Author: Kanayan Tamar

Toronto Star, ON, Canada
Jan 28 2015

Human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin stands tall without George Clooney

Amal Alamuddin Clooney goes to Strasbourg, France to represent Armenia
in a case regarding hate speech and the Armenian genocide

By: Tanya Talaga Staff Reporter, Published on Wed Jan 28 2015

If you thought Amal Alamuddin Clooney had given up the law in order to
become a celebrity wife, think again.

Clooney, 36, an established human rights lawyer, doesn’t really need
her husband George Clooney’s fame but her newfound status as the woman
who stole the once-confirmed bachelor’s heart has helped shine a
spotlight on the important work she does.

Clooney, who last made headlines for wearing silky elbow high white
gloves to the Golden Globes, has traded those in for the black robes
of the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

She is acting for the government of Armenia in the case of Dogu
Perincek, a Turkish politician, versus Switzerland. The case centres
on Perincek, who was convicted in Switzerland for challenging the
Armenian genocide. He called the genocide an “international lie.” He
denies the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians 100 years ago amounted to
genocide.

Perincek appealed the conviction, arguing his right to free speech was
denied. The government of Turkey is a third-party intervener for
Perincek. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the
number of dead has been inflated and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.

McGill University international law professor Payam Akhavan has known
Clooney for many years, since she was a student completing her
studies.

“I have known Amal for a decade, since our student days and she is
clearly a very intelligent, thoughtful and capable person. And she
deserves to be seen as something more than Mrs. Clooney,” Akhavan said
in an interview from Montreal.

“Unfortunately the media is much more interested in the celebrity
story rather than the reality of human rights, which is about the
suffering of victims and not the fame of the saviours,” he added.

They have been on opposite sides of the argument before. A few years
ago, Akhavan acted for the interests of the Libyan government, which
argued before the International Criminal Court in The Hague that Saif
Al-Islam Gadhafi be prosecuted for mass atrocities at home in Libya.
Clooney argued Gadhafi should stand trial at The Hague.

In this case before the European Court’s Grand Chamber, they are both
acting for clients on the same side of the issue. Akhavan is the
lawyer for The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights
Studies, a division of Toronto’s Zoryan Institute that is working
jointly with the Human Rights Association of Turkey and the Turkish
Truth Justice Memory Centre.

They argue that debates about the historical truth or legal
classification of atrocities as genocide or some other label are not
the real issue here, said Greg Sarkissian, after the Strasbourg
day-long hearing.

The main issue is if Perincek’s statements, when considered in their
proper context, constitute incitement to discrimination and hatred,
said Sarkissian, president of the International Institute for Genocide
and Human Rights Studies, part of the Zoryan Institute.

Clooney, in her opening statement Wednesday, said she seeks to correct
the record in the case and that the most important error in the
court’s judgment is that it has cast doubt on the fact there was a
genocide against the Armenian people 100 years ago.

She argued that a finding on genocide was, firstly, not necessary in
this case, and secondly, that it was reached without a proper forensic
process, and thirdly, that it was wrong, Sarkissian said in an email.

In court, Clooney referred to news photographs that showed death
marches, concentration camps and railway cars packed with Armenians,
Sarkissian said.

Clooney, who was born in Lebanon and speaks fluent Arabic and French,
does not shy away from tough human rights cases.

She was educated at Oxford University and at the New York University
School of Law. She clerked at the International Court of Justice. She
is now with London’s Doughty Street Chambers.

Her last high profile case involved the return of the Elgin Marbles
from Great Britain to Greece. She married Clooney, 53, last year.

The European court will now take up to six months to make a judgment.

New Europe
Jan 28 2015

Amal Clooney: First hearing of Armenian genocide case

Famous lawyer Amal Clooney will go before Europe’s top human rights
court to argue against Dogu Perincek who is denying the 1915 Armenian
genocide.

Mr. Perincek from the Left-wing Turkish Workers’ Party called the
Armenian genocide as an international lie and he was fined by a Swiss
court in 2005. Then the Turkish politician went to the European Court
of Human Rights and the court ruled in favour of Mr. Perincek. Now the
legal team, who Amal Clooney participates, hired by Armenia will
challenge the appeal. The first hearing has been scheduled for Jan 28.

Armenians argue that denying the Armenian genocide should be a crime,
resembling it with the Holocaust. They say judges from the court in
Strasbourg made a series of legal and factual errors when they
overturned Mr Perincek’s original conviction. During the case, Turkey
submitted historical documents questioning the veracity of the
genocide.

Mrs Clooney will work alongside her head of chambers, Geoffrey
Robertson, QC who recently wrote a book with the title “An
Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?”.Now Remembers
the Armenians?”. Mr. Robertson argues in favour of Armenia in his book
stressing that the Armenian genocide is a historic fact and it can’t
be denied.

Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman
Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by
genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey,
however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has
been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and
unrest.

APA, Azerbaijan
Jan 29 2015

Armenians demand OSCE’s Yerevan Office closes

[ 29 January 2015 19:21 ]

Baku. Rufat Ahmadzada – APA. About 10 Armenian citizens delivered a
letter to the OSCE Office in Yerevan, demanding that the OSCE should
stop its activities in Armenia.

Karen Vardanyan, the initiator of the campaign, said they consider the
OSCE Office’s activity in Armenia pointless because it does not do
anything other than issuing formal statements, APA reports citing
arminfo.am.

According to the demonstrators, though the ceasefire is breached by
Azerbaijan every day and the breach claims human lives, the OSCE
engaged in settlement of the Karabakh problem takes no measures to
reduce the tension.

“The OSCE is busy making formal statement only, calling on the sides
to calm down. But they too know that it’s not going to make sense,”
said K. Vardanyan, adding that the OSCE is a silent supporter of
Azerbaijani aggression.

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Jan 29 2015

Hollande: a new page in relations between Armenia and Turkey must be opened

29 January 2015 – 4:19pm

French President Francois Hollande has urged Armenia and Turkey to
open a new page in their bilateral relations.

In his opinion, the sides should break down stereotypes and make
efforts to reveal the truth about the 1915 events.

Hollande also said he will not take part in the celebrations dedicated
to the anniversary of the Canakkale victory on April 24 and will
instead visit Armenia, Trend reports.

`Armenian Genocide’ among most searched surveys on Yahoo

January 29, 2015

ARMENPRESS – The Armenian Genocide was one of the ten most searched
surveys in Yahoo search network on January 28. Armenpress reports that
the Head of the Armenian National Committee of America Aram Hamparian
wrote about it in his twitter blog. In the result of the searches by
the Yahoo users, the `Armenian Genocide’ has appeared on the ninth
horizontal. Hamparian expressed gratitude to Amal Clooney and Geoffrey
Robertson, representing the Armenian side at the European Court for
Human Rights at the hearing of the DoÄ?u Perinçek on January 28, who as
well contributed in the coverage of the issue in the Internet.

Armenia Among Partially Free Countries: Other EEU Members Not Free

01.29.2015 11:45 epress.am

Freedom House, a U.S. based NGO advocating democracy, political
freedom, and human rights, has released their Freedom in the World
2015 annual report, which categorized Armenia as partly free.

Freedom in the World 2015 evaluates the state of freedom in 195
countries and 15 territories during 2014. Each country and territory
is assigned two numerical ratings’from 1 to 7’for political rights and
civil liberties, with 1 representing the most free and 7 the least
free. The two ratings are based on scores assigned to 25 more detailed
indicators. The average of a country or territory’s political rights
and civil liberties ratings determines whether it is Free, Partly
Free, or Not Free.
Armenia received a rating of 5 for political rights, while a 4 for
civil liberties. Among Disputed Territories, Nagorno Karabakh was
categorized as Partly Free and received a 5 in both categories,
passing both Azerbaijan and Russia which are Not Free, with a score of
6 total. According to the report, Ukraine, Turkey, Georgia, and
Kyrgyzstan are also Partly Free.

Among the states categorized as Not Free are Belarus, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, and Iran. Among all the Eurasian Economic Union countries
(Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Armenia) only Armenia is Partially
Free.

Freedom House stresses that there has been an increase of aggressive
tactics by authoritarian regimes and terrorist attacks, which has
contributed to the decline of freedom in the world for the ninth
straight year. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a rollback of democratic
gains by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Turkish president
Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an’s intensified campaign against press freedom and
civil society, and further centralization of authority in China were
evidence of a growing disdain for democratic standards that was found
in nearly all regions of the world.

In particular, according to the report, `Azerbaijani president Ilham
Aliyev won a landslide reelection victory against an opposition that
was crippled by arrests and legal constraints, and the regime stepped
up its jailing of human rights activists, journalists, and other
perceived enemies.

Despite year after year of declines in political rights and civil
liberties, however, Azerbaijan has avoided the democratic world’s
opprobrium due to its energy wealth and cooperation on security
matters.’ stated the report.

Among the 195 states, 89 have been considered Free, 55 ` Partially
Free, and 51 – Not Free.

Turkish Opposition MP Resigns from Party After Party Colleagues Hold
Genocide Related Banner

01.28.2015 11:00 epress.am

A Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Birgul Ayman Guler has handed her
resignation after CHP politicians were seen at a Hrant Dink memorial
march holding a banner saying `Confront the Genocide.’

Guler, a Kemalist opposition MP from Izmir, accused her party of
having a `politically inconsistent structure.”

