions. Dadrian said the
biggest part of the motive for the Turkish program of genocide was the
fear that Armenian nationalism would lead to the empire’s loss of more
territory.

The Turkish denial that its predecessors committed genocide, Dadrian
said, relies on the argument that the government was merely trying to
relocate a troublesome population out of a war zone.

That argument was rebutted at the time by the U.S. ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire, Henry Morganthau, who witnessed much of the genocide.

In a 1917 book, he wrote: "When the Turkish authorities gave the orders
for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a
whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversation with
me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact."

The way the Armenians were killed are staggeringly grisly and provide a
macabre contrast to the relatively bureaucratic and hi-tech methods
that the Nazis would employ 25 years later.

In a policy that Dadrian said was "unparalleled in the annals of human
history," the Turks "decided to rely not on soldiers but on
bloodthirsty criminals." Dadrian said 30,000 to 35,000 convicts were
released from prison to participate in the slaughter.

With a world war raging, Dadrian said, Ottoman officials were anxious
not to waste bullets or powder on the Armenians, so they employed four
main methods to kill the Armenians:

Many were beaten to death or killed with daggers, swords and axes.

Massive drowning operations were conducted in the tributaries of the
Euphrates River and the Black Sea. Bargeloads of Armenians were
intentionally sunk. Dadrian, quoting Morganthau, said that in places
the Armenian corpses became so numerous that the rivers were forced out
of their beds, in one case changing the course of a river for a
100-meter stretch.

The method that Dadrian called "the most fiendish" was to pack Armenian
women and children into stables or haylofts and then set them ablaze,
burning the victims alive. Dadrian estimated that about 150,000 were
killed by this method.

Hundreds of thousands more died of hunger, thirst or exposure during
forced marches in the desert. Dadrian said the Armenians were told they
were being relocated but were marched along routes chosen to maximize
the chances that none of the marchers would survive.

Estimates of the number of Armenians killed vary. Dadrian said the best
figure – just for the period 1915-1918 – is between 1.2 million and 1.3
million out of a pre-war population of Armenians within the Ottoman
Empire of about 4 million.

Cases compared

In comparing the tragedies that befell the Armenians and the Jews in
the 20th century, and looking at other cases of genocide or
near-genocide, Dadrian offered these observations:

The Jews and the Armenians were historical victims of persecution. Both
lacked a state of their own and had a minority status in every country
where they lived. This combination made them "fair game" for their
attackers.

Armenians and Jews were legally barred from power positions in their
societies, such as the military, government and civil service. Some
their members prospered in commercial fields, which made them objects
of envy and resentment. This element was also represented in the
Hutu-Tutsi conflict in Rwanda, Dadrian said, where Tutsis were
perceived as controlling an unfair proportion of wealth relative to
Hutus.

Relative wealth combined with lack of access to political or military
power is a potent combination, Dadrian said, because it makes a group
into appealing targets of persecution but leaves them essentially
defenseless.

Although the genocide victims were already hated groups in both cases,
they were further degraded and vilified by official propaganda before
the killing started. Dadrian said the term "vermin" was commonly used
to describe Jews during the Nazi period and Armenians during the period
leading up their genocide.

Both genocidal campaigns occurred in the context of a larger war. Both
target populations were described as a dangerous internal enemy, which
made their massacre seem justifiable as an act of national security.

One lesson the world can learn from the comparative study, Dadrian
said, is that war itself can create the preconditions for genocide.

"War provides incentives for becoming barbarous, and it presents a
cloak or a guise for that barbarity," he said.

A key similarity that Dadrian said is often overlooked is that both
genocides were committed by particular political parties: the Nazis and
the Young Turks. Those who conceive the Holocaust as perpetrated by the
German nation or the German government are missing the fact that the
nation and the government had been overwhelmed by the Nazis, he said.

The Young Turk movement filled a similar role in the Turkish case.

