Author: Kanayan Tamar

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SHARPLY CONDEMNS VERDICT AGAINST AZERBAIJANI HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER RASUL JAFAROV

17:02 17/04/2015 ” LAW

OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja MijatoviÄ~G condemned
the sentencing of Rasul Jafarov, a free expression and free media
advocate and human rights defender in Azerbaijan, to six and a half
years in a penal colony, the OSCE website reports.

“Jafarov’s sentencing is nothing short of an act of injustice and it
adds to the growing number of journalists and free expression advocates
serving time in Azerbaijani prisons for their work. This systematic
and wide-scale persecution of independent voices in Azerbaijan is a
clear violation of the fundamental and basic human right of freedom
of expression,” MijatoviÄ~G said pointing to the various reports
indicating that both the investigation and the judicial process
involving Jafarov were flawed because of serious violations.

According to the statement of the official representative of the US
Department of State, Marie Harf, published on Department of State
website, the US is deeply troubled by the decision of the Azerbaijani
court, which is widely considered to be politically motivated.

“His conviction is a further setback to Azerbaijan’s democratic
development. We urge the Government of Azerbaijan to abide by its
international commitments and respect the rights of its citizens. As a
first step, we urge the authorities to release Mr. Jafarov and others
incarcerated in connection with exercising their fundamental freedoms,”
the statement reads.

In her microblog in Twitter, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe (PACE), Anne Brasseur, wrote that the reprisals
against human rights defenders in Azerbaijan reflect persistent
degradation of human rights and deplored the 6.5 years sentence
against Rasul Jafarov.

International human rights organizations also turned to Jafarov’s
sentencing. In its statement, Human Rights Watch calls on Azerbaijan’s
international partners to make clear they will not be sending
high-level delegations to the opening of the European Games in Baku
unless Rasul Jafarov and other political prisoners are freed and the
government’s crackdown on civil society is brought to an end.

“Jafarov was one of the most authoritative and outspoken critics of
politically motivated prosecutions in Azerbaijan, and now he has become
a victim of one,” said Giorgi Gogia, senior South Caucasus researcher
at Human Rights Watch, and added that Jafarov’s conviction should be
a jarring wake-up call to Azerbaijan’s international partners to send
a clear message to Baku that business as usual is impossible until
Jafarov and his colleagues are freed.

On March, 30 the authorities of Azerbaijan did not allow Giorgi Gogia
to enter the country. He was planning to take part in the court
hearings of the Azerbaijani human rights defenders, Rasul Jafarov
and Intigam Aliyev.

The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint
program of the FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) and
the OMCT (World Organisation Against Torture) – whose representative
was present at Rasul Jafarov’s trial and said that it was clear that
the trial was based on trumped-up charges – declared that the court
was unacceptable, FIDH website reports.

“We must not allow the glitz of the Baku 2015 European Games to
whitewash President Ilham Aliyev’s abysmal record on human rights,”
said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg, as the website of the
organization reports.

According to RFE/RL, Jafarov’s lawyer, Fariz Namazly, said after the
ruling that they would appeal the “illegal and politically motivated
verdict.” The Sun Daily adds that oil-rich ex-Soviet Azerbaijan
often responds to dissent with tough measures. The American news
media company BuzzFeed reminds that Jafarov’s “Sing For Democracy”
campaign used Azerbaijan’s hosting of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest
to draw attention to his country’s poor human rights record. When he
was arrested in 2014, he was planning a campaign “Sport for Rights”
to coincide with Azerbaijan hosting the European Games in June 2015.

Rasul Jafarov, a well-known human rights defender, “Art for Democracy”
campaign organizer, was sentenced to 6.5 years’ imprisonment in
Azerbaijan. The verdict was brought in by the judge Eldar Ismayilov in
the Baku court of grave crimes on April 16. Jafarov is banned taking
up any post for three years after his release.

After the verdict was handed down, Jafarov said he considered it to be
trumped up and politically motivated. The court did not prove any of
the allegations brought against the human rights defender. All of the
prosecution witnesses testified in favor of the human rights defender,
and the process actually proved his complete innocence.

Related:

Azerbaijani human rights defender Rasul Jafarov sentenced to 6.5
years’ imprisonment

TURKEY: MINISTER BLAMES POPE’S NATIONALITY IN ARMENIA ROW

Anadolu Agency, Turkey
April 13 2015

13 April 2015 14:30 (Last updated 13 April 2015 14:35)

EU Minister Volkan Bozkir says Armenian diaspora ‘dominates’
Argentina’s press and business worlds.

ISTANBUL

A Turkish cabinet minister has suggested that Pope Francis’ Sunday
statement on what he called the “Armenian genocide” may have been
because the pontiff is from Argentina which “welcomed Nazis, who were
the lead performers of the Jewish Holocaust.”

