Turkish Press: Armenia’s premier says decades-old Armenian claims on Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region hinder peace in Caucasus

Yeni Şafak 
Turkey – Feb 2 2024

Armenia's premier says decades-old Armenian claims on Azerbaijan's Karabakh region hinder peace in Caucasus

Armenian prime minister says his country must have combat-ready army to defend its territory

Decades-old Armenian claims on Azerbaijan's region of Karabakh hinder the establishment of peace in the Caucasus region, said the country's Prime Minister on Thursday.

"I wonder, does our state policy have to be based on the decision by the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh and the (Soviet era) Supreme Council of Armenia, according to which Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh should be united, as stipulated in the (1990 Armenian) Declaration of Independence? If so, it means that we are going to have a war now, we will not achieve peace," Nikol Pashinyan told Armenian Public Radio in an interview.

At the same time, he said that Armenia must have a combat-ready army to defend its territory "within the borders of the former Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic."

Pashinyan also criticized the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Russia-led military bloc, for not helping in the issue of Karabakh, not mentioning how the organization was established to defend its member countries in case of aggression while Karabakh is an internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan.

Armenia criticized Russia's refusal to fight for Armenia, and said that after the events in Karabakh "for a number of reasons, the Russian Federation cannot be Armenia's main partner in the defense and military-technical spheres."

Relations between Armenian and Azerbaijan have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Azerbaijan liberated most of the region during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, and last September, the Azerbaijani army initiated an anti-terrorism operation in Karabakh, and liberated the rest of its territories, ending 30 years Armenian occupation.

Czechia Chamber of Deputies President vows to help bring Azerbaijan back to negotiations with Armenia

 14:26,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 31, ARMENPRESS. President of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechia Markéta Pekarová Adamová has said she will use all available levers to make Azerbaijan resume the peace talks with Armenia.

Adamová made the comments in Armenia.

She is expected to travel to Azerbaijan.

“We must never give up and we must encourage them to take part in the talks,” she said when asked how the international community can return Azerbaijan to the negotiations table. “This is very important. During my visit to Baku, I will definitely raise these issues, on why they are not willing to find solutions that would be respected also by Armenian representatives. This is what we should do. We will certainly use all opportunities to be able to exert such pressure on all representatives of Azerbaijan in order for them to continue participating in the negotiations,” President of the Chamber of Deputies of Czechia Markéta Pekarová Adamová said.

Giving Up Is Not an Option for Iranian-Armenian Health Sciences Student

Jan 29 2024
La Sierra University undergrad lands US$20,000 student research award.

Darla Martin Tucker, La Sierra University

As a young ethnic Armenian girl growing up in Iran, Marash Keshishian loved swimming and dreamed of competing in the sport. But discriminatory laws and strict mores threatened her future, influencing her family’s emigration in 2015 to a new life in the United States.

Inspired by an uncle who worked for Loma Linda University’s School of Pharmacy, Marash, after graduating from high school and completing a year of community college, enrolled at La Sierra University in 2021 as a biology and pre-med major. While she had been raised in an orthodox Armenian Christian family, Keshisian became interested in the Seventh-day Adventist faith during her collegiate journey at La Sierra. She was baptized in April 2021.
Last school year, Marash switched majors to focus on health science and nutrition and, last October, landed a competitive US$20,000 award as a student researcher in the Transdisciplinary Tobacco Research Program in Loma Linda University’s Cancer Center. She will function as a research assistant with the Smoke Free HOPE clinical trial. She received the award letter on October 9.

“Coming from a family of non-smokers, I have always been taught as a child about the negative effects of tobacco which has grown my interest in tobacco control,” Marash said. “Younger people would not take me seriously due to my age and level of education, but now that I have the opportunity to fulfill my goals of many years while benefiting myself as well as others, I am excited to expand my field of knowledge and raise awareness of how much of a negative impact tobacco can have on our population, but more specifically pregnant women in certain regions of the world who use smokeless tobacco with the belief of certain tobaccos helping with pregnancy morning sickness.”

