Author: Vorskanian Yeghisabet

AZG Armenian Daily #201, 21/10/2006
Bookshelf
NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA FOR ARMENIAN READERS
The presentation of the third volume of “The Family Encyclopedia”
took place at RA National Academy of Sciences, yesterday. The book was
published at “Armencyclopedia” publishing house. The experts elaborated
the third volume in about 10 years. The first volume is entitled
“House Wife,” the second one was “Popular Medical Encyclopedia.” The
second volume is dedicated to the flora and fauna of Armenia.
Hovhannes Ayvazian, editor-in-chief of the publishing house, the
collection is meant to be used in everyday life, at home, etc.
The third volume includes the description of not only Armenia’s nature
but also that of the Armenian Highland. The volume has been published
in 3000 copies. In total the program cost AMD 24 million. The book
will be sold at AMD 10000 in the book stores.
Hovhannes Ayvazian added that the encyclopedia help to get familiarized
with the nature of our country and with its environment. We are using
our herbal, animal, mineral and water resources very badly. Today,
we face the dnager of desertization,” H. Ayvazian said. He added that
the young generation needs to get ecological education and expressed
hope that the book will greatly help in that.
The encyclopedia includes the photos of Tigran Babayan made in the
Western Armenia.
By Tamar Minasian

THE RIGHT TO DENY GENOCIDE
By Timothy Garton Ash
Los Angeles Times, CA
Oct 19 2006
Passing laws that criminalize denying past atrocities is no way to
address historical grievances.
WHAT A magnificent blow for truth, justice and humanity the French
National Assembly has struck. Last week, it voted for a bill that
would make it a crime to deny that the Turks committed genocide
against the Armenians during World War I. Bravo! Chapeau bas! Vive
la France! But let this only be a beginning in a brave new chapter
of European history.
Let Britain’s Parliament now make it a crime to deny that it was
Russians who murdered Polish officers at Katyn in 1940. Let the
Turkish parliament make it a crime to deny that France used torture
against insurgents in Algeria. Let the German parliament pass a bill
making it a crime to deny the existence of the Soviet gulag. Let the
Irish parliament criminalize denial of the horrors of the Spanish
Inquisition. Let the Spanish parliament mandate a minimum of 10 years
imprisonment for anyone who claims that the Serbs did not attempt
genocide against Albanians in Kosovo.
ADVERTISEMENT And the European Parliament should pass into European
law a bill making it obligatory to describe as genocide the American
colonists’ treatment of American Indians. The only pity is that we,
in the European Union, can’t impose the death sentence for these
heinous thought crimes. But perhaps, with time, we may change that too.
Oh brave new Europe! It is entirely beyond me how anyone in their
right mind – apart, of course, from a French Armenian lobbyist –
can regard this proposed bill, which will almost certainly be voted
down in the upper house of the French parliament, as a progressive
and enlightened step.
What right has France to prescribe by law the correct historical
terminology to characterize what another nation did to a third nation
90 years ago? If the French parliament passed a law making it a crime
to deny the complicity of Vichy France in the deportation to the death
camps of French Jews, I would still argue that this was a mistake,
but I could respect the self-critical moral impulse behind it. This
bill, by contrast, has no more moral or historical justification than
any of the other suggestions I have just made.
In an article last Friday, the Guardian averred that “supporters
of the law are doubtless motivated by a sincere desire to redress
a 90-year-old injustice.” I wish I could be so confident. Currying
favor with French Armenian voters and putting another obstacle in
the way of Turkey joining the EU might be suggested as other motives.
It will be obvious to every intelligent reader that my argument
has nothing to do with questioning the suffering of the Armenians
who were massacred, expelled or felt impelled to flee in fear of
their lives during and after World War I. Their fate at the hands
of the Turks was terrible and has been too little recalled in the
mainstream of European memory. Reputable historians and writers have
made a strong case that those events deserve the label of genocide,
as it has been defined since 1945. In fact, this year’s winner of the
Nobel Prize in Literature, Orhan Pamuk, and other Turkish writers have
been prosecuted under the Turkish penal code for daring to suggest
exactly that. That is significantly worse than the intended effects
of the new French bill. But two wrongs don’t make a right.
No one can legislate historical truth. Insofar as historical truth
can be established at all, it must be found by unfettered historical
research, with historians arguing over the evidence and the facts,
testing and disputing each other’s claims without fear of prosecution
or persecution.
In the tense ideological politics of our time, this proposed bill is
a step in exactly the wrong direction. How can we credibly criticize
Turkey, Egypt or other states for curbing free speech, through the
legislated protection of historical, national or religious shibboleths,
if we are doing ever more of it ourselves?
Far from creating new, legally enforced taboos about history, national
identity and religion, those European nations that have them should
repeal not only their blasphemy laws but also their laws on Holocaust
denial. Otherwise, a charge of double standards is impossible to
refute.
I recently heard the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy going
through some impressive intellectual contortions to explain why he
opposed any laws restricting criticism of religion but supported
those on Holocaust denial. It was one thing, he argued, to question
a religious belief, quite another to deny a historical fact. But this
won’t wash. Historical facts are established precisely by their being
disputed and tested against the evidence. Without that process of
contention – up to and including the revisionist extreme of outright
denial – we would never discover which facts are truly hard.
Such consistency requires painful decisions. For example, I have
nothing but abhorrence for some of David Irving’s recorded views about
Nazi Germany’s attempted extermination of the Jews, but I am quite
certain that he should not be sitting in an Austrian jail as a result
of them. You may riposte that the falsehood of some of his claims was
established by a trial in a British court. Yes, but that was not the
British state prosecuting him for Holocaust denial. It was Irving suing
another historian who suggested that he was a Holocaust denier. He was
trying to curb free and fair historical debate; the court defended it.
Only when we are prepared to allow our own most sacred cows to be
poked in the eye can we credibly demand that Islamists, Turks and
others do the same. This is a time not for erecting taboos but for
dismantling them. We must practice what we preach.
TIMOTHY GARTON ASH is professor of European studies at Oxford
University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University.

