Author: Khondkarian Raffi

Number of female lawmakers in Armenia’s new Parliament increases by 14

Khondkarian Raffi

Number of female lawmakers in Armenia’s new Parliament increases by 14

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15:10, 8 January, 2019

YEREVAN, JANUARY 8, ARMENPRESS. The number of female lawmakers will be 32 in the new Parliament of Armenia: their number was 18 in the previous convocation Parliament, reports Armenpress.

The females will comprise nearly 25% of 132 MPs in the Parliament of 7th convocation.

My Step alliance will have 23 female lawmakers in the Parliament, the Prosperous Armenia party – 5 female MPs and the Bright Armenia party – 4 female MPs.

Snap parliamentary elections were held in Armenia on December 9. Based on the election results, three political forces – My Step alliance, Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia parties have been elected to the Parliament.

My Step alliance will have 88 seats, the Prosperous Armenia party – 26 and the Bright Armenia party – 18 seats in the new Parliament.

The first session will be held on January 14.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan




Anti-Armenian Protests After Kazakh Man Killed in Restaurant Brawl

Khondkarian Raffi
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Protesters gather to protest the death of a man in a restaurant in Qaraghandy on January 6
Armenia’s Ambassador Visits Armenian Peacekeepers in Lebanon
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QARAGHANDY, Kazakhstan (RFE/RL) — Some 200 protesters have rallied in the central Kazakh city of Qaraghandy, demanding “justice” after a Kazakh man was killed in a brawl in a local restaurant in the early hours of 2019.

The young man was stabbed to death in the clash between two groups of youths during celebrations of New Year on January 1. Three other men were hospitalized with stab wounds.

The incident has raised ethnic tensions, after some of the protesters blamed the killing on ethnic Armenians.

In a January 3 statement carried by state media outlets, Qaraghandy police said three suspects — identified as Torgom Malkhasian, Sokhak Malkhasian, and Qaiyr Nadyrbekov — had been arrested.

The main suspect in the case, 21-year-old Narek Gururian, remained at large.

In a video posted on Telegram and YouTube on January 7, a man identifying himself as Narek Gururian, born on March 30, 1997, acknowledged that he took part in the brawl but insisted that he did not kill anyone.

“I am ready to give myself in to the authorities of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and ask the authorities to provide me with security and carry out a transparent investigation. I am ready to bear responsibility for what I did but will not take somebody’s sin on myself. I am not a murderer,” the suspect said.

The demonstrators gathered in front of the regional police department in Qaraghandy on January 6 and demanded thorough investigations into the killing, some saying that Armenians must be deported from the country.

Some demonstrators said that “the killers will escape punishment because they have money.”

The Qaraghandy regional governor Erlan Qoshanov met with the protesters and said that “all those responsible for the death will be prosecuted.”

“This case is being monitored by the authorities at the highest level. We will investigate it until all those responsible are punished. I promise you, as the region’s governor and the president’s representative here, that the main suspect, who remains at large, will be detained in two-three days,” Qoshanov said, adding that if the suspect’s relatives were trying to hide him, they would be prosecuted too.

The protesters then left the site.

According to a January 6 statement on the governor’s website, murder and hooliganism investigations have been launched.

“At this point, nine participants [in the deadly brawl] have been established, of whom eight were apprehended, while one was placed on an international wanted list. We want to stress that the brawl took place between two groups and was not ethnically motivated,” the statement said, warning that people who tried to incite ethnic hatred might face criminal prosecution as well.

Kazakhstan is a diverse country that houses dozens of ethnic groups and official propaganda frequently praises long-ruling President Nursultan Nazarbaev for preserving ethnic concord in the Central Asian state of 18 million.

A Clermont-Ferrand, les Arméniens fêtent la Nativité et l’Epiphanie

Khondkarian Raffi
Franceinfo
6 janv 2019


Les Arméniens ont gardé la date initiale de la naissance de Jésus Christ, le 6 janvier, pour fêter Noël. / © F3 Auvergne/ C.Fallas

A Clermont-Ferrand, la communauté Arménienne a fêté la Nativité et l’Epiphanie. Ces chrétiens apostoliques sont restés attachés à la date du 6 janvier où les Rois mages arrivent pour apporter des cadeaux à l’enfant Jésus.
 