Turkey’s EU Minister Volkan Bozkir also went on to say that the
Armenian diaspora was “dominant” in the South American country’s
press and business sectors.

Bozkir’s remarks came during a visit to Istanbul’s Bayrampasa district
on Monday, where he spoke to journalists.

The minister said the pontiff’s statement was “unacceptable” and
“controversial” and was not based on any historical document.

During Sunday’s Mass at the St. Peter’s Basilica, which Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan also attended, Pope Francis said: “In the
past century, our human family has lived through three massive and
unprecedented tragedies.

“The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the 20th
century, struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation,
as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and
Greeks and, more recently, there have been other mass killings,
like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.”

Bozkir said Argentina, the current Pope’s homeland, had “welcomed
Nazis, who were the lead performers of the Jewish Holocaust.”

“Instead of his supra-identity position, I think Pope Francis made this
statement because he is an Argentine. Unfortunately, in Argentina,
the Armenian diaspora is dominant in the press and business world,”
Bozkir added.

1915 incidents

The 1915 events took place during World War I when a portion of
the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with the
invading Russians and revolted against the empire.

The Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following
the revolts and there were Armenian casualties during the relocation
process.

Armenia has demanded an apology and compensation, while Turkey has
officially refuted Armenian allegations over the incidents saying that,
although Armenians died during the relocations, many Turks also lost
their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian gangs in Anatolia.

The Turkish government has repeatedly called on historians to study
Ottoman archives pertaining to the era to uncover what actually
happened between the Ottoman government and its Armenian citizens.

The debate on “genocide” and the differing opinions between the
present-day Turkish government and the Armenian diaspora, along with
the current administration in Yerevan, still generates political
tension between Turks and Armenians.

Turkey’s official position against allegations of “genocide” is that
it acknowledges the past experiences were a great tragedy and that both
parties suffered heavy casualties, including hundreds of Muslim Turks.

Ankara agrees that there were certainly Armenian casualties during
World War I, but says that it is impossible to define these incidents
as “genocide.”

In 2014, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences
for the first time to all Ottoman citizens who lost their lives in
the events of 1915.

“May Armenians who lost their lives in the events in the early
twentieth century rest in peace, and we convey our condolences to
their grandchildren,” Erdogan had said.

LOS ANGELES PRAYER SERVICE COMMEMORATES ARMENIAN KILLINGS

Paradise Post
April 15 2015

Posted: 04/14/15, 6:44 AM PDT | Updated: 11 hrs ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — More than 3,000 people were in attendance at
a multi-denominational prayer service in Los Angeles hosted by the
archdiocese to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the killings of
an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Jose Gomez hosted the Tuesday night service
at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels that included church
leaders from around the state.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti served as keynote speaker.

The event comes days after Pope Francis described the killings a
century ago as “the first genocide of the 20th century.”

Turkey denies the killings were genocide and contends those who died
were victims of civil war and unrest. Turkey also insists the death
toll has been inflated.

US URGES ‘FULL’ ADMISSION OF FACTS IN 1915 ARMENIAN KILLINGS

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
April 15 2015

WASHINGTON

The United States April 14 called for a “full, frank” acknowledgement
of the facts surrounding the mass killing of Armenians in World War I,
but shied away from calling it “a genocide.”

Ankara has hit out at Pope Francis for his use of the word in a
weekend address, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying
“I condemn this mistake.”

“The president and other senior administration officials have
repeatedly acknowledged as historical fact, and mourned the fact,
that 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their deaths
in the final days of the Ottoman empire,” State Department acting
spokeswoman Marie Harf said.

They had also stated “that a full, frank and just acknowledgement
of the facts is in all our interests, including Turkey’s, Armenia’s
and America’s.”

Harf added that “nations are stronger and they progress by
acknowledging and reckoning with pretty painful elements of their
past.”

Such moves were “essential to building a different, more tolerant
future,” she said.

However, she refused to term the mass killings a genocide, even
though during his 2008 campaign for the White House, then senator
Barack Obama had pledged to “recognize the Armenian genocide.”

Turkey is a key US ally and a fellow member of NATO.

Harf refused to be drawn on what candidate Obama had said, adding
reporters should check with the White House as she spoke for the
State Department.

April/15/2015

ARMENIAN NATIONAL TEAM TO PARTICIPATE IN WORLD TEAM CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP

13:11 16/04/2015 ” SPORT

World Team Championship will take place in Armenia’s resort city of
Tsakhkadzor on April 19-28.

The national teams of Armenia, Russia, China, Ukraine, United States,
Hungary, India, Israel, Cuba and Egypt will participate in this chess
event, armchess.am reports.