Additionally, Marash was recently informed that she has been selected as the La Sierra University Weniger Fellows scholarship awardee to be recognized on February 17 at the Loma Linda University Church by the Charles E. Weniger Society during its annual meeting and awards event. The organization honors individuals within Adventist higher education who have made significant impacts and contributions and who uphold the ideals of the late Charles Weniger, an Adventist professor.

Advocacy is a familiar role for Marash and an instinctual pivot. Last year she functioned as a student advocate in California’s capitol with the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, of which La Sierra University is a member. She joined other students for AICCU’s annual student lobby day and participated in discussing policies that affect higher education. She gave a testimonial video on the importance of state aid to immigrants in achieving their education goals.

For Marash, the pressure to succeed in the U.S. is both forward-facing and anchored in her grandparents’ dreams. She aims to be an example to her future children and to take advantage of educational opportunities denied to her grandparents, in particular her grandmothers, whose educational attainment did not extend beyond elementary school due to generational beliefs and governmental restrictions of the day. She also has a burden to share her successes with friends in her birthplace of Iran, who are held back by limitations, as well as women in her motherland of Armenia.

“You don't just become successful for yourself, your family, but also, what do you contribute back to the community?” she said.

Marash is contemplating potential medical careers in pediatrics or obstetrics and gynecologist (OB-GYN) specialties, a decision-making process aided by a five-week experience from August 1 to September 8 last summer in Armenia. She shadowed physicians and surgeons while completing a residency program two days a week at the country’s oldest hospital and volunteered with special needs children’s programs at Armenia’s first rehabilitation center designed for this population.

It was Marash’s first journey in nine years to her native land, and she was able to visit relatives who live there when not engaging in the mission of her trip. During last summer’s stay, in addition to shadowing and volunteering activities, she also distributed clothing and money to families in several villages, and helped with village work, including feeding animals, harvesting fruit, and collecting and selling flowers for a mini family farm and flower business. Before her trip, she and her family members had gathered clothing items and funds for distribution to those in need at villages in different regions.  

“I was trying to do something that not only included my contribution of time to those organizations and places, but also me learning something from them,” she said. “The goal was to serve people.”

The Armenian rehabilitation facilities where Marash volunteered provide therapy programs addressing a wide range of disabilities in children, adults, and soldiers with Armenia’s military who were wounded in past wars. She helped with play time and devising educational activities with special needs children, giving instruction in the Armenian alphabet, in color recognition, touch activities, in puzzle making and other exercises, and drawing upon her past experiences of working with special needs kids as a swim coach and lifeguard. She also contributed many educational and learning tools to the centers that were donated for her trip to Armenia.

“I’m trying to make actions which make my heart and all other patients’, parents’, and children’s hearts happy,” she said. She noted that mothers of some of the children she worked with sent messages to her on Instagram after she left Armenia and sent photos of their kids. They expressed appreciation for her kindness and wanted to show their children’s progress. 

At the Erebuni Medical Center in Armenia, she was able to secure permission through a personal connection to observe surgical procedures and births as a resident of the hospital’s OB-GYN program, an experience that would be typically unavailable for an undergraduate in the U.S., where laws and protocol are more stringent. Her observations of procedures, treatments, medications, and medical terminology made her more certain of her interests in a medical career.

“Visualizing and seeing this from a surgeon’s eye, how they rotate shifts, how many hours they work, what their day is like once they’re on duty and after, as housewives and professional physicians, kind of gave me an understanding of what my life could be like as a working physician and mommy to my bundles of joy in future,” she said.

Just Keep Going
“I always dreamed of being a physician, so that’s my goal,” Marash said in an interview before her summer trip. “I want to do either pediatrician or OB-GYN. But God has a plan. Maybe what I want would not happen because God has a better plan. But at the moment, that’s my career goal. I have so much faith in God that even if my plans get altered, I know that they will be better because God is the one guiding me.”

Marash’s family members were among many Armenians to live in Iran as its largest Christian ethnic minority, many of whom are the descendants of refugees who fled the Ottoman Empire’s genocide of Armenian Christians that began on April 24, 1915, and affected many other Armenians around the world.

