Author: Kanayan Tamar

TURKEY INVITES WORLD LEADERS, INCLUDING ARMENIAN PRESIDENT, TO GALLIPOLI COMMEMORATION

Daily Sabah, Turkey
Jan 16 2015

DAILY SABAH WITH WIRES
ISTANBUL

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu have sent letters to 102 countries, inviting heads of
states, to attend commemoration ceremonies in Turkey marking the
100th anniversary of the World War I Gallipoli campaign this year on
23-24 April.

The invitation letters have also been sent to the U.S. President Barack
Obama and the Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan, to participate in
the Gallipoli centenary.

“We fought as a kind together. That’s why we have invited Sargsyan,”
a government official told the daily Hurriyet, referring to the
presence of Armenian minorities alongside Turks and other peoples in
the Ottoman army.

The ceremonies coincide exactly with the 1915 incidents of the
World War I. Armenians and the Armenian diaspora, who plan to mark
the anniversary on April 24, want the incidents to be recognized as
genocide, something Turkey has vehemently rejected.

Were Sargsyan to accept Erdogan’s invitation, his presence at Gallipoli
would mean he would likely be outside of Armenia for the commemorations
for the tragedy.

The Gallipoli campaign was one of the most famous battles of World
War I when Ottoman troops resisted an invading Allied Force seeking
control of the Gallipoli peninsula on the Dardanelles strait.

April 25, known as Anzac Day, marks the landing of Allied forces into
the peninsula, thus the start of the land campaign.

The founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as a
division commander who stopped the initial advance of Anzac troops
and confined them into a thin land strip along the shore, made his
name as a heroic military leader.

Britain, Australia and New Zealand want a flamboyant ceremony to
commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli.

The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, as well as Britain’s
Prince Charles, with his sons, are expected to take part in the
ceremony due to attract 8,500 Australians and 2,000 New Zealanders,
the newspaper said.

Last year Erdogan, then premier, offered an unprecedented expression
of condolence for the massacres of Armenians.

BESIDES, DIDN’T THE JEWS KILL JESUS! FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015

IsraCast, Israel
Jan 16 2015

by David Essing

–Jimmy Carter

What do Jimmy Carter, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and BBC reporters have
in common? Either they don’t like, or in fact hate Israel. Look at
their recent comments on the cause of the recent Muslim terror attacks
in Paris:

When Jon Stewart asked Carter if religion played a role in the Paris
atrocities, Carter replied:

‘One of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem, and this
aggravates people who are affiliated in any way with the Arab people
who live in the West Bank and Gaza – what they’re doing now – what’s
being done to them. So I think that’s part of it’.

And that is how former President Carter’s convoluted train of thought
insinuates that Israel’s approach to the Palestinian dispute is to
blame for the Muslim attacks at Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher
kosher grocery store. Many Israelis may disagree with Israel’s
settlement building on the West Bank, but to try and point the finger
at the Jewish state for the likes of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq
is not only a very long stretch, it smacks of anti-Semitism. (To
Carter’s credit he did not blame the Jewish state for Boko Haram in
Nigeria where Israel has apparently not done anything to the Boko
Haram terrorists).

Was it not Jimmy Carter who pressured the former Shah of Iran to resign
without the necessary democratic machinery in place – a reckless step
that paved the way for Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors to gain
power over the Iranian people?

It’s what former American diplomat Dennis Ross referred to in his
recent New York Times article where he quoted chapter and verse about
Israel’s critics ignoring Israeli peace offers that were rejected
by the Palestinians. Carter should know better. He helped forge the
Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty. Israel was willing to give back every
last inch of Egyptian territory once it was convinced that President
Anwar Sadat really meant ‘no more war!’

As for Carter’s expertise in the Middle East, he more than anyone else,
bears responsibility for the rise of tyrannical Iran, a radical Muslim
state bent on building nuclear weapons to threaten its neighbors
and the rest of the world. Was it not Jimmy Carter who pressured
the former Shah of Iran to resign without the necessary democratic
machinery in place – a reckless step that paved the way for Ayatollah
Khomeini and his successors to gain power over the Iranian people? (By
the way Obama nearly repeated the same debacle by favoring the Muslim
Brotherhood over Egypt’s President Al Sisi).