The same factor is present in many of the other 20th-century genocides,
he said. For example, the Kurds of northern Iraq are being persecuted
not by Iraqis in general but by the ruling Baath Party.

The "killing fields" of Cambodia were created by the Khmer Rouge
movement that took over that country. Dadrian called the Cambodian case
especially unusual because it lacked an ethnic or religious component.

The perpetrators and victims were ethnically similar but on opposite
sides of a class and ideological divide.

The Turks and the Nazis operated in "an absence of external
deterrence," Dadrian said. While some rhetorical protests were filed in
both cases, the perpetrators understood that their victims had been
abandoned by the outside world.

Timeline/Summary:Turkey and the Armenians 1915-1922

The Turks believed that the Armenians would use an Allied victory to
set up an independent state. When many Armenians openly rejoiced at the
initial Allied success at the Dardanelles, the Turks turned upon them.

Between 1915-22, more than a million Armenians were killed and another
400,000 died in prison camps.

April-November 1915: More than 600,000 Armenians killed.

November 1915: 500,000 Armenians deported to Mesopotamia (modern day
Iraq); 90,000 survive the war.

August 1918: More than 400,000 Armenians killed by Turkish soldiers
during the Turkish advance through Russia.

February 1920: More than 30,000 Armenians killed; 80,000 fled to Syria.

September 1922: Remaining 100,000 Armenians driven out by Turks. In
1931, the Turkish government confiscated their property.

Source: "First World War Atlas" by Martin Gilbert

***

About Eric Black

Eric Black writes about national and world news for the Star Tribune. He
specializes in pieces that try to put the news into historical
perspective. He has been a journalist since 1973, with the Star Tribune
since 1977, and is the author of 1.74 million newspaper articles and
five books.

Black launched the Big Q in December 2005 to see if he could save the
world from ignorance and error. Ignorance and error are still running
slightly ahead in the polls, so, in February 2007, Black recruited the
lovely D.J. Tice as a co-blogger.

About D.J. Tice
D.J. Tice has been Politics and Government Team Leader at the Star
Tribune since 2003, supervising coverage of Minnesota political news.

Earlier, Tice was a columnist and editorial writer at the St. Paul
Pioneer Press for 12 years.

He’s also earned a paycheck as publisher of the since-vanished Twin
Cities Reader, as an inflight magazine editor for the since-vanished
TWA, and as a writer/editor for several additional enterprises that have
perished from the earth. Tice has written two hard-to-find books and
joins the Big Q in hopes of enlightening a benighted world or at least
learning to set up a hyperlink.

PRESS RELEASE
Armenian National Committee of New York
69-23 47th Avenue
Woodside, NY 11377
Contact: Doug Geogerian
Tel: 718-651-1530
Fax: 718-651-3637
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: anca.org

New York Area Armenians Gather for 92nd Commemoration of Armenian
Genocide

Armenian communities of the Greater Metropolitan New York area
gathered at the Surrogate Court House in New York City, just north of
City Hall, on April 20th for the 92nd commemoration of the Armenian
Genocide. Organized by the Armenian National Committee of New York,
community leaders arranged a program, which dwelt on the religious,
cultural and political dimensions of the Holocaust committed by the
Young Turk government against the Ottoman Empire’s Armenian
inhabitants.

The Holy Martyr’s Armenian Day School choir began the program inside
the central hall of the august, 19th century legal chamber, singing
the national anthems of the United States and the Republic of Armenia.
Later in the evening, the choir returned to pay tribute to the 32
victims murdered by a gunman at Virginia Polytechnic Institute earlier
in the week on April 16.

Bishop Anoushavan Tanielian gave the invocation, in which he also paid
tribute to those who lost their lives on Virginia Tech’s campus. The
Bishop spoke of the courageousness and righteousness of the Istanbul
based Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, who earlier in the year was
murdered by the Turkish ultra-nationalist, Ogun Samast. Experts
account for Dink’s assassination to an increasingly tolerated, if not
encouraged, environment of vigilantism against citizens who dare to
speak of the Armenian Genocide and other taboo topics of Turkish
society.