The Armenian culture is rich and is home to a diversity of Christian denominations. In Iran, Armenians were allowed to practice their religion, literature, and history within their own private schools, churches, and homes. Marash’s family ensured that she attended Armenian schools throughout her life in Iran so that she could practice her Christian religion, speak her mother language, and learn Armenian literature and culture. She also learned Farsi, the official language of Iran, in addition to Arabic, and Persian literature during two years of middle school.

But as Marash developed dreams of achievement, as she succeeded in school and began to enter broader Iranian society as a teenager, she came up against open discrimination and academic environments that required her to forego her Christian beliefs. Her parents feared for her future.

“I’m trying to think about the good things that [Iran] has given me,” she said, “because I have my education, my trilingual skills, my culture, everything is from Iran. In other words, it is my past that has shaped me into who I am. However, I don't want to forget about the negative stuff that has happened to me. As an Armenian and Christian woman, I was born into a male-dominated country. I went through lots of challenges since I was a kid. Even though going through certain challenges was not pleasant, I have used those negative aspects to seek better options and opportunities to grow like a seed wherever I get planted.”

Following a three-month immigration process that the family underwent in Vienna, Austria, the Keshishians landed at Los Angeles International Airport on September 1, 2015. They officially entered a new life in a new country that offered the desired freedoms and far greater opportunities for success, but with difficult and costly adjustments that included leaving behind all of their achievements in Iran. “You just leave all you have gained as a result of all those years of hard work at the airport and leave the country,” Marash said, quoting her father.

“My aunts and uncles immigrated here way before me,” she continued. “For all the years that I was away from them, I would always speak to my cousin who was 10 months younger than me, and she would tell me about how amazing and cool her elementary school was, about great places like Disneyland and Universal Studios she would go to in addition to having so much freedom to wear whatever she wanted at school or how nice she was being treated by her teachers in comparison to what I had with limited freedom of speech, religion, et cetera.”

The immigration transition required the family to become fluent in English, a fourth language for them after their native tongue of Armenian, Farsi (the language of Iran), and Arabic, which is required by Iran’s Islamic school system in middle school. Marash completed Arabic through seventh grade and eighth grade before she immigrated during the last month of her eighth-grade year.

Of all the adjustments the family faced in the United States, and despite their prior English classes, the language barrier with its cultural slang, borrowed terms and mixtures of pronunciations and meanings proved among the most difficult, Marash said.

In general, the culture shock was extensive. Marash had grown up in a strong cultural and strict family, so that seeing certain freedoms students took for granted in school in the U.S. was a disquieting experience. This included a comparatively relaxed style of dress and students’ actions in class or tone while talking to their teachers.

Marash poses for a photo following the Oath of Allegiance ceremony marking her new U.S. citizenship. [Photo: courtesy of Marash Keshishian]

“The schools in the U.S. were way more chill than it was in my country,” she said. “For a whole month, my dad did not let me take my phone to high school. My dad still had the conception that I was going to a strict school like in Iran, so he was like, ‘You are only wearing business professional stuff to school and no leggings or sweats like the majority of students.’ So people used to make fun of me, because I took high school so seriously.

“I do not regret it a second, because I have always lived my life and desire to continue living it in a way that I am left with no regrets,” Marash said. “It wasn't either my parents’ or my fault for thinking that way, but the new exposure to the big change which we were not used to.”

Marash’s parents suffered the most during their transition to America, which required sacrificing all they had built in Iran, she said. “I owe my parents for sacrificing their dreams to make mine come true, through which they have set the example for me to be the same way for my future children, if necessary.”

Of the many paths down which Marash traveled after her arrival to the U.S., two culminated in lifechanging, pivotal moments: her baptism into the Seventh-day Adventist faith along with her uncle at the Living Stones Seventh-day Adventist Church in La Crescenta, and her acquisition of U.S. citizenship. Even though she had been baptized an orthodox Armenian Christian in Iran, Marash decided to take up the Adventist faith after attending church on Saturday (Sabbath), which was her only day available to attend services due to her busy schedule. Her family supported her decision.

On the day of her baptism by John Aitken, she and her parents also participated in the U.S. oath of allegiance ceremony, which was held differently that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Even though doing both the oath ceremony and baptism can be a lot in one day, we had such a fun day,” she said.

