Category: 2019

1 –      Azerbaijan May be Expelled from Council
           Of Europe for Violating Court Ruling
           By Harut Sassounian
           Publisher, The California Courier
           www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2-       Europa League final: Arsenal fans wearing
           Mkhitaryan shirts stopped by Baku police
3 –       Manoukian Memorial Unveiled During May 28 Celebrations
4-        Anti-Pashinyan Facebook group forms new political party
5-        Three Decades of Impropriety Comes to a Close

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1 –        Azerbaijan May be Expelled from Council
            Of Europe for Violating Court Ruling
            By Harut Sassounian
            Publisher, The California Courier
            www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

All members of the European Council had agreed to comply with
judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). However,
Azerbaijan has violated that commitment ever since 2014, according to
the unanimous ruling of ECHR’s Grand Chamber of 17 judges, including
the judge representing Azerbaijan, on May 29, 2019.
The case involves Azerbaijan’s imprisonment of political activist
Ilgar Mammadov who was charged with criminal offenses and placed “in
pre-trial detention in 2013 without there being any reasonable
suspicion that he had committed an offense. [The European] Court
considered the circumstances indicated the actual purpose of those
measures was to silence or punish Mammadov for criticizing the
Government [of Azerbaijan],” according to a press release by ECHR.
ECHR “found in particular that the Government [of Azerbaijan] had
taken only limited steps to implement the judgment, which had not
amounted to Azerbaijan acting in ‘good faith’ or in a manner which was
in accordance with the ‘conclusions and spirit’ of its ruling in
Mammadov’s case. It concluded that Azerbaijan had failed to fulfill
its obligation under the Convention to abide by the judgment,”
according to ECHR’s press release.
On December 5, 2017, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of
Europe, which is responsible for supervising the enforcement of the
ECHR’s judgments, referred Azerbaijan’s violation back to European
Court to determine whether that country had failed to abide by its
2014 judgment by not releasing Mammadov unconditionally.
After ECHR’s Grand Chamber ruled on May 29, 2019 that Azerbaijan had
indeed violated its 2014 judgment, ECHR referred the case back to the
Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for consideration of
further measures to be taken.
The Committee of Ministers stressed that there were fundamental flaws
in the criminal proceedings against Mammadov and “called many times
for Azerbaijan to release Mammadov as an essential step towards
redressing the violations the [European] Court had found. However, he
remained in detention for almost four years after the ECHR’s judgment
had become final on 13 October 2014, until his conditional release on
13 August 2018, following the initiation of the infringement
proceedings. In March 2019 [Azerbaijan’s] Supreme Court, after
reducing his sentence, found he had served his time in full and set
aside the probation order and other conditions on his release,”
according to ECHR’s Grand Chamber.
Here is the background of Mammadov’s case as described by ECHR’s press
release: He was born in 1970 and lives in Baku. He is a political
blogger and activist who had also announced his intention to run as
president of Azerbaijan in 2013. He was placed in pre-trial detention
in February 2013 after writing on his blog about disturbances in
Ismayilli. Mammadov said, among other things, that people there had
been reacting to the “corruption and insolence” of public officials.
He was subsequently charged with organizing or actively participating
in actions causing a breach of public order, and later he was accused
of stirring mass disorder and resistance to or violence against public
officials, posing a threat to their life or health.
Mammadov applied to ECHR on February 25, 2013, alleging that he had
been arrested and detained without a “reasonable suspicion” of a
criminal offence; that his right to be presumed innocent had been
breached; and that he had been prosecuted for his political views and
the threat he had presented to the regime as a potential presidential
candidate. In March 2014, Azerbaijan’s court convicted and sentenced
him to seven years in prison.
In the Grand Chamber’s judgment of May 22, 2014 (the first Mammadov
judgment) ECHR found violations of his right to liberty and security,
right to judicial review of detention, presumption of innocence, and
limitation on use of restrictions on rights. The ECHR also ordered the
government of Azerbaijan to pay him 20,000 euros in compensation.
The Committee of Ministers first examined the case in December 2014.
It took numerous decisions and interim resolutions, highlighting the
State’s obligation under the Convention to adopt individual measures
to put an end to any violations that had been established and to erase
their consequences so as to put Mammadov in the position he would have
been in if his rights had not been violated.
In October 2017, the Committee put Azerbaijan on formal notice that,
in its view, it had failed to fulfill its obligation under the
Convention, the first step in an infringement procedure. The Committee
of Ministers in December 2017 also referred a question to ECHR on
Azerbaijan’s fulfillment of its obligation.
Mammadov was freed on probation in August 2018. In March 2019,
Azerbaijan’s Supreme Court reduced his sentence, found he had served
his time in full and set aside the conditions on his release. In
November 2017, ECHR found that Mammadov’s trial on the same criminal
charges as those criticized in its 2014 judgment had also violated his
rights (the second Mammadov judgment).
If Azerbaijan continues not to comply with ECHR’s judgments, it may
eventually be expelled from the Council of Europe.

