Category: 2017

BAKU—Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday blamed the “Armenian Lobby” for a new investigative report detailing how Azerbaijani elite used an estimated $2.8 billion slush fund to influence and lobby lawmakers in Europe and pay for extravagant purchases.

Aliyev, through his press secretary, said that American philanthropist George Soros and his henchmen—the “Armenian Lobby”—concocted the report released by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project on Monday to smear Azerbaijan.

The report details how thousands of payments from Azerbaijan were channeled through four shell companies in the United Kingdom between 2012 and 2014 to buy the “silence” of politicians and officials.

“Neither the president, nor members of his family have any relation to the charges contained in the report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project,” said Aliyev’s press office statement. “The dirty deeds of George Soros need to be investigated,” it said. “The Armenian lobby working in concert with him has been waging a smear campaign against the president of Azerbaijan and members of his family.”

The OCCRP and several press outlets in Europe, Russia and the United States collaborated on the report, entitled “The Azerbaijani Laundromat,” which states that “there is ample evidence of its [the sluch fund’s] connection to the family of President Ilham Aliyev.”
The report that has created shockwaves across Great Britain has prompted some members of parliament to call Prime Minister Theresa May to order an investigation into how companies registered there were able to operate such a huge money laundering scheme on behalf of Azerbaijan’s ruling elite.

Tim Farron, the former Liberal Democrat leader, led calls for an inquiry, saying this was what happens “when the corporate landscape is too lightly regulated,” reported the Guardian.

“We need a full investigation to see that dirty money has not been used to buy influence in the UK. The Azerbaijani government is guilty of systematic human rights abuses and it would appear the regime has been making payments on an industrial scale,” Farron was quoted by The Guardian as saying.

The OCCRP collaborated with the Danish newspaper Berlingske, which received a trove of leaked bank records that revealed the $2.8 billion slush fund, through which vast sums of money were laundered through a series of shell companies.

From 2012 to 2014, when the Azerbaijani government was rounding up opposition activists and journalists, members of the country’s ruling part were using the secret slush fund to pay off European politicians, buy luxury items, launder money and pay for high-end private schools in the United States.

“Meanwhile, at least three European politicians, a journalist who wrote stories friendly to the regime, and businessmen who praised the government were among the recipients of Azerbaijani Laundromat money. In some cases, these prominent individuals were able to mobilize important international organizations, such as UNESCO and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, to score PR victories for the regime,” said the OCCRP.

The report also details more than 16,000 transactions were carried out by the four shell companies registered in the UK and pits Danske Bank, a major European financial institution and the largest bank in Denmark, at the center of the scandal.

The OCCRP said that Danske Bank “turned a blind eye to transactions that should have raised red flags. The bank’s Estonian branch handled the accounts of all four Azerbaijani Laundromat companies, allowing the billions to pass through it without investigating their propriety.”

“A majority of the payments went to other secretive shell companies similarly registered in the UK, indicating that the full extent of the scheme may be much larger than is currently known. Large amounts also went to companies in the UAE and Turkey,” added OCCRP.

Read the entire OCCRP report entitled “The Azebaijani Laundromat.” 

SPA, Belgium – Lebanese Armenian driver Alex Demirdjian has won 3rd place at the world-famous Total 24 Hours of Spa race in Belgium, which is part of the Blancpain GT Series.

Some 64 cars began the race at the historic Spa-Francorchamps circuit but only 35 finished the challenging feat. Demirdjian and his Ferrari AF Corse teammates Nicolas Minassian, Davide Rizzo, and Toni Vilander came in 3rd place, a major achievement in the racing world and a great source of pride for the Armenian community.

The Total 24 Hours of Spa race is widely recognized as one of the most difficult races across the globe, due both to the continuous 24 hours of driving and the challenging weather conditions characteristic of the region. Demirdjian recognized the race as an important opportunity to represent both the Armenian and Lebanese communities, honoring the history of his people and creating hope for their future.