After becoming citizens, the Keshishians began the process of acquiring their new passports. “I was so excited when I got the passport,” Marash said. “It sounds weird for Americans to be this excited over getting a U.S. passport, but it’s a dream for us because in order to earn that citizenship, we have sacrificed a lot and gone through lots of challenges.”

With significant hurdles behind her, Marash focuses on taking steps toward major objectives that in her previous life would have been held in check by unmovable forces. 

“I have so many big goals that sometimes people are like, ‘You are an overachiever, you just overthink it, and you cannot change the world.’ But my response is that I know clapping would not work with one hand, but by two or more,” Marash said. “This means that one person is not enough to make a change but multiple people. Even though it seems impossible and very difficult, I am willing to personally do my best in my power to make the world a better place by transferring my education and knowledge to society.

“Anytime I go through my downs, the thing that keeps me back on my feet is remembering what was my motivation to start. That is why I always say, ‘No, there is no giving up. If one approach did not get you to your goal, there is always an alternate route and an option. There is no feeling sad or anxious. Just keep going till your ‘I hope’ becomes ‘I made it.’ ”

The original version of this story was posted by La Sierra University.

https://adventistreview.org/profile/giving-up-is-not-an-option-for-iranian-armenian-health-sciences-student/

Armenian Ombudsperson participates in the Leadership Forum of European Network of National Human Rights Institutions

 21:25,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 24, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Human Rights Defender Anahit Manasyan participated in the Leadership Forum of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) in Belgium on January 23-24.

According to the Human Rights Defender's Office, about 30 representatives of the ENNHRI member countries took part in the event. Various issues related to human rights and the rule of law were included in the agenda of the discussions.

According to the source, European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders  gave a keynote speech at the Leadership Forum organized for the heads of national human rights institutions.

Aliyev urged Armenia to adopt new constitution back in 2021

Panorama
Armenia – Jan 22 2024

After Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement that Armenia “needs a new constitution” on Friday, media outlets and social media were quick to recall Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s 2021 interview in which he made a similar remark.

In an interview with Turkish Anadolu Ajansı on 27 September 2021, Aliyev said that "Armenia should change its constitution to abandon territorial claims against Turkey.”

“There are territorial claims against Turkey in the Constitution of Armenia. They should renounce it. They need to work out and adopt a new constitution,” the Azeri leader said.

"How can a weak country like Armenia make a territorial claim against a giant country like Turkey? They should also abandon their claims against Azerbaijan to normalize relations with the country,” he added.

Prime Minister Pashinyan calls for special strategy, stronger K9 units to combat drug trafficking

 16:28,

YEREVAN, JANUARY 11, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has called on law enforcement agencies to develop a strategy to deal with drug trafficking. 

“We have an increase in the cases concerning drug trafficking, but which also means an increase in the number of [drug busts],” Pahsinyan told law enforcement officials during a meeting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding the 2023 report.

“Of course, the function of the police and investigative bodies is to reveal [the crime], but we must first of all have a strategy on how to deal with this problem of crime and relations using new technologies in the cyberspace,” Pashinyan said, referring to the notorious practice of drug dealers selling narcotics through social media channels, particularly Telegram, which is difficult to trace.

“Second of all, an interdepartmental task force dealing with the issue must be created, in order for them to have a team responsibility in some sense. Next, I attach a lot of importance to the development of the K-9 units in this regard. And we must urgently move forward with this complex approach,” he added.

Karabakh Conflict Aftermath: A Refugee Crisis Unfolds in Armenia

 bnn 
HongKong – Dec 27 2023

In the wake of a swift military offensive by Azerbaijan, over 100,000 ethnic Armenians, including the Martirosyan family, were compelled to escape from the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, sparking a refugee crisis in Armenia. The sudden recapture of the territory by Azerbaijani forces led to the precipitous exodus of the Armenian populace, uprooting residents like 65-year-old Suren Martirosyan from their homes and livelihoods, including a treasured fruit garden.

The fall of the breakaway Karabakh republic is attributed by refugees, including Suren, to the failure of Russian peacekeepers and the Armenian government. The subsequent displacement of the entire Armenian population from the enclave has put a strain on Armenia, as families such as the Martirosyans grapple to recover from the trauma of displacement. The Martirosyan family, for instance, now resides in a rundown house provided by government aid in the village of Noyakert.