Speaking on behalf of Councilwoman Melinda Katz, a stalwart supporter
of the local Armenian community, Michael Cohen read a proclamation
from the New York City Council. Karine Birazian, Master of Ceremonies
for the program, read similar proclamations from the New York City
mayor’s office as well as from the governor’s office.

Armenian Ambassador to the United Nations Armen Martirossian addressed
the audience about international developments regarding the Armenian
Genocide, which remains a vital issue for many foreign policy and
national security matters. `Last year, the Turkish government
proposed to convene a joint commission of historians to determine what
happened to the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire. Not only is this
totally unnecessary, since the fact of the Armenian Genocide is
unanimously acknowledge by historians, but completely absurd since the
topic in question is so taboo in Turkey, merely discussing it can lead
to prosecution on the grounds of engaging in `anti-Tukrishness.”

Martirossyan also discussed the recent controversy at the United
Nations (UN), where the Turkish delegation has placed enormous
pressure on the International Secretariat to block an exhibit marking
the thirteenth anniversary of the Rawandan genocide. Turkey’s sole
concern is one sentence in the exhibit, which refers to the Armenian
Genocide. The Ambassador discussed the struggle, which ensued to keep
the exhibit with the important historical reference, resulting in a
New York Times editorial condemning Turkey for its egregious behavior.

Following the Ambassador’s talk was a tribute to Hrant Dink,
facilitated by Dr. Hrand Markarian. Dr. Markarian’s slide
presentation gave a biographical sketch of Dink as well as a review of
his accomplishments as an Armenian community leader and human rights
activist in Turkey. Included was a film, shot months before Dink was
assassinated, in which the late-journalist spoke of the increasingly
dangerous circumstances he was finding himself as someone who spoke
openly about the Armenian Genocide. The interview was Carla
Garabedian conducted the interview while she was making the movie
Screemers.

ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian gave the keynote address, in which he
emphasized the significance of the Armenian American community’s
growing political voice in Washington, D.C. `There are over 190
members in the House of Representatives and over 30 U.S. Senators,
who have co-sponsored Armenian Genocide legislation. This is the
result of Armenian Americans exercising their democratic rights for
the sake of gaining justice, not just an apology, over the crime
committed against our ancestors,’ said Hachikian.

Hachikian also hailed the blocking of Richard Hoagland’s nomination as
U.S. Ambassador to Armenia as an enormous victory. Hoagland was slated
to replace U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, who was forced into
retirement over his pubic affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.
Hoagland subsequently during the confirmation process expressed doubt
about whether the events of 1915 qualified as genocide, causing a
political maelstrom, resulting in U.S. Senator Robert Mendendez
placing a hold on Hoagland’s nomination.

Sossi Essajanian of the Armenian Youth Federation addressed the
audience about the long-term consequences of the mass killing and
total dispossession of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians, resulting in
`an atmosphere of intolerance, marginalization and dehumanization’ as
evinced by the world’s indifference to the current genocide in Sudan.
`Let us turn the legacy of the Genocide on its head,’ said Essajanian.
`’This atmosphere of intolerance is what we must struggle against.”

MC Karine Birazian shared the poignant and mournful news of the
imminent passing of her grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian
Genocide. Birazian closed by saying that, `although I cannot be by
her this evening, I can only hope that she will soon embrace for the
first time her 14 siblings she never got to meet. I can only help but
wonder: will the last genocide survivor live to see recognition?’