–Turkey’s genocide of Armenians spawned ISIS atrocities…

‘I find it hard to understand how he (Netanyahu) dared to go there.

How can this individual, who carries out state terrorism by massacring
2,500 people in Gaza, wave his hand to the crowd?’

Then there’s Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who castigated
Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for joining the many
foreign leaders who attended the march of solidarity against radical
Islam in Paris.

‘I find it hard to understand how he (Netanyahu) dared to go there.

How can this individual, who carries out state terrorism by massacring
2,500 people in Gaza, wave his hand to the crowd?’

The Turkish leader was referring to Israel’s military operation
against Hamas terrorists to suppress their launching of thousands of
rockets into Israel and forcing Israeli civilians into bomb shelters
for almost days on end). In fact, many French Jews recognized the
Israeli leaders and cheered him for coming. And rightly so; if six
of the seventeen people murdered by the terrorists were Jews, wasn’t
Israel’s leader obliged to go to Paris? Or was it just by chance that
the terrorists chose a kosher grocery store? And who have always been
number one on the Muslim terrorists’ hit list?

Moreover, Erdogan not only has more than his share of chutzpah
– he also suffers from a severe case of amnesia. The Turkish
leader somehow forgot that Turkey perpetrated the genocide of the
Armenians. An estimated 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children
were massacred by the Turks starting in 1915. The Turks contend this
was not a genocide like the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews -the Turks
simply forced the hapless Armenians to undertake a death march while
they were beaten, starved, raped and murdered along the way by their
Turkish captors.

In effect, it was Turkey that pioneered the atrocities being
perpetrated by Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar Assad in
our own day and age.

In effect, it was Turkey that pioneered the atrocities being
perpetrated by Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar Assad in
our own day and age.

— Then there’s the BBC, which comes as no surprise either. While
interviewing a grieving Jewish woman on a Paris street, reporter
Tim Wilcox chastised her by accusing the Israelis of oppressing the
Palestinians. In other words, it was payback time for the Muslims to
murder Jews in Paris.

Question: If and when Muslim terrorists kill more civilians in the
streets of London or again behead a British soldier, will Wilcox also
ask Londoners if they were only getting what they deserved? Did the
BBC tolerate such philosophical ‘poppycock’ (British for BS) in its
coverage of the British civilian casualties of the IRA bombings? The
positions taken by some BBC reporters reveal a pernicious mindset not
only against Israelis but also against Jews in general. But what the
hell – didn’t the Jews kill Jesus!

— Belgium got the message…

The emotional speeches and the march of millions in Paris reflected
the international awakening to defeating the threat of radical Islam,
even if U.S. President Barack Obama still doesn’t seem to get it.

‘Ils ne passeront pas!’ – this stirring battle cry from an earlier
period in the history of the Republic must now be put into practice.

The emotional speeches and the march of millions in Paris reflected
the international awakening to defeating the threat of radical Islam,
even if U.S. President Barack Obama still doesn’t seem to get it. Why
else did Obama choose to go AWOL when the entire world focused in
fear on the French capital?

So far French leaders have risen to the occasion – President Francois
Hollande has called out the vaunted French ‘paras’ (paratroops) to
join the security forces in protecting Jewish schools and synagogues
as well as other potential targets in the country.

As we ‘go to press’, the reports are coming in of a major anti-terror
operation in Belgium. Two terrorists opened fire on security forces
when they closed in on Belgium nationals who have recently returned
from fighting for ISIS in Syria. The good news is that none of the
Belgium security forces were killed or wounded. However, the nightmare
is that the two terrorists who were killed, and the third that was
wounded, are the vanguard of the estimated five thousand European
Muslims who have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for Islamic State!

“Now they are learning the hard way that terrorism must be fought
unflinchingly. That is how it is fought in Israel, without regard to
criticism of the Netanyahu government, as legitimate as this may be.

Now it is how France will fight it too.”