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2-         Europa League final: Arsenal fans wearing

            Mkhitaryan shirts stopped by Baku police

            By Tom Kershaw

Footage has emerged showing Azerbaijani police stopping Arsenal fans
wearing Henrikh Mkhitaryan shirts on the streets in Baku, ahead of the
Europa League final against Chelsea.

Mkhitaryan chose not to travel with the Arsenal squad due to fears for
his safety, owing to his native Armenia’s conflict with Azerbaijan,
despite the local FA insisting he would be safe to make the trip.

Speaking ahead of the match, both Granit Xhaka and Sokratis
Papastathopoulos said that Mkhitaryan’s absence had provided them with
extra motivation to win the Europa League in his honor, while Bernd
Leno claimed the situation was a “scandal” earlier this week.

“Of course we are disappointed he’s not here but I think we spoke a
lot about Mkhitaryan, and a lot of political things, and it’s time to
speak about football,” Xhaka said on Tuesday. “He’s very important for
us, and we want to give him a trophy tomorrow. We’ve been twice in a
row in the Europa League, and a club like Arsenal has to be in the
Champions League. It’s an amazing and important game for us, because
we want to give the club and the fans the Champions League back.”

Sokratis, who wrote a social media post in support of Mkhitaryan’s
decision, added: “We’ve had five or six years together, I know him
very well, we are good friends. So I just wrote what I feel. But we
have also to play for him and for the players who are injured, and
tomorrow if we win this game, it’s also for them.”

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3 –        Manoukian Memorial Unveiled During May 28 Celebrations

The highlight of this year’s celebrations marking the 101st
anniversary of Armenia’s Independence was the unveiling of monument
dedicated to the founder of the republic Aram Manoukian at the
Sardarabad Memorial Complex outside of Yerevan.

The Aram Manoukian monument, dedicated to the republic founder’s
birthday is strategically placed near the Sardarabad monument, with a
sword, the eagle and the eternity sign as its symbols. The building of
the monument was organized by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,
which worked with the National Museum of Ethnography and Liberation
War History in Sardarabad.

Members of the ARF celebrated the unveiling with ARF Bureau and
Supreme Council of Armenia leaders leading the pilgrimage to
Sardarabad.

The project was initiated by the ARF Canada region, with one of its
members from Toronto, Varouj Lapoyan sponsoring the entire cost of the
construction. The almost 20-foot high monument was designed by
architect Hayk Asatryan and executed by sculptor Artak Hambardzumyan

Earlier on Tuesday, together with President Armen Sarkissian, His
Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenia and other high-ranking
government officials, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan headed the
official celebration of the independence at Sardarabad.

After laying wreaths at the memorial for the fallen heroes of
Sardarabad, the official delegation headed to the site of the monument
dedicated to the 140th birthday of Republic founder Aram Manoukian for
the inauguration ceremony.

The government delegation also attended an exhibit, “Formation of
First Armenian Republic and History of Heroic Battles of
Independence,” which opened at the National Museum of Ethnography and
Liberation War History in Sardarabad.

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4-         Anti-Pashinyan Facebook group forms new political party

            By Ani Mejlumyan

Armenia’s newest political party has been born out of a nationalist,
conservative social media platform that portrays the new government as
a threat to Armenian identity and values.

The Facebook-group-turned-party, Adekvad, announced its intention to
enter politics in a May 27 post. “Since the political system is
currently handicapped and is absolutely not viable to solve the issues
the country faces, we urgently need to call on a political entity that
will resolutely stand against the risks that challenge our statehood,”
the post read. It used common anti-globalist imagery, evoking “the
notion of an unassailable fortress” and warning that, under its
current trajectory, Armenia could “melt with the majority and vanish
in the haze of history.”

The Adekvad Facebook page was launched in June 2018 and quickly became
popular, with more than 27,000 followers, and known for its
nationalist, anti-Western and right-wing stances. It has called the
fact that many of Armenia’s young elite have been educated or trained
in the United States “the second stage of the genocide.” Other
favorite targets include Armenia’s LGBT minority and financier and
philanthropist George Soros. But the most frequent target is Prime
Minister Nikol Pashinyan for the fact that he has allegedly opened the
door to all those influences on Armenia.