PRESS RELEASE
National Association for Armenian Studies and Research
395 Concord Avenue
Belmont, MA 02478
Tel.: 617-489-1610
E-mail: [email protected]
Contact: Marc Mamigonian

DR. DAVID GAUNT TO GIVE CALIFORNIA LECTURES
ON GENOCIDE OF ARMENIANS AND ASSYRIANS

Dr. David Gaunt, Professor of History at Södertörn University
College, Stockholm, Sweden, will give a series of lectures in California
entitled "Massacres and Resistance: The Genocide of the Armenians and
Assyrians Based on New Evidence from the Archives" from May 3 through 11
. The lectures will be co-sponsored by the National Association for
Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and the Assyrian American National
Federation (AANF) in conjunction with a number of Armenian and Assyrian
academic and community groups (listed below).

The lectures will be based on findings from Dr. Gaunt’s
recently-published book Massacres, Resistance, Protectors:
Muslim-Christian Relations in Eastern Anatolia during World War I
(Gorgias Press, 2006), which will be on sale and available for signing
by the author at each of the lectures.

The schedule of the lectures is as follows:

* Thursday, May 3, 7:30 p.m.: Stanford University, Tresidder Union,
Cypress Rm., 2nd floor, 459 Lagunita Drive, Stanford, CA

* Friday, May 4, 7:30 p.m.: University of California, Berkeley, Dwinelle
Hall, Room 219, Berkeley, CA

* Sunday, May 6, 4:00 p.m.: California State University, Stanislaus,
Demergasso-Bava Hall, Room 166, 801 West Monte Vista Avenue, Turlock, CA

* Tuesday, May 8, 7:30 p.m.: California State University, Fresno,
University Business Center, Alice Peters Auditorium, Rm. 191, Fresno, CA

* Wednesday, May 9, 7:30 p.m.: Assyrian American Association of Southern
California Hall, 5901 Cahuenga Blvd., North Hollywood, CA

* Thursday, May 10, 7:00 p.m.: University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), Moore Hall, Room 100, Los Angeles, CA

* Friday, May 11, 7:30 p.m.: Merdinian Armenian Christian School, 13330
Riverside Drive, Sherman Oaks, CA

Groundbreaking Archival Research

Dr. Gaunt will detail how the persecution of Armenian and Assyrian
Christian minorities was organized on the national and local levels in
places where Armenian and Assyrian populations overlap. Case studies
involve the Turkish occupation of Urmia and its surrounding villages,
the Assyrian tribes in Hakkari, the massacres of Armenians in Diyarbekir
and Mardin, the massacres of Syriacs in the hundreds of villages in Tur
Abdin, the successful armed resistance mounted by the villagers of Azakh
and Ayn Wardo, and the victory of Antranik’s Armenian and Assyrian
volunteers at the battle of Dilman.

Gaunt’s work is based on unique access to hundreds of documents in the
archives of Istanbul and Ankara, as well as documents of Iranian,
Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, French, and German origin. Most of
these documents have never been published before. In addition, nearly
forty persons were interviewed about their experiences of the war
period. The Turkish documents confirm events and decisions of what was
believed to have happened, but for which evidence has been lacking. In
some ways the new documents fill in the blank spaces in the history of
genocide.

David Gaunt was born in London, grew up in New Jersey, and
moved to Sweden in 1968. He received a Ph.D. from Uppsala University.
He is currently Professor of History at Södertörn University College
in Stockholm, which is situated in one of Europe’s largest
concentrations of the Assyrian diaspora. He has previously taught at the
universities of Uppsala and Umeå. He has published ten books and over
one hundred articles, mostly on Swedish social history. In the field of
genocide research he has edited Collaboration and Resistance during the
Holocaust: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (2004) and authored "At
Death’s End: the Genocide in Diyarbekir Province" in Armenian
Tigranakert/Diarbekir and Edessa/Urfa (Richard G. Hovannisian, ed.), as
well as articles in the journals The Assyrian Star and Hujådå.