Par BC avec A.RozgaPublié le 06/01/2019 à 18:45

A Clermont Ferrand, une association rassemble la communauté Arménienne qui célèbre Noël et l’Epiphanie le même jour, le 6 janvier.

Ensemble, ils dansent le Cotchari, symbole d’un peuple uni par-delà l’exil : ” C’est une danse ancienne qui vient de nos grands parents. On se tient les mains très très fort” raconte Suzanna Kirakossyan, membre de l’association clermontoise Rencontres et Culture Arménienne.

Autour d’un buffet, une soixantaine d’Arméniens et Français d’origine Arménienne se sont retrouvés pour un Noël à la fois festif et nostalgique. A défaut du traditionnel poisson pêché dans le lac Sevan en Arménie, les convives compensent avec une coutume de générosité : “Comme dans toutes les traditions méditerranéennes, il faut le mezze et une table bien remplie. On doit offrir plus que ce que l’on possède” raconte Jacky Chahbazian. 

Même à Noël, les Arméniens de France n’oublient ni Aznavour, ni la mémoire de leur passé. Parmi eux, des descendants des premiers apatrides chassés par le génocide : “Cette douleur existera toujours tant que la Turquie ne reconnaîtra pas le génocide arménien” confie Claudine Khatchadourian, présidente de l’association clermontoise. 
 
Dans le Puy-de-Dôme, la communauté Arménienne compte environ 200 familles.

73 people killed in Armenia car accidents over 9 months

Khondkarian Raffi
News.am, Armenia
Dec 29 2018
73 people killed in Armenia car accidents over 9 months 73 people killed in Armenia car accidents over 9 months

20:17, 29.12.2018

YEREVAN. – Overall, 792 car accidents when a pedestrian was hit were recorded in Armenia over the last nine months, police said in response to Armenian News-NEWS.am inquiry.

Seventy-three people were killed and another 819 were injured.

Last year the number of accidents when a pedestrian was hit reached 1,010. Eighty-six people were killed and 1,028 were injured.

Armenia MP: Turkey has nothing to do in Karabakh process

Khondkarian Raffi
News.am, Armenia
Dec 26 2018
Armenia MP: Turkey has nothing to do in Karabakh process Armenia MP: Turkey has nothing to do in Karabakh process

14:16, 26.12.2018
                  

Turkey has nothing to do in the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) process.

Eduard Sharmazanov, former ruling Republican Party of Armenia Vice-Chairman and Spokesperson as well as outgoing vice-speaker of the National Assembly, wrote the abovementioned on Facebook.

“The day before, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu made a precarious and impermissible statement, linking Armenian-Turkish relations directly to the Artsakh [conflict’s] settlement,” Sharmazanov wrote. “

1. The Artsakh settlement and the Armenian-Turkish issue are two different processes, and it is impermissible to link them to one another.

“2. Armenia’s new power is obligated to strongly react to this absurdity by Çavuşoğlu.

“3. Turkey has nothing to do in the Artsakh issue; there is the OSCE Co-Chairmanship for that.

“4. The international recognition of Artsakh’s independence is just a matter of time.

“5. Turkey’s policy of dictating preconditions is reprehensible.”

Local Authorities Banned Metal Mining in Jermuk Community

Khondkarian Raffi
Lragir, Armenia
Dec 26 2018

10:13 26.12.2018                                 

Jermuk community council adopted a decision on 18 December 2018 approving the petition of the community proposing ban on metal mining in Jermuk and declaring the community an eco-economic area.

The council voted 7 to 0 for the petition. The Council thus implemented direct democracy, in line with the Law on Local Self-government and the Constitution. The majority of the current population of Armenia exercised their right to direct democracy and submitted a petition to the government and Jermuk community council and mayor with 3000 signatures demanding a ban on metal mining in Jermuk.

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The former government had approved the program of gold mining by Lydian Armenia, despite protests and warnings of environmentalists about the environmental hazards for the nearby villages and towns, including the mineral sources of Jermuk. The new government has suspended the project and has initiated additional examinations.