The Ferrari 488 GT3 that Demirdjian raced in proudly displayed the red, blue, and orange colors of the Armenian flag with the words “Drive for Life” just below. The front of the racecar displayed the Lebanese flag with the country’s national Cedar tree leading the way.

“It was a wonderful feeling to cross the Armenian and Lebanese flags across the finish line,” said Demirdjian. “This achievement really goes to show that teamwork is more important than any individual endeavor, and I hope future generations will be inspired to work together in pursuit of their ambitions while honoring their history.”

Prior to this event, Demirdjian raced in the Blancpain GT Endurance Race in Monza, Italy where he won 1st place with his Ferrari AF Corse teammates Davide Rizzo and Abbie Eaton.

STEPANAKERT—Thousands of Artsakh residents and visitors from around the world on Saturday marked the 26th anniversary of Artsakh’s independence during various events and parades. One message, however, was clear: the international community must recognize Artsakh’s independence.

The series of events dedicated to the independence anniversary began early in the morning with a steady flow of people visiting the Stepanakert Memorial Complex, where President Serzh Sarkisian of Armenia and his Artsakh counterpart Bako Sahakian led a procession of officials to lay wreaths at the tombs of freedom fighters, whose sacrifice has made the Artsakh Republic prosper.

A long and large procession of people went through the streets of Stepanakert carrying with them a large Artsakh flag marked a day of festivities in all regions of the republic.

In his congratulatory statement, President Sahakian placed an emphasis on the importance for the international community to recognize Artsakh’s independence.

He said during the past 26 years, “together with our sisters and brothers from Armenia and the Diaspora we have managed to realize numerous strategic programs, which day by day bring us closer to attaining our cherished national goals, further strengthen and develop our country.”

“I am confident the civilized and progressive world will sooner or later recognize this equitable and lawful resolution of the Artsakh people, will not hesitate to admit the prevailing realities that demonstrate our adherence to universal human values and commitment to international norms and principles,” added Sahakian.

“I am confident since our people have proved through their painstaking work and dedicated service of their brave sons that they are able to build, make prosperous and safeguard their ancestral Fatherland, their independent statehood,” said Sahakian.

Events marking the 26th anniversary of Artsakh’s independence began before Saturday. On Friday, the long-awaited Vardenis-Martakert highway, the second road connecting Artsakh to Armenia was inaugurated. A day earlier, several people received awards of recognition from Sahakian, with the highest honor, the Golden Eagle Order and a title of “Hero of Artsakh,” being bestowed to former deputy prime minister General Arthur Aghabekyan.

YEREVAN—Lord Ara Darzi has been appointed to the Aurora Prize Selection Committee, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative reported.

The Selection Committee is comprised of a select group of humanitarians, human right activists and former heads of state, and is chaired by Academy-award winning actor and director, and a humanitarian in his own right, George Clooney.

Professor Darzi is Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London. He also holds the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery at Imperial College London, and the Institute of Cancer Research and is Executive Chair of the World Innovation Summit for Health in Qatar. He is a Consultant Surgeon at Imperial College Hospital NHS Trust and the Royal Marsden NHS Trust.  In 2002, he was knighted for his services in medicine and surgery, and was introduced to the United Kingdom’s House of Lords as Professor the Lord Darzi of Denham in 2007. He has been a member of the Privy Council since June 2009 and was awarded the Order of Merit in January 2016.

Vartan Gregorian, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and President of Carnegie Corporation of New York, welcomed Lord Darzi. “We are delighted to have Lord Darzi join our selection committee. He is a man of great integrity, distinction, and tremendous accomplishments who has dedicated his life and career to doing good,” he said. “The selection process and the Aurora Gratitude in Action movement will greatly benefit from Lord Darzi’s experience and knowledge. He understands the value of good public policy and has invested his energies in providing for the common good.”

“I am extremely excited and deeply touched. I look forward to the great responsibility and opportunity I will have as a part of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee to celebrate the work of brave and committed humanitarians,” said Lord Darzi. “I am looking forward to receiving the nominations for the 2018 Aurora Prize and learning about the inspiring stories of modern day heroes and changemakers.”