IT MONTH SUMMED UP IN YEREVAN
Panorama.am
16:57 18/10/06
The main task of the development of information technologies in
Armenia at the present phase is formation of information community,
Ara Hakobyan, adviser to the Armenian prime minister, told a press
conference today. In his words, it is necessary to qualitatively
change the policy and dispositions to IT to attract the community and
investors to the field which will eventually result in economic growth
of the country. He said IT ratio in GDP makes up 2%, which he said is
“not bad.”
Summing up of IT month in Armenia, which ran from September 15
to October 15, the adviser to the head of the government said the
participation involved large geographic scope.
Ara Hakobyan underscored cooperation agreements with Sun Microsystems
and with Incubator of Enterprises, Unions of Information Technologies
of Armenia and an identical organization in Egypt. Hakobyan said the
mentioned documents open opportunities for educational and research
centers in the region and on the international level.”

GENOCIDE ARMENIEN : AZNAVOUR PREND SES DISTANCES AVEC LE VOTE DE L’ASSEMBLEE
Agence France Presse
17 octobre 2006 mardi 10:08 PM GMT
Champion de la cause armenienne et vedette de la chanson
internationale, Charles Aznavour a pris ses distances mardi a La
Havane avec le vote en première lecture par le parlement francais
d’une loi reprimant la negation du genocide armenien.
Interroge sur ce point lors d’une conference de presse au terme de
son sejour dans la capitale cubaine, le chanteur francais d’origine
armenienne a estime que “la loi contre le negationisme devrait etre
votee pour tous les crimes et non pas particulièrement pour les
Armeniens, parce que sinon cela fait un drôle d’effet”.
“Je suis ravi qu’on y ait pense, mais j’ai quand meme, comme vous le
voyez, une certaine restriction, parce que j’ai l’impression qu’on
oublie d’autres genocides”, a-t-il ajoute.
Charles Aznavour, 82 ans, concluait mardi un sejour de dix jours
consacre a l’enregistrement d’un nouvel album realise avec le pianiste
virtuose et compositeur cubain Jesus “Chucho” Valdes.
A propos d’Orhan Pamuk, l’ecrivain turc laureat du prix Nobel 2006
de litterature, Charles Aznavour s’est declare “d’abord heureux qu’un
auteur lointain recoive cet honneur”.
“D’autre part, je ne peux qu’etre heureux que ce soit lui, car il
est envers et contre tout justement dans la bonne direction pour la
possibilite de la reconnaissance du genocide armenien” par la Turquie,
a-t-il ajoute.
Les deputes francais ont adopte jeudi en première lecture une
proposition de loi presentee par les socialistes, rendant passible
d’un an de prison et d’une amende de 45.000 euros la negation du
genocide armenien, provoquant la colère d’Ankara et la reprobation
de la Commission europeenne.
Les massacres et deportations d’Armeniens entre 1915 et 1917 dans
l’Empire ottoman ont fait plus de 1,5 million de morts selon les
Armeniens, 250.000 a 500.000 selon la Turquie, qui recuse la notion
de genocide.
–Boundary_(ID_C0svUonAu6gWyZFHmIma8A)- –

TURKEY INTENDS TO AMEND ARTICLE 301 OF THE PENAL CODE
Public Radio, Armenia
Oct 18 2006
Turkey intends to amend Article 301of the Penal Code, which envisages
considerable restriction of freedom of speech, Turkish Foreign Minister
Abdullah Gul declared during Turkey-EU meeting in Luxemburg.
In his words, Turkey will undertake the reformation of the Penal Code
after November 8, when the report on Turkey’s progress towards the
European Union is to be published.