Press release – Metal mining banned in Jermuk community

Khondkarian Raffi
Good daydear media,

X:please publishattached Armenian and Englishthe articlepreserving all active links։
Sincerely –Best regards,
Armenian Environmental Front (AEF) Civil Initiative

Website: channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/armecofront
Facebook page: group: / Contact – tel./tel.+374 99 53 05 88, +374 93 53 49 59

Address: Yerevan, Spendiaryan 5, apt. 24:00
Address: 5 Spendiaryan str. apt. 24, Yerevan, Armenia



MS-Word document


Jermuk-council-decision.doc
MS-Word document

Médecins Sans Frontières: Children in difficult situations: 30 years of MSF in Armenia , Part 2

Khondkarian Raffi
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International / Doctors Without Borders
Dec 19 2018


Children in difficult situations: 30 years of MSF in Armenia

The second in a three-part series commemorating 30 years of MSF activities in Armenia

Opening another important chapter of MSF’s work in Armenia, in 1997 the organisation set up a unique project for ‘children in difficult situations’ in Vardashen special education complex in the capital, Yerevan.

Vardashen housed children who demonstrated so-called “socially dangerous behaviour”, children who had ended up on the street, and children whose families didn’t have the means to look after them. At that time, institutions of its kind were all too often places of physical and psychological abuse.

Vardashen special education complex, Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2002.

MSF staff at Vardashen were on duty day and night to prevent violence in the school. “The head guard was extremely cruel to the children,” one of the MSF team members said. “He was obviously enjoying beating them up. The children were hung upside down and beaten with clubs.”

MSF provided medical and psychological care, legal and social support to children in Vardashen, whose staff also received training. Eventually, the institution’s cruel punitive methods were replaced by an educational approach.

Meanwhile, MSF’s main objective was to return the children to their families. Staff were in close contact with them and offered practical assistance, for example by helping vulnerable families apply for housing or welfare support.

MSF’s work in Vardashen not only resulted in the rights of children there being protected and in many cases reunited with their families; it also helped reposition those children as victims not perpetrators, and helped advocate for children’s rights in Armenia generally.  

Children at Vardashen special education complex, in Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2002. Florence Gaty
A drawing class for children in Vardashen special education complex, Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2002. Florence Gaty

After three years working in Vardashen special education complex, MSF started reaching out to other children living or working on the streets of Yerevan.

A reception and orientation centre was opened for the children and their families – offering psychological, medical and social support to provide a better alternative to children living on the street.

“Only from MSF I saw real care and respect because only MSF saw my way from street to home, not to police unit,” one beneficiary said. “MSF taught me not to be afraid of people.”

In one exceptional case, MSF bought a house for a family with six children who would have otherwise ended up on the street or in Vardashen. For other families, MSF teams renovated houses, provided heating or helped parents to find jobs.

A family living in an old train carriage, in the village of Masis, near Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2002.

Florence Gaty
One of several day centres set up by MSF in Sevan and surrounding villages for people with mental health problems, Armenia, 4 April 2003.

German Avagyan
MSF offered a very serious alternative to people living on the streets and to putting street children into institutions. That alternative was something new for Armenia, not only for those living on the streets, but also in the field of social work in our country. Later it became an example that many other institutions followed.Araksya Madoyan, MSF social support referent and former social worker.

MSF went another step further in its outreach and advocacy work with the launch of a major awareness-raising campaign in September 2003.

The objective of the ‘Ach mama jan’ (‘Ouch, mummy’) campaign was to draw state and public attention to the plight of children in difficult situations.

Posters were put up all over Yerevan showing children on the street or in Vardashen, together with messages from the children to their parents. A big paper wall – symbolising the walls of Vardashen special educational complex, and the wall between vulnerable children and society – was decorated with many of the children’s thoughts and wishes and ceremonially torn down as part of the campaign.

The campaign gained significant media coverage, helped to raise public awareness and contributed to policy change.

An ‘Ouch, mummy’ campaign poster in the streets of Yerevan, Armenia, 10 October 2003. Alain Fredaigue

A Russian TV reporter in front of the symbolic wall erected by MSF as part of the ‘Ouch, mummy’ campaign in Yerevan, Armenia, 10 October 2003. Alain Fredaigue
MSF handed over its ‘children in difficult situations’ project to World Vision in June 2004.
https://www.msf.org/children-difficult-situations-30-years-msf-armenia






Music: Rouben Karakhanian aka ‘Kemanche Rouben’. Forgotten Armenian Kemanchist Player

Khondkarian Raffi
Armenian Church of Bangladesh
Dec 2018

When ‘Kemanche Rouben’ visited Los Angeles in 1969 to play a concert, little did the young boy, Armen Arslanian realise that 50 years later he would be reminded of that childhood memory as part of the Armenian Heritage Project for Bangladesh.