If European leaders are serious about ‘They shall not pass!’ and
really take on the Muslim maniacs, they must be prepared to adopt the
necessary measures. It is a different kind of war, but it is all-out
war. The targeting of Jews or even the Jewish state are just small
fry when it comes to the ultimate goals of radical Islam.

These are some of the insights about the current clash between European
leaders and radical Islam made by Prof. Eyal Zisser, an Israeli expert
on the Middle East:

“Now they are learning the hard way that terrorism must be fought
unflinchingly. That is how it is fought in Israel, without regard to
criticism of the Netanyahu government, as legitimate as this may be.

Now it is how France will fight it too.”

Furthermore, ISIS leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi has declared his objective
is to ‘liberate Europe’ in the name of Islam, Therefore, even if Europe
dissociates entirely from the Middle East, it is bound to find that
the Middle East will not dissociate from it. Incidentally, that is
exactly what happened to Israel with southern Lebanon and Gaza.”

‘T-THE-JEWS-KILL-JESUS!

TURKEY INVITES ARMENIAN LEADER TO GALLIPOLI COMMEMORATION

Big News Network.com
Jan 16 2015

RFE Friday 16th January, 2015

Turkey has reportedly invited Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian to
ceremonies marking the 100th anniversary of the start of the World
War I Gallipoli campaign.

The newspaper Hurriyet says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent
invitation letters to more than 100 leaders, including Sarkisian,
to participate in the April 23-24 events.

In the 1915-1916 Gallipoli campaign, Ottoman troops repelled Allied
forces seeking control of the peninsula on the Dardanelles strait.

“We fought as a kind together. That’s why we have invited Sarkisian,”
a government official told Hurriyet.

But April 24 is the day Armenia will mark the 100th anniversary of
the mass slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, still a source of
severe tension between the neighboring nations.

Armenians wants the killings to be recognized as genocide, something
Turkey rejects.

Hurriyet says the prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand, as
well as Britain’s Prince Charles, are expected to take part in the
Gallipoli ceremonies.

Based on reporting by AFP

“MODERATE MUSLIMS” ARE IRRELEVANT TO AMERICA AND THE WORLD

Western Journalism
Jan 15 2015

The question remains: who will be irrelevant in America?

Bethany Blankley — January 15, 2015

Many argue that terrorist attacks are committed by extremists.

However, as I have repeatedly argued, a small minority has always
been responsible for implementing violent ideology to overtake the
“peaceful” and “moderate” majority.

Consider this: of the 1.2 billion Muslims worldwide, national security
organizations estimate “radical Muslims” account for 15-25 percent.

That equates to approximately 180-300 million “Radical Muslims,”
nearly the entire population of the United States, dedicated to
destroying Western civilization.

Consider how “moderate” and “peaceful” Muslims prevented or responded
to the acts committed by “extremist,” “isolated,” “lone wolves”:

The 2015, 2012, and 2010 Charlie Hedbo attacks The 2014 Paris suicide
driving attacks and car bombs The 2014 (and ongoing) Boko Haram
kidnapping and selling of women and children The 2014 AirAsia flight
8501 disappearance The 2014 Malaysian Flight 370 disappearance The
2014 Oklahoma beheader The 2014 machete NYPD murderer The 2014 Army
Peshawar Public School massacre and murder-by-burning of Pakistani
teacher by recently released GITMO prisoner The 2014 Fort Hood Murders
The 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings The 2012 Benghazi U.S. Embassy Attack

The 2008 Bombay & Mumbai India Attacks The 2005 London Subway Suicide
Bombings The 2004 Madrid Train Bombing The 2004 Besian Russian School
Attack The 2002 Beltway Sniper Shootings The 2002 U.S.S. Cole Attack
The 2002 Moscow Theatre Attack The 2002 Bafi Nightclub Bombing The
2001 multiple airline hijackings and attack on Pentagon and WTC The
2001 Shoe Bomber

The 1998 Kenyan U.S. Embassy Bombing The 1996 Saudi Khobar Towers
U.S. Air Force housing attack The 1994 Buenos Aires AMIA bombing The
1993 World Trade Center attack The 1986 Nigerian underwear bomber
attack The 1985 Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijacking The 1983 Beirut
Marine Barracks bombing The 1983 Beirut U.S. Embassy bombing The 1980
Iranian Embassy Hostage Crisis

The 1976 Air France Entebbe Hijacking The 1972 Munich Israeli Olympic
Team Murders The 1970 Pan-Am flight #93 Hijacking

And those are only a few that have occurred within my lifetime.