NOBEL PRIZE WAS VICTORY FOR OUTSPOKEN NOVELIST
By Laura T. Ryan – Staff writer
Syracuse Post Standard, NY
Oct 18 2006
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s prize was a win for intellectual
freedom, says Colgate professor.
The awarding of a Nobel Prize to Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk
constitutes a victory to those who seek the freedom to acknowledge
Turkey’s bloody past, according to a Colgate University professor.
Last year, Pamuk was put on criminal trial for “insulting” Turkey,
by telling a Swiss newspaper his country needed to acknowledge its
role in the deaths of 1 million Armenians in 1915 and the more recent
killing of 30,000 Kurds in the 1980s.
The case eventually was thrown out.
“First andforemost, one gets a Nobel Prize for one’s art, but . . . I
think (Pamuk’s case) became a manifestation of Turkey’s struggle
with intellectual freedom and issues surrounding democracy and human
rights,” said Peter Balakian, director of Colgate’s Center for Ethics
and World Societies and the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor
of the Humanities.
Balakian, a New Jersey native of Armenian descent, also is the author
of “The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response”
(2003) and “Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian
Past” (1997), which won a PEN/Martha Albrand Prize for Memoir.
Pamuk becamea lightning rod for those issues, Balakian said, and
his trial “became a cause celebre because it embodied the issues of
democracy which Turkey is failing to fully embrace, in its refusal
to acknowledge the past and its intimidation and punishment of those
who do, like Pamuk and others.”
Fellow Turkish novelist Elif Shafak faced similar charges for
statements made by a fictional character in her novel “The Bastard
of Istanbul.” She was acquitted last month.
Turkish publisher Zagip Zarakolu, meanwhile, faces up to 13 years in
prison for publishing books that deal with the Armenian genocide. He
published Balakian’s “Burning Tigris” in Turkey last year.
“Pamuk is part of a larger intellectual moment in Turkish culture,
a more forceful challenging of state taboos,” Balakian said. “And
(writers like Pamuk and Shafak) are the hope for the future. So much
of this has been amplified by the Turks’ desire to join the European
Union, and Europe is making it clear, unless there’s intellectual
freedom, joining Europe is not going to be possible.”
Arpena Mesrobian,former director of Syracuse University Press
and author of the 2000 book, “Like One Family: The Armenians of
Syracuse,” said she, too, was pleased the Nobel committee chose to
honor Pamuk’s contributions at a time when his comments had landed
him in controversy.
“I think it’s delightful they reached out and chose something that
most people might not encounter,” Mesrobian said.

Anatolia news agency, Ankara,
12 Oct 06
TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER CRITICIZES ADOPTION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAW
BY FRANCE
Ankara, 12 October: “France will live with this shame,” said Turkish
FM Abdullah Gul when commenting on the resolution on the so-called
Armenian genocide adopted by the French parliament today.
Gul and Afghan FM Rangin Dadfar Spanta held a joint press conference
after their meeting at the Foreign Ministry residence in Ankara.
FM Gul stated that France cannot define itself as “the homeland of
freedoms” from now on.
Noting that Turkey will not underestimate this development, Gul said
that Turkey will take every type of measure.
“I hope that France will take a backward step from this dead end,” he
added.
On the other hand, Gul said: “We are very pleased that a Turk has won
such a prize” when referring to prominent Turkish novelist Orhan
Pamuk, who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature.
“This is an important development for Turkey’s promotion,” he added.

Focus News, Bulgaria
Oct 13 2006
Milliyet, Turkey: EU Calls on Turkey to Keep Calm over France’s
Passing a Bill on Armenian Genocide

13 October 2006 | 11:30 | FOCUS News Agency

Strasbourg/ Ankara. European Parliamentary rapporteur Camiel Eurlings
called on Turkey to keep calm about the bill on the Armenian
genocide, which France’s Parliament passed, the Turkish newspaper
Milliyet reports. The MEP said the adoption of the bill would impede
the efforts at abolishing some restrictions on the freedom of thought
and the efforts at doing away with tortures in Turkey.
France’s lower house of parliament approved a bill on Thursday making
it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of
Ottoman Turks. The bill provoked anger in Turkey, which said the vote
would damage ties between the two NATO allies and French firms
operating in Turkey.