Source: Panorama.am

TURKEY SAYS THE POPE IS PART OF AN ‘EVIL FRONT’ BECAUSE HE USED THE WORD ‘GENOCIDE’

Washington Post
April 15 2015

By Ishaan Tharoor

Turkey’s outrage over comments made by Pope Francis this past weekend,
deeming the massacre of Armenians a century ago a “genocide,” continues
to smolder. Next week marks the centennial of the beginning of what
the pope called “the first genocide of the 20th century” at Sunday
Mass in commemoration of the killings.

Ankara reacted furiously, recalling its ambassador to the Vatican and
issuing a barrage of strong condemnations. On Wednesday, Turkish Prime
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made some even tougher remarks: “Currently,
an evil front is being formed against us,” he said. “Now the pope
has joined this conspiracy.”

Davutoglu was speaking at an event announcing the manifesto of Turkey’s
ruling Justice and Development Party, ahead of general elections in
June. The spat with the pope most likely offered good nationalistic
fodder for local consumption. The prime minister went on, hailing
the Ottoman Empire’s long history of providing sanctuary to the Jews
expelled by Spain in the 15th century:

I am addressing the pope: Those who escaped from the Catholic
inquisition in Spain found peace in our just order in Istanbul and
Ä°zmir. We are ready to discuss historical issues, but we will not
let people insult our nation through history.

The issue of the Armenian genocide is one of profound sensitivity in
Turkey — and awkwardness for Turkey’s NATO allies, including the
United States. The traumas and upheavals triggered by these events
directly shaped the far-flung Armenian diaspora, which plays a leading
role in global advocacy around how to remember and commemorate the
slaughters.

On Wednesday, the European parliament in Brussels called on Turkey to
recognize what happened as a “genocide.” The motion was dismissed by
Davutoglu’s boss, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the appeal
“went in one ear and out from the other.”

The massacres took place amid the wider conflict of World War I, which
led to the unraveling and demise of the Ottoman Empire. Successive
Turkish governments have insisted the scale of the slaughter has been
distorted, and that many Turks were killed amid the chaos. As many as
1.5 million Armenians, by some accounts, were systematically killed
or disappeared.

“In 1913, there were up to 2 million [ethnic Armenians] in the Ottoman
Empire. When World War I broke out, the Ottoman government ordered
their mass deportation. A few years later, there was barely one-tenth
that number in Turkey, the rest having been exiled or killed,” details
Thomas de Waal, in his new book “Great Catastrophe: Armenians and
Turks in the Shadow of Genocide.”

Armenian suffering at the time was well-documented, particularly by
American observers. Former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt wrote in
May 1918 that his country’s entrance into World War I against Germany
and its allies was justified “because the Armenian massacre was the
greatest crime of the war, and failure to act against Turkey is to
condone it.”

The very term “genocide,” attributed to the Polish-born Jewish lawyer
Raphael Lemkin, was invoked precisely with what befell the Armenians
in mind. But, as de Waal’s book charts, the question of remembering
it has become a political hot potato in the decades since, shrouded
by Cold War squeamishness and stubborn Turkish nationalism.

In some ways, Erdogan’s government has attempted to soften or reform
the conversation surrounding the massacres. Ankara has invested
significantly in the restoration of old Armenian churches in eastern
Turkey.

Last year, in what was considered an unprecedented act, Erdogan
offered condolences to Armenian victims of the “inhumane” deportations
in 1915. But he stopped short of calling it genocide and condemned
the government of Armenia for using it as “an excuse for hostility”
toward Turkey.

“Millions of people of all religions and ethnicities lost their lives
in the First World War,” said Erdogan.

Like Davutoglu, Erdogan was less than pleased this week with the Pope’s
intervention into the matter. He warned the pope not to “repeat this
mistake” and reiterated his government’s insistence that its archives
were “open” and that a “joint commission” of historians should be
established to reckon with the past. (The historical consensus,
though, is that the genocide happened.)

“Whenever politicians … assume the duties of historians, then
delirium comes out, not fact,” said Erdogan. It’s a curious statement,
not only in this context but in others.

Erdogan has been known to pronounce repeatedly upon matters of history,
including his somewhat perplexing insistence on the arrival of Muslim
seafarers to the New World ahead of Christopher Columbus, which has
led even to the construction of a proposed mosque in Cuba.

In the case of the events of 1915, history very much remains the
subject of politics.

DAVUTOGLU: POPE FRANCIS WAS CAUGHT IN A TRAP OF PLOTTERS

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
April 15 2015

15 April 2015 – 8:12pm

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Pope Francis was
caught in a trap of conspirators plotting against the ruling Justice
and Development Party. The PM called the conspirators a front of evil
of which the Pope was part, together with the Republican People’s
Party and the Democratic People’s Party, RIA Novosti reports.