One of the leading members of the group, however, used to be an ally
of Pashinyan, a strategist for the prime minister’s Civil Contract
party. In an April interview on Kentron TV, Artur Danielyan said that
he left the party over philosophical differences with Pashinyan. “I
was with Civil Contract for a year and, in the beginning we had
agreement that the party will not have a dominant leader and during
our last meeting I told him that he lied to me, that’s it,” he said.
Among other prominent members are Narek Malyan, a former adviser to
former chief of police Vladimir Gasparyan, who regularly criticizes
Pashinyan on law-and-order issues; and Konstantin Nakalyan, founder of
the tabloid website blognews.am.

Inevitably, Adekvad has been accused of conspiring with Russia. The
Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic
Research lab published an article suggesting that Adekvad and another
affiliated site, antifake.am, were part of Russia’s influence
operations based solely on the fact that the website’s IP address is
registered in St. Petersburg. (It’s not uncommon for Armenian news
sites to be registered abroad.) Adekvad responded conspiratorially,
suggesting that they would soon be blocked along with other “right
information sources” whose “political views don’t match with those of
Facebook’s leadership.”

In recent months, Adekvad has moved from cyberspace to the streets.
They launched a campaign to get supporters to spray-paint “#SutNikol”
– “#LiarNikol” – around Armenia, and organized a contest, “Who can
present the prime minister’s biggest lie through art!?”

There have even been physical clashes. In March, Malyan was attacked
by members of a pro-Pashinyan student group, “Restart,” who accosted
him in Yerevan and attempted to throw him into a garbage can. In May,
a member of Civil Contract, Arthur Ispiryan, claims that he was
accosted in a café near Yerevan’s Cascade by a group of people
including Danielyan.

As a new party with no power, Adekvad will have no tangible
opportunities to make real change. But they can nevertheless present a
challenge to Pashinyan: they have not been tarnished by previous turns
in government, in contrast to other opposition parties like the
Republican Party or the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. And they
speak a social media-friendly language attractive to young people,
including the Facebook live videos that Pashinyan himself has used to
great effect.

Ani Mejlumyan is a reporter based in Yerevan.

This article appeared in Eurasianet on May 29, 2019.

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5-         Three Decades of Impropriety Comes to a Close

On April 25, The Improper Bostonian publisher Wendy Semonian Eppich
announced in a letter on the magazine’s website that the magazine
would cease publication. “After nearly 28 years in business, we are
closing The Improper Bostonian effective today. While this news might
be surprising, the company has had a great run and we’re hopefully
leaving this incredible city better and brighter since our inception
in 1991,” wrote Semonian Eppich.

“A special thanks to my family, our ownership: Thank you for believing
in The Improper Bostonian and all of its employees from the beginning,
and for providing incredible support. Mark Semonian, our founder:
Thank you for creating and conceiving something that is such an
important part of the fabric of our city,” she wrote.

“Improper staff, past and present: Thank you for all of your hard
work. You amaze me every day and are smart, creative, kind, humble,
loyal, fun and fabulous. You’ve been an absolute joy along this
Improper journey. In the business world, a company is only as good as
the people you work with—and I feel fortunate and appreciative to have
worked with all of you. Your fingerprints have left a lasting
impression on The Improper brand,” she wrote.

“Our partners and vendors: Thank you for your invaluable help along
the way. Our advertisers: Thank you for believing in The Improper and
trusting us with the chance to promote your business. We have enjoyed
many memorable collaborations throughout the years. Our loyal readers:
Thank you for picking us up every two weeks and putting us on your
coffee tables—or in recent years, for also clicking on our website. It
has been a pleasure to entertain, inspire, inform and amuse you. Our
staff was always delighted when you shared your love and passion for
the brand. Your feedback gave us a lot of pride in what we did and
motivated us to continue doing it,” wrote Semonian Eppich.

“As you remember The Improper, try to think of how you can enrich the
lives of others while celebrating and enjoying life in this wonderful
city—something we are fond of doing ourselves,” wrote Semonian Eppich,
in closing.

In August 1991, Mark Semonian published the first issue of The
Improper Bostonian. After coming up with the name and a million ideas,
Mark gathered a team of young, smart individuals, and a magazine was
born in a loft in Brookline Village.

In 2003, Wendy Semonian Eppich, Mark’s sister, became publisher of the
magazine, which was headquartered in the Pledge of Allegiance building
in the Back Bay. Twenty-eight years after its founding, The Improper
became a local institution that reached an audience of more than
426,000 readers, with 24 issues a year covering everything from food
and fashion to arts and entertainment, highlighting what  makes Boston
a world-class city.

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