A photo reveals CHP Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu, MP Safak Pavey
and MP Umut Oran standing next to Hrant Dink’s wife Rakel Dink and
holding a banner saying “Confront Hrant, Confront the Genocide.’ The
latter case is being investigated by an internal Disciplinary
Committee for violating the statutes of the party, according to Taraf¤

Guler stated in her reasons for resigning: `In regards to the current
structure and ideology of the CHP, the CHP is not where I can be a
member of the parliament. False accusations of genocide have been
supported by the leaders of the new CHP and thus depriving Turkey from
its abilities to express itself. In a year of attacks like 2015,
leaders of the party (CHP) are carrying a banner that reads `confront
the genocide,’ which is a concrete manifestation of support.’ She says
that the party she is resigning from is not the CHP but a politically
inconsistent structure.

Among other reasons, she also stated that “the new CHP has abandoned
the understanding of the national economy and became a structure that
reflects the interests of the global financial market.”

Guler also made statements last month, criticizing the party’s
cooperation with the Gulenist movement, President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s arch-nemesis, which has led to her referral to the CHP’s
disciplinary council. On Monday, the day of her resignation, she
presented a defense letter to the council.

In the past few months, multiple CHP MPs have submitted their
resignations over the party’s stance on various issues.

To note, this past Monday, CHP Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu met with
non-muslim religious leaders in Turkey to discuss their concerns.

Kilicdaroglu stated that his party would bring some of the leaders
concerns to the Parliamentary agenda and acknowledged that the
religious leaders had issues with hate speech and the implementation
of the law.

Kessab Educational Association of L.A. Names Hagop Manjikian Man of the Year

Wednesday, January 28th, 2015

Hagop Manjikian

RESEDA, Calif.–The Kessab Educational Association of Los Angeles named
Hagop Manjikian “Man of the Year” for 2015 at the organization’s
annual Armenian Christmas banquet on Jan. 11.

Born less than a decade after the Armenian Genocide, Manjikian grew up
with the stories of the Turkish deportations and massacres of his
people, and they left an indelible mark on his existence. So much so
that he dedicated his life to making sure that the memory of the 1.5
million Armenians who perished during the Genocide would never be
forgotten.

Manjikian was born to Garabed and Victoria Manjikian in 1924. His
youth in Kessab was very simple – they had no electricity, he read by
candlelight and he had a long walk to school down dirt roads. He
attended Kessab’s Ousoumnasirats School, then French technical school
in Lattakia, which opened his eyes to the world. In December 1950, he
left his cherished parents, brother, Vahan, and his beloved Kessab and
set sail for America, arriving in New York just before Christmas and
setting foot in California on New Year’s Day 1951.

While Manjikian worked as a precision parts subcontractor by day,
every moment of his spare time was spent helping put together an
organizational infrastructure for the growing Armenian community in
Southern California. He threw himself into community work, writing
letters to governmental representatives on behalf of the Armenian
organizations of which he was a member, including the American
Committee for the Independence of Armenia and the A.R.F. In 1955,
California Governor Goodwin Knight and his wife accepted Manjikian’s
invitation to attend the New Year’s Eve Celebration at the Armenian
Center on Venice Boulevard.

Manjikian spearheaded committees to build the Soghomon Tehlirian
Monument in Fresno and the Armenian Monument in Montebello’s Bicknell
Park. He was one of the founders of the Kessab Educational Association
of Los Angeles in 1957. He was founding chairman of the Armenian
National Committee, Western Region in 1969, and founding board member
of the Hamazkayin Cultural Association and Homenetmen Athletic Union
in California. Manjikian founded the Armenian National Radio Hour in
1978, and for one-and-a-half years he and his wife, Knar, recorded the
weekly show. The Manjikians have ardently supported the Asbarez
Armenian newspaper by writing articles over the past 50 years.

Toward the close of the 20th century, Manjikian embarked on a massive
project. In 1992 he and his wife produced the massive and epic
Houshamatyan Commemorative Album-Atlas of the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation, 1890-1914. The companion volume was published in 2001, and
in 2006 the English-language version of volume 1 was printed.

After that project, Manjikian began another: to bring the tragic
eyewitness accounts of the Armenian Genocide to the fore of the
English-speaking world by translating them. He and Knar started the
Genocide Library Book Series and have published six memoirs in
English.

Manjikian has received several honors for his life’s work in addition
to the KEA’s Man of the Year:
* Catholicos Aram I endowed Manjikian with the Mesrob Mashdotz Medal
in 2001 for his dedication to serving his people.
* The U.S. House of Representatives paid tribute on June 7, 2005 to
the Manjikians for publishing Passage Through Hell by Armen Anush.
* On May 21, 2014, Congressman Adam Schiff honored the Manjikians for
publishing 5 Armenian Genocide memoirs.
* On April 23, 2014, the Los Angeles City Council recognized Manjikian
for his dedicated service to the Armenian-American community, most
notably his endeavors to bring awareness and recognition of the
Armenian Genocide.

While numerous projects have occupied him over the decades,
Manjikian’s loyalty and service to his beloved Kessab have never
ceased. At the behest of the Ousoumnasirats organization in Kessab, he
headed a North American fund-raising campaign to build a high school
in Kessab so that the youth would not go to school elsewhere in the
Middle East. The committee raised $121,000 in 2008 – 9. He also is
working on a book about the Ousoumnasirats School, which has produced
one Catholicos, Karekin I, and numerous recognized educators, doctors
and Armenian community leaders.

Manjikian, who is 90, spoke for 15 minutes about the importance of the
homeland, and concluded his remarks by reciting the last stanzas of
Hovannes Toumanian’s “Tmpkapertee Aroomeh” (The Capture of Fort
Temuk).

Very Reverend Karekin Bedourian, a native son, presided over the
evening program, which concluded with the singing of what has become
the Kessab anthem: “Giligia” (Cilicia), based on a song by Gomidas).

The KEA of L.A. also acknowledged the following for their generous
financial contributions to the Kessab Relief Fund:
Sevag Saghdejian and Nayeri Saghdejian Kassarjian of Specialty Car
Craft Motor Group
Dr. Haig and Mrs. Hilda Manjikian and the Land and Culture Organization
Dr. George Apelian
Shogher Baghdoud Tilkian
Michael Bederian for his donation to the KEA Center Lounge.

Al-Jazeera, Qatar
Jan 28 2015

Turkey’s human rights record under fire

Diplomats slam intimidation of journalists and police crackdowns on
demonstrators during universal periodic review.

28 Jan 2015 07:45 GMT

Turkey’s human rights record has come under criticism at the UN, with
diplomats condemning intimidation of journalists and police crackdowns
on demonstrators.

“We are concerned about growing restrictions on freedom of expression,
including censorship of new media and the Internet, and provisions of
Turkish law that unduly limit peaceful assembly,” US representative
Keith Harper told the UN Human Rights council on Tuesday.

Harper’s comments came during the Universal Periodic Review of
Turkey’s rights record – a process that all 193 UN member states must
undergo every four years.

Turkey has countered the criticism, insisting it has made progress in
promoting human rights and freedom of expression that are an
“indispensable” part of the country’s democratic order.

“The protection and promotion of human rights is one of our priority
political objectives,” Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Buelent Arinc
told the council in Geneva.

While acknowledging there were some journalists in Turkish prisons,
Arinc insisted that their detention was “not related to their
journalistic activities”.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government has fired thousands of
police along with a number of judges while pushing through legislation
that tightens state control over the internet, raising questions
inside the country and abroad as to the state of the nation’s
democracy.

Egypt, meanwhile, was particularly harsh in its criticism, with its
representative Amr Ramadan lamenting the “severe deterioration in the
human rights situation in Turkey,” and slamming Ankara for deadly
crackdowns on demonstrators and the jailing journalists.

“We would have wished to have seen such criticism coming from parties
who adhere to the same universal values as we do,” Arinc hit back at
Egypt, which itself has jailed numerous journalists, including three
Al Jazeera staff members.

Many Egyptian protesters have also been killed in clashes with security forces.

In addition to criticism on its crackdown on journalists, Ankara was
also slammed for discriminating against minorities.

Armenia’s representative Vahram Kazholyan said the government should
return “the confiscated properties of Armenians and other religious
minorities, such as places of worship, including monasteries, church
properties and religious cultural sites”.

Kazholyan also called on Ankara to “fully implement the international
obligations emanating from the UN Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.

Armenians say the Ottoman state conducted genocide against them during
World War I, leaving an estimated 1.5 million people dead.

Modern day Turkey has resisted terming the mass killings as an act of genocide.

FARS News Agency, Iran
January 27, 2015 Tuesday

Iranian FM, Armenian Counterpart Discuss Bilateral Ties, Regional Developments

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his
Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian in a meeting in Yerevan on
Tuesday discussed bilateral ties and regional developments.

During the meeting in the Armenian capital today, Zarif and Nalbandian
underlined the need for the further expansion of mutual cooperation.

Zarif arrived in Yerevan on Monday night to confer with senior
Armenian officials on the latest developments in the region and
explore new ways for the promotion of bilateral relations.

Zarif’s two-day visit to the country takes place at the formal
invitation of his Armenian counterpart.

Zarif and his accompanying delegation are scheduled to hold separate
meetings with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Prime Minister Hovik
Abrahamyan and Parliament Speaker Galust Sahakyan.

Iran and Armenia have taken major strides towards widening and
deepening of their relations in recent years, particularly in the
economic sector. two sides also discussed the latest regional and
international developments.