Armen Arslanian

The Armenian Church Warden of Bangladesh vividly remembers Rouben visiting his family home:

“I was only around 9 or 10 years old, I remember him and that peculiar musical instrument. At that age you don’t really know or understand the meaning of such an experience but my parents ensured I listened to what he was playing. It is remarkable to think that in the 1930s he had visited the Armenian Church in Dhaka to play a concert for the local Armenian community. Now, I am Warden of that very church and through the generosity of our Heritage Project contributors, I find myself being reminded of a moment from my very early childhood time that I had no idea would connect me to my future responsibilities of the Armenian Church in Dhaka.”

Karakhanian was a native of Baku,  previously in Russia,  and learned to play the Kamanche at the age of six. His teacher was his grandfather, a Russian troubadour known as Sanan.

When Karakhanian was 10 years of age, he appeared in his first concert in Tiflis, for an audience that included a number of dignitaries.

The mayor of Tiflis praised the young musician to the last of the Russian Tzars, Nicholas II and Karakhanian appeared in St. Petersburg during the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Romanoff reign in Russia.

Karakhanian toured throughout the Middle East during the 1920s, giving concerts and composing music.  He married Azniv Manoogian, a pianist, and the pair gave concerts in Europe and Asia as well as the Middle East during the 1930s.

Mrs Karakhanian died during World War II, when Karakhanian was detained in Romania for 10 years.  He resumed his concert career after the war ended.

The Kamanche which Karakhanian played in his concerts was made in 1810 for his grandfather.  Its gourd shaped body and long neck were ornately trimmed with mother-of-pearl. The neck finial was shaped like the famed Byzantine “onion domes” of his native land.

The instrument is played with a bow, but unlike a violin is held neck-up. The body of the instrument supported on the knee. It produces a minor-key, wailing but melodic sound indicative of its Far Eastern origin.

Karakhanian once explained that most kamanches have only three strings, but he modified his own instrument so it can be played with piano accompaniment.

In 1935 Rouben was in India visiting the Armenian community there. Travelling through to Dhaka he found a most attentive audience, and a new friend in the young 22 year old Armenian, Ruben David. Rouben gave him two signed photographs that became treasured possessions of Ruben’s family, and we are delighted that the David family are sharing their family archive with the Heritage Project.

These two precious and rare images of Rouben Karakhanian are reproduced here.

To dear Ruben In memory of the so memorable and unforgettable days we spent in Dacca: And always love your nation like that, love your literature and art.1/4/1935 Signed: Concert Rouben Dacca
Roupen Karakhanian aka Roupen Kemachist Armenian musician visiting Dacca


To dear Ruben A hearty/cordial gift.1935 – 1 – April Signed: Concert Rouben Dacca
Roupen Karakhanian aka Roupen Kemachist Armenian musician visiting Dacca

Armenia, Greece hold political consultations

Khondkarian Raffi

Armenia, Greece hold political consultations

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12:20,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 19, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian and Greek foreign ministries have held political consultations on December 17th in Athens, the Armenian foreign ministry said.

The Armenian delegation was led by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Garen Nazarian, while the Greek side was led by Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Georgios Katrougalos.

The bilateral political agenda was discussed, and ideas were exchanged over further deepening of cooperation in the commercial, scientific-academic, cultural and other areas.

Addressing the current phase and development prospects of the Armenia-EU cooperation, Nazarian introduced the application process of CEPA by Armenia and attached importance to Greece’s ratification of the document.

The sides also exchanged ideas over commencing dialogue about liberalization of EU entry visas, and support from EU countries in this process.

Regional and international matters of mutual interest were also discussed.

At the request of the Greek officials, Nazarian briefed on the latest developments in the peaceful settlement process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. In turn, Katrougalos presented the Greek stance over the Cyprus issue.

Issues concerning cooperation and mutual support in multilateral and international arenas were also addressed.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan