Category: News

PRESS RELEASE
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E- mail: [email protected]
Web:
PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon
IN ANTELIAS A PAN-DIASPORA CONFERENCE ON ARMENIAN EDUCATION STARTS ITS WORK
ANTELIAS, LEBANON – Initiated by His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia
and organized by the Catholicosate of Cilicia, a Pan-Diaspora Conference on
Armenian Education will start its discussion on Thursday morning, 5 August
2004 in the main hall of the Theological Seminary, in Bikfaya, Lebanon. The
theme of the conference is “The Armenian Education today in a Diaspora
situation”. Around one hundred intellectuals and experts almost from all
communities in Diaspora will address this timely issue in different
perspectives and contexts.
The Conference will start with a critical and analytical evaluation of the
present estate of the Armenian Education in Diaspora, and will proceed to
identify the emerging concerns and perspectives. In light of that the
Conference will endeavor to redefine the Armenian Education vis-à-vis the
new challenges and the new realities of the present world. The Conference
will conclude its deliberations by making a declaration, where the major
guidelines and orientations for a new educational policy for the Diaspora
will be outlined.
The minister of Education, the president of the Cultural and Educational
commission of the Parliament and the president of the Union of the Armenian
writers in Armenia will attend this conference.
Because of the unique importance of the Conference and the special
attention that the Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia gives to the Armenian
Education, His Holiness Aram I will address the Conference and take part in
its deliberations and actions.
##
The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
the mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of
the Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

PRESS RELEASE
Council of Europe Spokesperson and Press Division
Ref: 390b04
Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 25 60
Fax:+33 (0)3 88 41 39 11
[email protected]
internet:
Council of Europe Secretary General: “local self-government elections”
in Nagorno-Karabakh
Strasbourg, 04.08.2004 – Referring to the previous call by Council of
Europe leaders to refrain from staging one-sided “local
self-government elections” in Nagorno-Karabakh(1), Walter Schwimmer,
Secretary General of the 45-nation Council of Europe, regretted that
elections would again be held in the province on 8 August 2004.
“One-sided actions are counter-productive. The future status of
Nagorno-Karabakh must be decided through negotiations”, said Mr
Schwimmer, who confirmed that the Council of Europe fully supports the
efforts undertaken to this end by the “Minsk Conference” under the
auspices of the OSCE. “I further welcome the recently revived contacts
at the highest political level by Armenia and Azerbaijan to find a
peaceful solution to the conflict, as well as the efforts by the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to foster
parliamentary co-operation in the region”, added Mr Schwimmer.
(1) Council of Europe urges Nagorno-Karabakh to refrain from “elections”
(press release of 24 August 2001).
Le Secrétaire Général du Conseil de l’Europe à propos des ” élections
locales ” au Haut-Karabakh
Strasbourg, 04.08.2004 – Se référant au précédent appel lancé par les
dirigeants du Conseil de l’Europe de s’abstenir d’organiser unilatéralement
des ” élections locales ” au Haut-Karabakh(1), Walter Schwimmer, Secrétaire
Général du Conseil de l’Europe (les 45) a regretté que des élections soient
à nouveau prévues dans cette province le 8 août 2004.
” Les actions unilatérales sont contre-productives. Le futur statut du
Haut-Karabakh doit se décider par la négociation “, a déclaré M. Schwimmer
qui a confirmé que le Conseil de l’Europe soutenait pleinement les efforts
déployés à cette fin par la ” Conférence de Minsk ” sous les auspices de
l’OSCE. ” Je me félicite par ailleurs de la reprise des contacts au plus
haut niveau politique par l’Arménie et l’Azerbaïdjan afin de trouver une
solution pacifique au conflit, ainsi que des efforts fournis par l’Assemblée
Parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe pour encourager la coopération
parlementaire dans cette région “, a ajouté M. Schwimmer.
(1) Le Conseil de l’Europe appelle le Haut-Karabakh à ne pas organiser
d’ ” élections ” (Communiqué de presse du 24 août 2001).
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A political organisation set up in 1949, the Council of Europe works to
promote democracy and human rights continent-wide. It also develops common
responses to social, cultural and legal challenges in its 45 member states.

Israel Insider, Israel
Aug 4 2004
Why do they hate us? (and why do we care?)
By Patrick D O’Brien August 4, 2004
Originally published by IsraPundit.
This is a topic that doesn’t relate directly to Israel, although it
does affects people’s attitudes about the morality of Israel’s (as
well as the United States’) defense of its citizens against Islamic
terror. So to preclude any confusion, henceforth when I use the term
“we,” it will be in reference to both Israel and AmericaÑtwo nations
united in democracy and strong western values like freedom, justice,
love of life, and opportunity.
I believe that now more than ever, many Americans are acutely aware
of the special affinity between our nation and Israel. I think that
some Americans are starting to “get it” when it comes to the deadly
menace of Islamofascism which Israel has been up against for decades.
I am somewhat ashamed that it took a cataclysmic event of the
magnitude we saw in the 9/11 attacks, but I honestly feel that many
of us now have a much greater appreciation for what our brothers and
sisters in Israel have been living with for so long.
As human beings, we instinctively think causally. It’s absurd to
assert that anything “just happens.” So, we automatically look for
the causes of the effects we see around us. The stunning effects of
terror cry out deafeningly out for a reason. As far as I’m concerned,
terror is the pinnacle of man’s depravity. As for the definition of
terror, I use Title 22 of the U.S. Code, Section 2656f(d), which
states:
The term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated
violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational
groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an
audience.
The term “international terrorism” means terrorism involving the
territory or the citizens of more than one country.
Ñ The term “terrorist group” means any group that practices, or has
significant subgroups that practice, international terrorism.
When we here in the west are faced with the monstrous nature of
terror, we are forced to somehow make sense of the senseless. We
search for a reason behind this madness; we search for the now
proverbial “root cause.” I think sometimes we naively forget that,
irrespective of grievance or cause, there is no excuse for the
intentional murder of unarmed innocents. Be that as it may, for
practical reasons of academia and governmental policy, terror must be
understood.
The perennial question falling off the lips of many intellectuals
since 9/11 has been, “Why do they hate us?” More often than not, this
query comes from those on the left, because most on the right are
quite beyond trying to understand “root causes” by the time buses are
being blown up and a pregnant woman and her children are being shot
dead in her car. If you think about it, such a question answers
itself as far as the leftist is concerned. If this question is
seriously asked, it is already presupposed that there must be
something we do that enrages these people so greatly that they are
willing to immolate themselves with high explosives in order to kill
us. I personally believe that no one deserves to suffer the demonic
attacks of terror that are increasingly hitting western targets
outside of Israel. Asking this question also erroneously ascribes the
concept of sense and legitimacy to acts of terror. But still, it is a
fair question to ask, since terror doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
One of the most famous caricatures of the western liberal is that of
someone who wants to throw a lot of money at social ills in the hopes
of buying a solution. In register with such thinking, many pundits
and academics on the left have posited that Islamic terror comes from
the desperation of economic deprivation. Many of us here in the west
buy into this idea. I almost did, but thankfully Daniel Pipes saved
me from that folly. Subscribing to this notion says far more about
the western mind than it does about the cause of Islamic terror. It’s
a bit presumptuous of us to think that what the Islamic world needs
and wants is material gain. We are projecting our secular values onto
a quasi-religious problem. Of course everyone likes to eat and to
receive basic medical care, but that is not what this is about.
If you begin looking into just who gets involved in terror groups and
who carries out suicide attacks, you will see that it is not the
disenfranchised and impoverished. It is usually intelligent young men
from middle class (or higher) backgrounds, with college educations
(often at western universities). They are devout Muslims who are well
versed in many aspects of their faith. It’s definitely not about
money. It’s about Islam and its doctrine.
Westerners are flummoxed when they encounter a problem of such
Herculean dimensions that can’t be solved with money. We have become
complacent in secular democracy. We are sometimes unmindful of our
vast freedoms (because we are free to be) and how precious they are.
It is only through our hard-won freedom that we were able to conceive
our western secular democracy which protects these freedoms. It is
the freedom afforded us by secular democracy that has resulted in
great achievements in art, science, technology, and other areas of
human endeavor.
Islam, on the other hand, has contributed nothing to science and
reason in the last millennium due to its static and grindingly
intolerant state. Islam is a totalitarian ideology which affects
every minute aspect of the Muslim’s life from personal hygiene, to
mundane everyday matters, to how man should be governed. The west has
outpaced and surpassed the Islamic world as sensationally as it has
because we have moved on and separated religion from state, thus
effecting a secular environment in which science, the humanities, and
reason may thrive. These priceless assets which many of us take for
granted are impossible under shari’ah.