Lord Darzi’s family has had experience with life-saving heroes. His family was from the northeastern city of Erzurum, Turkey. His father’s grandfather and his sons were executed by Ottoman forces during the Genocide. Lord Darzi’s paternal grandmother and great grandmother were the family’s only survivors. “They walked barefoot for weeks from Erzurum to northern Iraq and ended up in Mosul in Iraq, thanks to the help of a friend of my father’s grandfather,” explained Lord Darzi to Aurora’s 100 LIVES project. “So, I understand personally the significance of ‘gratitude in action’. This is a very meaningful way for me to publicly advocate for the need to recognize humanitarian kindness and generosity everywhere.”

Lord Darzi joins current Aurora Prize Selection Committee members including Nobel Laureates Oscar Arias, Shirin Ebadi and Leymah Gbowee; former president of Ireland Mary Robinson; former president of Mexico Ernesto Zedillo; human rights activist Hina Jilani; President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group and former foreign minister of Australia, Gareth Evans; Vartan Gregorian; and Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian George Clooney.

The nomination period for the 2018 Aurora Prize is still open. Anyone can nominate a candidate who they believe has risked their life, health, freedom, reputation or livelihood to make an exceptional impact on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes. A description of the Prize criteria and selection process can be found here. Nominations for the 2018 Aurora Prize will close on September 8, 2017.

The finalists will be announced in Armenia on April 24, 2018, when the world commemorates the Genocide of Armenians in 1915.  The Aurora Prize was established on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors.

The $1 million Aurora Prize will be awarded for the third time on June 10, 2018 in Armenia. The laureate is invited to share $1million with organizations which inspire their work. The award ceremony is a culmination of the weekend of special events that will take place on June 8-10, 2018. Pre-eminent humanitarians, academics, philanthropists, human rights defenders, government officials, journalists and business leaders from around the world will gather for the purpose of galvanizing action to address today’s most pressing humanitarian challenges and to celebrate the best of humanity.

LOS ANGELES—The USC Institute Of Armenian Studies presents a one-of-a-kind installation of extremely rare postcards from Anatolia, displayed alongside scenes from many of the same locations captured a century later.

“Undeliverable: Postcards and Photos of Lives Interrupted,” which opened on August 28 and will run through December 18 in USC’s Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library, revolves around 160 original printed sepia tones, some of which have never been exhibited before, hand-picked from the world’s largest collection of Ottoman postcards. Illustrating the everyday lives of Armenians in cities, towns and villages­, these pictorial souvenirs would be banal had their subjects not been exterminated by near-total genocide.

Collected over 32 years by Istanbul-based businessman Orlando Carlo Calumeno, the 80,000 unique postcards, all printed between 1895 and 1921, belong to a larger collection of books, furnishings and printed ephemera documenting quotidian life in multicultural, multilingual, turn-of-the century Anatolia.

“The postcards are especially interesting artifacts to work with,” says exhibition co-curator Narineh Mirzaeian, a Los Angeles-based designer and architect. “They’re pre-genocide, but they foreshadow what is about to happen. Or they don’t foreshadow it, which feels even more stark.”

As a counterpoint to the vintage postcards, the installation features Brazilian photographer Norair Chahinian’s visual explorations into his own Armenian roots. Drawn from two books of his photography, Armenia (2008) and The Power of Emptiness (2012), they include images captured using an antique camera owned by Chahinian’s grandfather, an Anatolian refugee who operated a photo studio in Aleppo, Syria, before joining the Armenian diaspora in São Paulo.

Photography and photographic printing, notes the collector, Calumeno, were almost exclusively Armenian trades in Ottoman Turkey. Religious prohibitions against making graven images prevented Muslims from entering the profession until 1910, and it fell to Christians, particularly Armenians, to fill the vacuum.
Postcards, he says, “were what the Internet is today”—an easy, low-cost way to preserve a travel memory or to keep in touch with loved ones. “In those days, people received hundreds of postcards from friends everywhere,” Calumeno says. “Most were thrown away.”

Some postcards included in the “Undeliverable” installation depict world heritage sites along the Silk Road. Others document ordinary village life and mundane urban structures—a new factory wing, school building or orphanage. Missionaries used these to support fund-raising efforts.

Calumeno, who is Armenian on his mother’s side and Levantine-Italian on his father’s side, focuses his postcard collecting on Anatolia’s diverse minority communities: Assyrians, Jews, Greeks, Kurds and especially Armenians. “The greatness of Anatolia was that melting pot,” he says. “Now it has become a mono-cultural, mono-lingual environment.”

His favorite card—the first he ever purchased, at age 16—depicts Istanbul’s Hippodrome Square near Hagia Sophia, the cathedral-turned-mosque and a major tourist attraction. Curiously, on the back side, the sender had jotted down a home remedy for nursing mothers to prevent cracked nipples. The card is addressed, in swirling Armenian cursive, to the woman’s sister in Bursa.

“These postcards are very important,” says Calumeno. “Each one is a gateway to connect with the past—a glorious past where everybody called each other ‘my brother, my sister.’ You see these naïve people, not knowing what is going to happen in the future. In these images, they live happily forever.”

“Undeliverable” is presented on two floors, in multiple parts, spanning the Doheny Library’s Treasure Room, Rotunda and Arts Corridor.

Working closely with USC Institute of Armenian Studies director Salpi Ghazarian, 160 vintage postcards are displayed in vitrines on the ground level, alongside documentary-style black-and-white images taken by Chahinian in recent years.

But in the Treasure Room, the curator has taken an unconventional approach. Focusing on 10 of the most intriguing postcards, she has scanned, enlarged and optically separated the images, creating layered, three-dimensional dioramas. Standing at eye-level on tripods, each diorama box invites visitors to peer into a lost world through a time-bending tower viewer. On the surrounding walls and ceiling, Mirzaeian has splashed full-scale murals of Chahinian’s bleak architectural photography illustrating modern Anatolia’s abandoned spaces, including a dilapidated Armenian church dome looming overhead.

The installation design invites visitors to navigate the curated scenes at two scales, says Ghazarian—zooming in to study nuances of daily life brought to life in the postcard dioramas, and zooming back out to see the blight left in the wake of genocide.

“It’s this surreal emotional landscape where alienation meets nostalgia, what-if encounters why, and despair yields to an irrepressible urge to reconstruct and build upon the erased past,” she adds.

Genocide exhibitions typically focus on victims, notes Mirzaeian. This installation focuses on places.

“It’s a different approach to what was lost, and what has remained,” she says. “It goes beyond victimhood—all these feelings we slip into that are unproductive. It’s more about re-inhabiting these spaces through the persistent architectural details. Those imaginative realities are interesting because they beg a lot of productive questions. Anytime you can do that, it’s good.”

“We’re very pleased to be able to present this immersive installation, in a timeless, three-dimensional space, here in the Library. This is especially important because the library’s long hours (open ‘til 10 pm weeknights, ‘til 8 pm Fridays and Sundays, and 5 pm Saturdays) will make it easy for anyone who wants to spend time in this lost world to attend. Admission, of course, is free,” said Ghazarian.

UNITED NATIONS—On August 23, the Artsakh Foreign Ministry circulated a document at the United Nations, presenting its position regarding the Azerbaijani policy of isolation against Artsakh. Since September 1, the document was published on the UN official web-site.

Read the entire Artsakh Foreign Ministry report.

The document states that Azerbaijan’s policy aimed at isolation of Artsakh is a blatant violation of the right to development enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The right to development is an inalienable human right that can be invoked both by individuals and peoples, and includes: full sovereignty over natural resources; self-determination; popular participation in development; equality of opportunity; the creation of favorable conditions for the enjoyment of other civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

By making a reference to a number of norms of international law, the document emphasizes that the realization of individual and collective human rights and fundamental freedoms, including economic and social rights, must not be dependent on the status of the territory where people live. Therefore, the lack of international recognition cannot affect the ability of a state to engage in international relations, including carrying out foreign economic activity.