This list excludes the ongoing ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood, and Al-Qaeda
terrorist threats to Christians, Kurds, and Jews worldwide-specifically
cataloged by The Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor and Center
for Security Policy reports, among others.

Consider how no intentional, orchestrated, or funded terrorist attacks
and/or violence is committed among these groups who actually live
peacefully amongst each other:

Buddhists living among Hindus, Sikhs, Shintos, and/or Atheists Hindus
living among Christians, Jews, and/or Baha’is Christians living among
Shintos and/or Jews Shintos living among Confucians and Atheists
Confucians living among Baha’is and Hindus Baha’is living among Jews
and Christians Jews living among Atheists and Buddhists Sikhs living
among Hindus Atheists living among Confucians

Since Islam was invented in the 7th century, Muslims have followed
Muhammad’s example to commit violence against Hindus, Buddhists,
Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Baha’is, Shintos, and Atheists. Islamic
ideology is political, designed to dominate the world under one
totalitarian Sharia system clearly outlined in the Qur’an.

This is no different than a brief recounting of history throughout
which the “radical” minority overpowered the “peaceful” and “moderate”
majority.

In 1939, only 6 percent of Germans were members of the Nazi party.

Within less than ten years, however, that 6 percent caused the death
of more than 66 million people and the destruction of entire European
regions.

The peaceful majority of Germans were irrelevant.

Stalin killed more than 50 million people, nearly one third of Russia’s
population. The peaceful majority of Russians were irrelevant.

The Ottomans massacred more than 1 million Armenians in 1915. The
peaceful majority of Muslims were irrelevant.

The Japanese slaughtered more than 30 million throughout Southeast
Asia. And Mao Zedong’s regime killed well over 50 million people,
over 30 million alone during his “Great Leap Forward.” The peaceful
majority living throughout the entire Southeast and Asian region
were irrelevant.

More significantly, on September 11, 2001, there were 2.3 million
Muslims living in America. It only took 19 “radicals” to kill nearly
3,000 Americans.

The majority of “peaceful” and “moderate” Muslims in America and
worldwide are irrelevant. The reality is that nearly the entire
population of America, among one group, is devoted to destroying
Western civilization.

The question remains: who will be irrelevant in America?

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of
their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by
WesternJournalism.com.

Turkey, Azerbaijan agree to boost ties in key areas
Editor: Mu Xuequan
2015-01-15

ANKARA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) — Turkey and Azerbaijan decided to boost
cooperation in trade, investment, energy, defense and transportation
projects during the visit of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev to
Ankara.

“Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) crude oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum
natural gas pipeline represent the two most important cooperation
(areas) of our countries,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said
on Thursday.

In a joint press briefing after the conclusion of 4th High Level
Strategic Council meeting, Erdogan said both countries have agreed to
attain a trade volume of 15 billion U.S. dollars by 2023.

“I believe there is a determination, resolution and political in both
countries for that,” he said, adding that the existing mechanism works
successfully in promoting ties in politics, economy, trade, military,
culture and education.

The trade volume between the two countries was 3.3 billion U.S.
dollars in 2013. In the first 11 months of the year 2014, the latest
available data from Turkish statistics agency, the volume was recorded
as 2.3 billion U.S. dollars, slight decline from 2.5 billion U.S.
dollars over the same period in 2013.

Trade volume is not the only indicator that the two nations share
similar culture and linguistic characters.

Aliyev told reporters that Azeri investments in Turkey would reach 20
billion U.S. dollars by 2020 and Turkish companies have obtained some
10 billion U.S. dollars worth of contracts and tenders in Azerbaijan.

EUROPE’S BIGGEST INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT

Azeri president also said energy cooperation between Baku and Ankara
will deepen with the realization of the Southern Gas Corridor which
will carry gas from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, connecting to the
Trans-Anatolia natural gas pipeline (TANAP) via Georgia and reach
southern Europe.