Despite reports of an impending peace agreement based on mutual territorial integrity between Armenia and Azerbaijan, many refugees harbor skepticism about the prospects of peace and coexistence. The deep-rooted ethnic tensions and animosity persist, with some refugees expressing distrust in the possibility of peaceful coexistence. The geopolitical reality has shifted with Azerbaijan in full control of Karabakh, yet many refugees, still haunted by the loss and trauma, long for a separate and secure homeland.

Samvel Shahramanyan, the separatist president of Karabakh, initially signed a decree stating the breakaway republic would cease to exist by year’s end. However, the retraction of this statement reflects an enduring desire for secession among many Karabakh refugees, even though the region is now under full Azerbaijani control. The resilience of these displaced Armenians, carrying the hope of reclaiming their land and keeping the hope for peace alive, reflects the human spirit’s tenacity amidst adversity.

The California Courier Online, December 28, 2023

The California
Courier Online, December 28, 2023

 

1-         Court
Convicts Pashinyan Critic

            After His
Death…

            By Harut
Sassounian

            Publisher, California Courier

            www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

2-         Armenia
Artsakh Fund Delivers $25 Million

            Of
Life-Saving Medicines to Armenia

3-         Two Arrested
for Horrific murder of 4-year-old Armenian boy in California

 

4-         Armenian
Government Critic Convicted Posthumously

 

************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

1-         Court
Convicts Pashinyan Critic

            After His
Death…

            By Harut
Sassounian

            Publisher, California Courier

            www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

 

This week’s commentary is a lesson for all those who naively
believe what they hear or read and then pass on unsubstantiated stories to
others. By doing so, they are actually helping to spread fake news. When
someone gives you a piece of ‘news’, you should always ask, ‘what is your
source’? When the answer is: ‘I heard it from someone else,’ immediately
dismiss what was said to you. It is critical to verify what you are told in
order not to disseminate baseless rumors to others.

Those of us who are in the news business have a bigger
responsibility to be vigilant because if we do not double-check what is being
reported to us, then we become guilty of spreading fake news to thousands of
readers or viewers.

Here is an example of a news item we just heard about. A
57-year-old entertainment producer, Armen Grigoryan, who had died in Armenia, was found guilty by a judge in Armenia last
week, a year and five months after his death. Not having heard that a dead man
can be tried and convicted, I wondered whether such a thing really happened.

Since I have had long years of experience hearing all sorts
of baseless reports, I immediately contacted the late defendant’s lawyer in
Armenia, Ruben Melikian, who was kind enough to explain the circumstances of
this strange story.

Armen Grigoryan, during a street protest against the
authorities in Armenia
in May 2022, shortly before the parliamentary elections, told a reporter that
he stood by his earlier statement of April 2021 that half of Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan’s supporters in certain parts of the country have Turkish
blood. Naturally, this was a disparaging remark, but if a country is truly
democratic, citizens have the right to use unpleasant, even offensive words.
Nevertheless, Grigoryan had not said anything threatening, which would have
been against the law.

In May 2022, Grigoryan, a vocal critic of the regime, was
arrested and jailed for the statement he had made a year before his arrest. He
was charged with “inciting ethnic hostility.” Those accused of such a charge in
the past, had made offensive or degrading comments about other ethnic groups
living in Armenia.
However, no Armenian had been charged before with incitement after making such
remarks about fellow Armenians. For example, Pashinyan supporters, who had made
insulting comments against Artsakh Armenian refugees, have not been charged
with incitement.

On July 15, 2022, two months after his arrest, Grigoryan was
brought to court from jail to stand trial. Regrettably, in the midst of the
trial, he collapsed and died in the courtroom from a brain aneurism or stroke.

In Armenia,
when a defendant dies, his trial is discontinued. However, in this case,
according to Armenian law, the defendant’s family has the right to ask that the
trial be continued until a verdict is reached. Grigoryan’s lawyer explained
that his family wanted to see that he is exonerated, even though, due to the
presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty), he was merely charged,
but not convicted prior to his death. The family insisted that Grigoryan’s name
be cleared since they believe that he should have never been arrested, charged
and jailed.

The attorney told me that during the trial, after
Gregorian’s death, a government witness testified in court that he had not
written the testimony that was submitted in his name to the court. This witness
said that a government investigator had written the testimony and had told him
to sign it.

Also, a government expert, who testified in court, admitted
that Grigoryan’s words could not be considered an incitement to inter-ethnic
hostility, which means targeting members of another ethnic group. Grigoryan had
only used offensive words about his fellow Armenians, members of his own ethnic
group.

Nevertheless, last week, a year and five months after Grigoryan’s
death, the judge declared him guilty of the charge filed against him. His
lawyer told me that after the verdict is received in writing, the family has
one month to file an appeal, which they intend to do. If they lose in the court
of appeal, they will then appeal to the Court of Cassation which is a Court
that hears appeals against decisions of courts of appeal. If they fail there
too, they will then go to the European Court of Human Rights.

Having investigated the circumstances of a court in Armenia holding
a trial and finding a dead man guilty, I wanted to know if such trials had also
taken place in other countries. Surprisingly, I found several cases in ancient
and recent history when other countries held posthumous trials of defendants
and found them guilty after their death.

 

************************************************************************************************************************************************
2-         Armenia Artsakh Fund Delivers $25
Million

            Of
Life-Saving Medicines to Armenia

 

GLENDALE—On December 17,
2023, the Armenia Artsakh Fund (AAF) delivered to Armenia a very special donation of
much needed medicines valued at $25 million.

The donation consists of two types of valuable life-saving
medicines:  Bevacizumab-Awwb (Mvasi) is
for treatment of colorectal cancer; Glatiramer Acetate is an injection for
patients who suffer from Multiple Sclerosis.

“This shipment was donated by Direct Relief, a longtime
partner of AAF and supporter of Armenia.
We highly appreciate the donation and our partnership with Direct Relief,”
stated Harut Sassounian, President of AAF. 

In the past 34 years, including the shipments under its
predecessor, the United Armenian Fund, the AAF delivered to Armenia and
Artsakh a grand total of over $1 billion worth of humanitarian aid, mostly
medicines, on board 158 airlifts and 2,576 sea containers. “AAF is proud of
this unique achievement,” said Sassounian.

For more information, call the AAF office: (818) 241-8900;

 

************************************************************************************************************************************************
3-         Two Arrested for Horrific
murder of 4-year-old Armenian boy in California

 

An unspeakable tragedy occurred Friday, December 15, in the
city of Lancaster, a city in north Los Angeles County. A 4-year-old boy, Gore Adamian,
was shot and killed in front of his parents, writes Nation World News.

According to a statement from the Los Angeles County
Sheriff’s Department, at around 7:30 p.m., the couple were out grocery shopping
with their four-year-old son. They were driving along Sierra Highway with Gore in the back
seat, when another driver cut them off.

As the family slowed down, the other driver began shooting
at the Adamian family, and Gore took a number of bullets.

When shots rang out, people from nearby businesses rushed to
the Armenian family’s aid.

News reports at the time said that while none of the bullets
struck his heart, little Gore bled out before first responders could save him
because his heart continued to beat.

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of murdering the
child: 29-year-old Byron Burkhart and 27-year-old Alexandria Gentile.

Lancaster Mayor Rex Parris called what happened “the worst
form of domestic terrorism.”

“You can’t come into cities and shoot four-year-old children
… I’m not a big supporter of the death penalty. But some crimes require a
little bit more than what they give people because the situation is getting
worse,” the mayor said.

Members of Gore’s family spoke to news outlets the day of
his death and said that his mother was going in and out of consciousness, and
that his father nearly suffered a heart attack from the devastation of the
little boy’s death. The family had only been in the United
States the last several years and had moved from Glendale to Lancaster
where it would be more peaceful and safer to raise young Gore.

 

**********************************************************************************************************************************************

4-         Armenian
Government Critic Convicted Posthumously

 

(RFE/RL Armenian Service)—A vocal critic of Armenia’s
government who died during his trial last year was posthumously found guilty of
hate speech on Monday, December 18. Armen Grigorian, a well-known entertainment
producer, was arrested and indicted in May 2022 in connection with a 2021 video
in which he made disparaging comments about residents of two Armenian regions
sympathetic to the government. The National Security Service accused him of
offending their “national dignity.”