Davutoglu reminded that the Ottoman Empire had given asylum to Jewish
refugees fleeing from the Catholic inquisition in Spain.

Pope Francis said at a liturgy on Sunday that the Armenian genocide,
Nazism and Stalinism were the three biggest tragedies of the 20th
century.

MEPS DEBATE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DISPUTE

16 April 2015 Last updated at 12:43

MEPs continued their “mini plenary” sitting in Brussels on 15 April
2015 by debating a resolution repeating a call on Turkey to recognise
the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 as an act
of genocide.

There is general agreement that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were
killed or died of starvation when the Ottoman Turks deported them en
masse from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian desert and elsewhere during
World War I.

The European Parliament, like a number of EU countries, has recognised
the events as an act of genocide since a 1987 resolution on the
same subject.

However, this is rejected by Turkey – an official EU candidate country
since 1999 – which denies that a systematic attempt to destroy the
Christian Armenian people took place, arguing that it was a civil
war in which there were casualties on both sides.

The resolution, intended to mark upcoming events commemorating the
100th anniversary of the killings, was later passed during the evening
voting session.

Text coverage of the debate can be found on the European Parliament
live page.

VIVACELL-MTS GENERAL MANAGER RALPH YIRIKIAN DELIVERS LECTURE AT SCHOOL WITH SPECIAL PROFILE IN PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS

14:37 16/04/2015 >> SOCIETY

VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian was hosted as a
guest lecturer at the school with a special profile in physics and
mathematics after Artashes Shahinyan. In the course of the interactive
lecture the schoolchildren of 9th to 12th grades got acquainted
with the history of VivaCell-MTS, its creation, its challenging path
and success.

Sharing the example of VivaCell-MTS, Ralph Yirikian encouraged the
children not to give up on the way to success, to keep learning,
to work hard, to be honest and fair, and to have a respectful and
responsible attitude towards the environment, the press service of
VivaCell-MTS reports.

“Rely on yourselves, build your future with your own hands, overcome
the hardships, and use the accumulated experience for moving forward
and achieving your goal. Nothing happens at once. One needs patience
and hard work to succeed,” Ralph Yirikian noted.

As part of the “Business with a Mission” project Ralph Yirikian has
already delivered a number of lectures at educational institutions
in both Yerevan and the regions.

Source: Panorama.am

US EMBASSY WELCOMES EUROPA NOSTRA AWARD TO ARMENIAN CHURCH RESTORATION

Cyprus News Agency
April 14, 2015 Tuesday

The US embassy in Nicosia has welcomed the fact that the restoration
of the Armenian Church and Monastery in the Turkish occupied part of
Nicosia has been awarded with the Europa Nostra 2015 award of the EU
for cultural heritage.

A press release issued by the embassy notes that through its
cooperation with the UNDP, the USAID financed this restoration work,
worth many million of US dollars, during which Armenian, Greek Cypriots
and Turkish Cypriots cooperated with international experts.

The US is a supporter for many years now, of such initiatives which
demonstrate that the protection of cultural heritage can build bridges
between communities which are in conflict, US Ambassador in Nicosia
John Koening said during an event last month organized at the site.

The European Commission and Europa Nostra revealed today the winners
of the 2015 European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra
Awards, considered Europe’s most prestigious prize in the heritage
field. The 28 award winners, selected from 263 applications submitted
by organisations and individuals from 29 countries, are honoured
for outstanding achievements in four categories: 1) conservation, 2)
research and digitization, 3) dedicated service to heritage, and 4)
education, training and awareness-raising.

The Armenian Church and Monastery in Cyprus is among the winners in
the category conservation for the 2015 Awards.

According to Europa Nostra, the restoration of the Church aimed
to preserve a masterpiece of gothic architecture that, since 1963,
`has suffered from misuse and neglect`.

The project began in 2007 as part of a larger peace-building effort
in Cyprus. It was designed both to restore one of the most noteworthy
parts of the island’s cultural heritage and to provide Armenian,
Greek and Turkish Cypriots with the opportunity to work together with
international experts to preserve their common heritage.

The Jury saw this project as a definite success story, partly of
conservation, with high quality research and meticulous conservation
techniques, but also as an exercise in the even more challenging
process of rebuilding a community. The architectural element is
wonderful and precious, but so is the need to restore and develop
the social cohesion of the community in the city. Europa Nostra said.

The Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state since 2004, has been
divided by Turkish troops since 1974 which still hold 37% of the
island`s territory.

More than 500 churches situated in the areas under Turkish occupation
since 1974 have been destroyed, plundered and looted or turned into
stables, warehouses, restaurants and hotels. The Cyprus government
and the church have repeatedly protested this destruction to the
UN, the World Council of Churches and many other international and
religious organisations.