Noting that a consultation meeting on the future of the Southern Gas
Corridor will take place next month in Baku, Aliyev said “TANAP is the
backbone and the foundation of the Southern Gas Corridor.”

Calling the Southern Gas Corridor project as Europe’s biggest
infrastructure project that is valued at 45 billion U.S. dollars in
investment, Aliyev underlined that this is a strategic project.

Both countries signed the agreement on TANAP three years ago that will
play a major role in energy diversification and security for Turkey
and Europe.

TANAP, once completed, will transport 16 billion cubic meters of gas a
year from Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz II field across Turkey and
eventually to Europe.

The pipeline is important for European energy security as Europe tries
to wean itself off Russian energy sources.

RAILWAY LINK BETWEEN BEIJING AND LONDON

Another important project that is under construction between the
countries is the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line (BTK), a railway
project connecting Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku to the eastern
Turkish city of Kars.

Erdogan revealed that the project is expected to be completed by the
end of 2015. “This means the line between Beijing and Istanbul will be
opened,” he added.

The line will have a new extension with the completion of Marmaray
project which connects Istanbul’s Asian and European sides via an
undersea commuter train line. In other words, the railway link can
extend to London through Marmaray in Istanbul.

The BTK will be one of the most important connections between Asia and
Europe, with a line to be constructed between China and Kazakhstan’s
Aktau port over the Caspian Sea in the east. Marmaray already
completes the west connection.

The line may eventually present new opportunities in the field of
passenger and freight transportation. It will also become a part of
the trans-Asian railroad line with the
Baku-Caspian-Turkmenbasy-Almaty-China route.

AZERBAIJAN INVITED TO G-20

The Turkish president announced that Turkey as term president of the
G-20 countries for 2015, decided to invite Azerbaijan as a guest to
attend meetings of the world’s major economies.

“This year, Azerbaijan will take its place as our guest,” Erdogan said.

At the end of intergovernmental conference, two agreements were signed
between the two countries, one customs cooperation and the other on
sharing financial data for the purpose of fighting against financing
of terrorism and money laundering.

ANKARA SUPPORTS BAKU ON NAGORNO-KARABAKH

Turkish president also reaffirmed Ankara continues to support Baku’s
position on Nagorno-Karabakh issue by saying that Turkey wants the
matter resolved with respect to Azeri sovereignty and its territorial
integrity.

Erdogan lamented that the Minsk process failed to implement
resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh that were adopted by international
bodies

Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region and some adjacent territory have
been under the control of Armenian soldiers and ethnic Armenian local
troops since the end of a six-year separatist war in 1994.

Diplomatic efforts to find a lasting solution to the conflict have
failed over the past 20 years.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with
Azerbaijan. Ankara also helped modernize Azerbaijan military and boost
its defense capabilities by entering joint cooperation in defense
industry.

“We are purchasing so much arms and ammunitions from Turkey,” Aliyev
said, noting that they exchanged views on joint production
opportunities for defense products with a view of boosting the defense
cooperation further.

Both leaders decided to celebrate the centennial of Gallipoli wars on
April 24 in Turkey’s Canakkale province together.

Aliyev also met with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu on Wednesday.

HYPER-REALISTIC PAINTINGS LOOK LIKE HUGE DOUBLE-EXPOSURE PHOTOS

Gizmodo Australia
Jan 15 2015

Omar Kardoudi

Armenian artist Tigran Tsitoghdzyan made these gigantic hyper-realistic
paintings of women faces appearing magically through their hands. They
emulate a photographic technique called double exposure, which
combines two exposures of different things over the same film to make
a single image.

Tigran Tsitoghdzyan is an Armenian-born painter based currently in
New York. He was awarded by different governmental organisations and
foundations in Armenia and Russia. His paintings were included in the
catalogues of the modern Armenian artists. You can follow him on his
website and on Facebook.

See photos at

UCLA STUDY PINPOINTS TWO GENES THAT INCREASE RISK FOR POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER

Health Canal
Jan 15 2015

Heredity may influence people’s predisposition for PTSD

UCLA Dr. Armen Goenjian

Why do some people develop post-traumatic stress disorder while others
who suffered the same ordeal do not? A new UCLA discovery may shed
light on the answer.