In addition to the primary-organizing sponsors, the Assyrian
American National Federation and National Association for Armenian
Studies and Research, the lectures are being presented through the
unprecedented collaboration of the following Assyrian and Armenian
organizations (listed in alphabetical order):

Advancement of Education Foundation

Analysis Research and Planning for Armenia (ARPA Institute)

Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at UCLA

Armenian Student Association at UCLA

Armenian Student Association at Stanford

Armenian Studies Program, University of California, Berkeley

Armenian Studies Program, California State University, Fresno

Assyrian Academic Society – Bay Area Chapter

Assyrian Aid Society of America – Central Valley Chapter

Assyrian Aid Society of America-Southern California Chapter

Assyrian American Association of Modesto

Assyrian American Association of Southern California

Assyrian American Civic Club of Turlock

Assyrian National Foundation of America

Assyrian Student Alliance at UC Berkeley

Assyrian Student Association at UCLA

Mesopotamian Museum

Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies at UCLA

Zinda Magazine

More information about the lecture is available by calling 617-489-1610,
faxing 617-484-1759, e-mailing [email protected], or writing to NAASR, 395
Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478 or contacting Jacklin Bejan at
408-482-1949 or [email protected].

Armenia School Foundation, Inc.
125 W. Mountain St. #101
Glendale, CA 91202

URL:

For Immediate Release
Contact: Annette Kiureghian
[email protected]

The Armenia School Foundation (ASF), a Non-Profit Organization Dedicated
to Refurnishing Schools in Armenia, Launches New Website.

The website for the Armenia School Foundation- the ASF-details Past and
Current Projects in Various Schools in Armenia and Karabakh.

Glendale, California April 12, 2007- The new website for the Armenia
School Foundation (ASF), located at was
launched in Glendale during its first public meeting, with the objective
of providing easy access to the foundation’s projects for schools in
various regions of Armenia and Karabakh.

`Our new website will allow donors, community members and future corporate
partners, to have access to information about our foundation’ said Armen
Abrahamian, Board Chairman of ASF, `our on-going and future projects are
concentrated on various regions, so having the information in one place on
the internet is vital and interesting.’

The new ASF website also provides a brief history, and allows the
charitable-giving public to contact the foundation’s members by e-mail,
for any questions, ideas, or comments. It will provide an easy access to
those who want to make a donation, adopt a project to support its cause,
or to volunteer to participate in some way.
The website features a video as well as extensive images and photos of
schools, projects and the production process.

`We are grateful for the overwhelming response and encouragement received
by the community, contributors and corporations’ said Mr. Abrahamian,
`with so many interested parties, a comprehensive website describing our
activities was really the only way to keep the information current and
flowing.’

The Armenia School Foundation (ASF) is a non-profit and non-sectarian,
501(c) 3 organization, founded in May 2003. ASF strives to provide new
furniture for underprivileged schools in remote regions of Armenia and to
enhance the learning process.

For more information about the Armenia School Foundation – the ASF- please
visit

Contact [email protected]
Website

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE COMMEMORATION EVENTS TAKE PLACE IN AKHALKALAK

AKHALKALAK, APRIL 28, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. "Zori Zorian"
youth organization of Akhalkalak organized on April 23 a torch-light
procession dedicated to the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian
Genocide. Over 500 young people participated in this procession of
mourning and protest. The procession began at Akhalkalak Fortress and
made its way to Surb Khach Church where a meeting in condemnation of
the 1915 Armenian Genocide took place. Speakers appealed to Georgia’s
parliament and people to recognize the Armenian Genocide.

A holy liturgy in memory of the genocide victims was celebrated on
April 24 in Surb Khach Church of Akhalkalak. Wreaths on hehalf of
the Akhalkalak regional sakrebulo, the Council of Armenian NGOs, the
"Virk" party and other organizations were laid at the memorial stone to
the Genocide victims. People condemned the Armenian Genocide in their
speeches and expressed a hope that it will be recognized by Georgia.

According to A-Info news agency, on the same day a khachkar dedicated
to the 92nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide was erected in the
village of Pokr Samsar (Akhalkalak). The khachkar was made with a
contribution of Sasha Gabrielian, former resident of the village who
currently lives in Russia.