Grigorian, who for years harshly criticized Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan, rejected the accusations as politically motivated. Opposition
figures and other government critics also denounced the criminal proceedings
launched against him.

Grigorian, 56, collapsed in the courtroom in July 2022 as
his lawyer petitioned the presiding judge to release him from custody. He was
pronounced dead moments later.

The then human rights ombudswoman, Kristine Grigorian (no
relation to Armen), expressed outrage at the antigovernment activist’s death, saying
that he clearly did not receive adequate medical care in prison. None of the
judges or law-enforcement officials responsible for his detention were fired or
subjected to disciplinary action afterwards.

“Defendant Armen Grigorian’s guilt in committing this act
has been proven,” Mnatsakan Martirosian, a controversial judge presiding over
his trial, said in his verdict in the case. The late defendant’s lawyer, Ruben
Melikian, said he will “definitely” appeal the guilty verdict.

No government loyalists in Armenia are known to have been
prosecuted on such charges to date. Several members of the ruling Civil
Contract avoided prosecution this fall after verbally attacking ethnic Armenian
refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh taking part in anti-government rallies in Yerevan. One of them, a
village mayor, said such refugees must be stripped of government aid while
another urged the Armenian authorities to deport them from the country.

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Letters are published with the author’s name and location; authors are required
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EU visa liberalization issue discussed between Armenian and Estonian FMs

 16:32, 13 December 2023

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Wednesday he discussed with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan the issue of EU visa liberalization for Armenian citizens.

The Estonian FM expressed hope that the visa liberalization will be achieved next year.

He said that the discussion also focused on political cooperation, including on the readiness to work on the steps for joining the EU.

“This is difficult. We’ve worked on this for several decades, and here we are also ready to support, to train your staff, to support these processes in a practical arena,” he said.

Armenia singer Ara Martirosyan cause of death reason, biography, age, wife, songs, net worth

Dec 16 2023
On , the world bid farewell to a musical legend as Armenian singer Ara Martirosyan passed away at the age of 46.

The news of the untimely death of Ara Martirosyan due to cardiac arrest sent shockwaves through the music industry and triggered an outpouring of tributes from fans and fellow artists alike.

Ara Martirosyan was born on June 3, 1976, in Yerevan, Armenia. His musical journey began at a young age when he developed a passion for music, learning to play the piano and guitar. He later joined the choir at an Armenian Apostolic Church before graduating from the Yerevan State Conservatory with a degree in music theory and composition.

In 2002, Ara Martirosyan married Mercedes Khachatryan and the couple had two children, a son named Arman and a daughter named Ani. They lived in Yerevan before eventually settling in Los Angeles, California.

In 1998, Ara Martirosyan entered the music industry by joining the musical group Song State Theatre. The year 1999 marked a significant milestone in his career with the release of his first single, “Arevik,” which quickly became a hit in Armenia. Over the years, Ara released several popular tracks with the album “Nerir” standing out as a fan favorite.

Ara Martirosyan’s contributions to Armenian music were widely recognized, earning him prestigious awards such as the Golden Lyre Award for Best Male Singer in Armenia in 2001, 2003, and 2005. His versatility as an artist was reflected in winning awards at the Armenian Music Awards for Best Pop Album and Best Pop Song.

Apart from his solo career, Ara Martirosyan made significant contributions to the industry by composing songs for other singers, including Anush Petrosyan, Arsen Safaryan, and Nune Yesayan. His involvement in the music department of the 2011 film “The Fiancé From Circus” showcased his diverse talents.

The singer’s sudden passing left a void in the hearts of fans, fellow artists, and the Armenian music community. His influence will undoubtedly continue to resonate through his timeless tracks, including “Hayastan,” “Siro Ashun,” “Du Es,” “Yes U Do,” and “Imn Es,” among others.

Ara Martirosyan’s funeral took place on December 18, 2023, at the St. Mary Armenian Apostolic Church, and he was laid to rest at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.

Ara Martirosyan was estimated to have a net worth close to $5-10 million.

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