UCLA scientists have linked two genes to the debilitating mental
disorder, suggesting that heredity influences a person’s risk of
developing PTSD. Published in the February 2015 edition of the Journal
of Affective Disorders, the findings could provide a biological basis
for diagnosing and treating PTSD more effectively in the future.

“Many people suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder after surviving
a life-threatening ordeal like war, rape or a natural disaster,”
explained lead author Dr. Armen Goenjian, a researcher at the Semel
Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. “But not
everyone who experiences trauma suffers from PTSD. We investigated
whether PTSD has genetic underpinnings that make some people more
vulnerable to the syndrome than others.”

In 1988, Goenjian, an Armenian American, rushed to Spitak, Armenia,
after a 6.8 magnitude earthquake devastated the country. The temblor
leveled entire towns and cities, killing more than 25,000 people,
two-thirds of them children.

With support from the Armenian Relief Society, Goenjian and his
colleagues helped establish a pair of psychiatric clinics that treated
earthquake survivors for 21 years. A dozen multigenerational families
in northern Armenia agreed to allow their blood samples to be sent
to UCLA, where Goenjian and his colleagues combed the DNA of 200
individuals for genetic clues to psychiatric vulnerability.

In 2012, his team discovered that PTSD was more common in survivors who
carried two gene variants associated with depression. In the current
study, Goenjian and first author Julia Bailey, an adjunct assistant
professor of epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health,
focused on two genes, COMT and TPH-2, which play important roles in
brain function.

COMT is an enzyme that degrades dopamine, a neurotransmitter that
controls the brain’s reward and pleasure centers and helps regulate
mood, thinking, attention and behavior. Too much or too little dopamine
can influence various neurological and psychological disorders.

TPH-2 controls the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that
regulates mood, sleep and alertness — all of which are disrupted in
PTSD. Serotonin is the target of a group of drugs called selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, which were designed to
treat depression. Now, more physicians are prescribing SSRIs to treat
disorders beyond depression, including PTSD.

“We found a significant association between variants of COMT and
TPH-2 with PTSD symptoms, suggesting that these genes contribute
to the onset and persistence of the disorder,” Goenjian said. “Our
results indicate that people who carry these genetic variants may be
at higher risk of developing PTSD.”

The team used the most recent PTSD criteria from the American
Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual to measure genes’ role
in predisposing someone to the disorder. The new criteria increased
estimates of the degree to which PTSD is genetic to 60 percent;
estimates based on older criteria reached only 41 percent.

“Assessments of patients based upon the latest diagnostic criteria may
boost the field’s chances of finding new genetic markers for PTSD,”
Goenjian said. “We hope our findings will lead to molecular methods
for screening people at risk for this disorder and identify new drug
therapies for prevention and treatment.”

Goenjian cautioned that PTSD is likely caused by multiple genes,
and that more research must be done to find more of the genes involved.

PTSD affects about 7 percent of Americans. It has been a pressing
health issue for many veterans returning from tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan.

The study’s co-authors were Ernest Noble and Sugandha Dandekar, both
of UCLA; Alan Steinberg of the UCLA-Duke National Childhood Center
for Traumatic Stress; David Walling of the Collaborative Neuroscience
Network; and Sofia Stepanian of UC Riverside.

Media Contact

Elaine Schmidt 310-794-2272

GYUMRI MURDER CASE SHOULD BE EXAMINED IN THE CONTEXT OF TERRORISM – SAYS POLITICAL ANALYST (VIDEO)

15:08 | January 16,2015 | Politics

The slaughter of an Armenian family in Gyumri was a challenge to our
nation, says political analyst Stepan Grigoryan.

The chairman of the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional
Cooperation (ACGRC) is glad that Armenians are sensitive and are able
to take to the streets in response to the brutal murder.

“But I wish that our state agencies, namely Prosecutor’s Office and
Police, were quick enough to respond to the tragedy and demand the
handover of the criminal to Armenian law enforcement authorities,”
said Mr Grigoryan.