IRANIAN STUDENTS MADE A ROW AT A YEREVAN DISCO-CLUB
ARMINFO News Agency
October 10, 2006 Tuesday
A group of Iranian students made a row at one of disco-clubs in
Yerevan.
The press-service of the Armenian Prosecutor General’s office says
that around 3 o’clock AM, October 7, they received a call from the
city-dwellers about a row at the “Sava” disco-club. The officers of
the criminal investigation department found out that the row had been
made by the citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran: students of
the Yerevan State Architectural University, twin brothers Habib and
Muhammad Saravi (born in 1981), students of the Yerevan “Haybusak”
University, Brahimi brothers – Asri (1987) and Faasad (1985), and
Anaida Taimi (1985). The group of the drunk Iranian students made a
number of acts of hooliganism, quarreled with the club’s workers, beat
Director Arthur Matevosyan and broke the glass of the entrance door
with stones. According to the source, the twins were celebrating their
25th anniversary in this original way. The Central Police investigation
department of Armenia has instituted a criminal case under Part 3 of
Article 258 of the Armenian Criminal Code (hooliganism).

GENOCIDE: TURK PREMIER RAPS FRENCH COLONIALISM
Gulf Times, Qatar
Oct 11 2006
Protesters stand under a banner that reads ‘French parliamentarians!
Respect historical truths. Say no to the blackmail of the Armenians’
during a demonstration in front of the French embassy in Ankara
yesterday
ANKARA: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told France yesterday
to examine its own colonial history instead of drawing up legislation
that will make it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide in
World War I.
Relations between Paris and Ankara have become increasingly strained as
the French parliament prepares to vote tomorrow on a bill that will
impose prison terms on anyone who questions the Armenian genocide
in 1915.
An eventual “yes” vote could also seriously damage Turkey’s ties
with the whole European Union at a time when it is negotiating to
join the 25-nation bloc.
Ankara strongly denies charges that some 1.5mn Armenians perished
in a systematic genocide last century, saying large numbers of both
Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan conflict
raging at that time.
“There can be no legal justification for making it a crime to say a
lie is a lie,” Erdogan said in a speech.
“France must look at what has happened in Senegal, Tunisia, Djibouti,
Guinea, Algeria,” he added, referring to the time when Paris controlled
large swathes of Africa.
Despite the anger in Ankara, the French parliament moved a step closer
yesterday to approving the bill after the ruling Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP) gave its parliamentarians a free rein in the vote.
The proposed law was drawn up by the opposition Socialist party
and the rightist UMP, which is close to President Jacques Chirac,
had previously snubbed the idea.
Some ministers publicly say there is no need for legislation over the
issue, but the mood within the UMP has toughened since Chirac paid
a state visit to Armenia last month and said Turkey should recognise
the genocide before joining the EU.
UMP party officials expect around 60 of their 362 parliamentarians
to back the motion, with most of the rest likely to skip the debate,
handing victory to the Socialists.
The French parliament has already approved a bill in 2001 which stated
that France recognised the genocide. tomorrow’s vote will strengthen
the bill, laying out a one year prison term and 45,000 euro ($56,570)
fine for anyone denying the massacre.
Around 400,000 people in France have Armenian roots, making it a
powerful lobby, particularly in the south of the country, and some
top French politicians belong to the Armenian diaspora.
In Turkey, the parliamentary justice committee is due to decide today
whether to retaliate by proposing a bill that would criminalise the
denial of genocide in Algeria, which Paris ruled from 1830 to 1962.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has repeatedly called on France
to admit its part in the massacre of 45,000 Algerians who took to the
streets to demand independence as Europe celebrated victory over Nazi
Germany in 1945.
However, Erdogan signalled that Turkey would not pursue a tit-for-tat
policy, although his government has already warned that the bill
would badly damage bilateral ties.
“Some of our friends say ‘France did this, so we should retaliate’.
But we’re not among those who clean dirt with dirt. We’re among those
who clean off the dirt with clean water.”
Bilateral trade amounted to nearly $10bn in 2005.
Some politicians have called for the expulsion of Armenians working
illegally in Turkey. Other measures mooted include boycotting French
products and freezing military co-operation.
Fearing a backlash, the spiritual leader of Turkey’s small Armenian
community, Patriarch Mesrob II, urged French restraint.
“All initiatives that prevent freedom of expression will strike a
blow to the process of dialogue between the Turkish and Armenian
communities and will strengthen excessive nationalist and racist
factors on both sides,” he said.
Last year, Erdogan proposed a joint commission of Turkish and
Armenian historians to examine what really happened during World War
One. Armenia did not accept the proposal. – Agencies.