He says the police were to join the protests held in Gyumri and
Yerevan. The political analyst has information that there are Russian
enclaves in Armenia. “Our bodies are obliged to study the case in
the context of terrorism,” he said adding that the murder had been
ordered by certain forces in Russia.

Speaking about the reaction of the Russian military base in Gyumri,
Mr Grigoryan said it is a classic example when they [Russians] want
to save the criminal.

“No one has the right to leave a military base with a gun in his
hands. Armenians should be on alert as the recurrence of the incident
is not excluded at the Russian military base,” said the political
analyst.

PARUYR HAYRIKYAN: ARMENIA IS HEADED BY PUTIN’S PUPPET (VIDEO)

14:16 | January 16,2015 | Politics

The anti-political path is one of the biggest problems imposed on
Armenians in the last three years, says the chairman of the Union
for National Self-Determination (AIM).

Paruyr Hayrikyan does not exclude that the US and Europe might create
a common economic zone that will outstrip Russia’s economy. He regrets
to say that Armenia was deprived of a 70- million market because its
decision to join the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.

Speaking about the tragic incident in Gyumri that left six members
of a family killed in their home, Mr Hayrikyan said, “If high-ranking
officials in your country speak about the supremacy of the Constitution
of another country [Russia], it comes to prove that your country
is occupied.”

The AIM chairman says law enforcement agencies in Armenia are ‘stupid
people who do not do their job properly.’

“Armenia does not have a leader as such, the country is headed by
Putin’s puppet,” he said adding that Putin has a large army of lawyers
in Armenia who settle many problems here.

“Over 900 people are brutally killed in Russia annually. Now Russians
got accustomed to killing Armenians in their homes,” he said in
conclusion.

POLICE GROSSLY VIOLATED THE LAW IN GYUMRI DURING PROTESTS

01.16.2015 13:04 epress.am

Yesterday night, during the protests in Gyumri, the police grossly
violated the law, according to a statement by the Union of Informed
Citizens NGO. The statement titled “The police did everything possible
for police officers to get injured” recalls the events in which a
portion of the peaceful protesters during yesterday’s protest in
Gyumri decided to move toward the Russian Consulate.

“The police created barricades 200 meters from the consulate bulding
and created obstacles for the then peaceful protest, grossly violating
the law “on Freedom of Assembly,” because the law does not include
any limitations on assembling around diplomatic representations in
regards to the rights of citizens.

Among the protesters, there indeed were aggressive citizens, who were
indignant toward the police’s attempt to suspend the protest. The
police, for their part, instead of calming down the aggressive
citizens, took actions directed towards forcefully halting the protest,
which led to using special measures (stun grenades and batons).

As a consequence to the police’s inappropriate actions, multiple
citizens received physical injuries, which, of course, further
angered the protesters and motivated the latter to use violence
against the police.

Knowing all that and having undertaken numerous trainings for
dispersing protests, still, the officers in the left flank (police
view) of the barricade were unprotected without shields and helmets.

It is obvious that during the clash, the police were ordered to go
forward on the front line without helmets and shields and there were
bound to be victims, which did, in fact, happen.

Based on the above mentioned, we find that the Armenian Police must
answer the following questions:

1. Why, in contrast to the law “on Freedom of Assembly,” was the
citizens’ rally toward the Russian Consulate prevented;

2. Why did the police decide to disperse the protest by special
measures and not (implement) the isolation of the aggressive
participants;

3. Why were around 20 police officers ordered to stand in the front
line without helmets and shields (eastern flank)?

Note, that the police’s actions were coordinated by Armenian Deputy
Police Chief, Military Police commander Levon Yeranosyan, who, in
contrast with the officers standing in the front line (left flank),
wore a helmet,” reads the statement.

Recall, as a result of clashes between the protesters and the police
forces, 10 people have been injured, another 12 have been detained.

The protesters demanded that the suspect in the killings of 6 members
of a local family, Russian soldier Valery Permyakov, as well as
the investigation of the case be handed over to the Armenian law
enforcement bodies.

Photo released by Union of Informed Citizens NGO