Additionally, we see here how President Bush’s notion that “they hate
us for our freedoms” was somewhat misguided. Muslims do not want our
“freedom” because it is anathema to them. The most repugnant sin to a
Muslim is what is known as “shirk.” Shirk, while often used to denote
polytheism, really means putting anything on the same footing with
God. Man-made law is shirk, since Muslims were given the revealed
word of God as concerns how they are to be governed. So, no, they
don’t hate us for being free per se, but they do hate us for being
free in an unIslamic way.
Also, Islam causes economic malaise. Before the west taught the Arab
world how to extract and process its oil, the Islamic world was still
back on its heels over the western primacy after the industrial
revolution. The recent phenomenon of Islamic terror began with the
Muslim Brotherhood and the newly enriched Wahhabi/Salafi sects in the
K.S.A. around the same time that Arabian oil fields opened up. It was
further exacerbated during the last oil boom in the seventies.
So, if they don’t hate us over economic disparity or because we’re
free, then why the heck do they hate us? What on Earth could drive
people to detonate bomb vests in a crowded restaurant or bus; or saw
someone’s head off while droning “God is great,” or fly planes full
of passengers into skyscrapers full of people trying to go to work?
Again, justification for such ignoble acts aside, when a Jew watches
someone he loves blown into several hundred bloody pieces before his
eyes, or when a mother watches her son’s severed head or other body
parts being displayed as gruesome trophies for the video camera, or
when a country reels with the deep psychic shock of witnessing its
citizens being murdered en masseÑwhen confronted with such sheer
madness, it is only natural to want to know: Why do they hate us?
Well, I know why they hate us. And it’s not even because we and the
“evil Zionist entity” are complicit in the ongoing “occupation” and
“oppression” of the Palestinians (although this ruse is a useful red
herring to the Arab world). They hate us because according to their
scriptureÑwhich they view to be inerrantÑit is the entitlement of
Muslims to lead all of mankind and to establish God’s kingdom on
Earth (Khilafah); and we have spectacularly robbed them of that
absurd notion with the awesome power of secular, liberal democracy
and capitalism.
Before the west put the capstone on the edifice of capitalism and
industrial power, Muslims were always successful, powerful, and to
their minds, superior. We’ve ruined all that now. Even the oil
doesn’t help them, because until they can effect Khilafah, they will
settle for the devil they know (corrupt, local despots) over the
devil they don’t know (shirk, secular democracy). This provides
another reason to hate us. We are seen to be in league with the
tyrants who oppress and exploit the umma (the Muslim community). We
may secure transitory geopolitical alliances with these thugs (the
shah, Saddam, Mubarak), but to Muslims (and their western enablers),
we’re a big part of the problem, if not the entire problem. We are
Satan to them.
So, it doesn’t really matter what economic stratum a Muslim comes
from. What matters is that it is categorically obligatory for any
able-bodied Muslim male to engage in jihad when jihad is waged. As
for the western Muslims who aren’t out on the field of battle killing
infidels, they are engaged in da’wa (calling the infidels to Islam)
and taqiyya (lying about the faith) here among us. And anyway, I
submit that anyone who doesn’t actively oppose terror is condoning
it, if only tacitly.
A worldwide Islamic state is the goal of Islam. Islam is a dystopian
nightmare, which its adherents think is utopian. So, rich or poor,
when they are met with our flat refusal to accept the notion of their
theocracy, there is conflict, and as we’re beginning to see here in
America, it gets deadly. Muhammad’s hordes, who raged out of the
Arabian Peninsula conquering nations from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, were wealthy menÑvery wealthy. They did if for Islam. They
did it because the Qur’an and the hadith say that it is their right,
and this scripture is God’s revealed word.
Islamic terror is really about the establishment of God’s law on
EarthÑeverywhere on Earth. That is more important to a Muslim than
material comfort. As westerners, we are baffled by such an idea, and
so the more “progressive” among us think that a fusillade of money
might be in order to get those angry young men with that faraway
glint of suicide explosions in their eyes to stop killing us. Because
we deserve it. All the money in the world won’t solve this problem,
though. It’ll only fund more terror. And who wants money when you
have a mission from God? Many wealthy and “westernized” Muslims are
just as convinced that Khilafah is the pinnacle of man’s mission on
Earth as their destitute brethren. They can do their part by
contributing to Muslim “charities.”
When we begin to understand that we are dealing with a
quasi-religious ideology that can take a wealthy and educated
profligate like Osama bin Laden (who once enjoyed sex, drugs, and
rock and roll in the discotheques of Beirut) and turn him into the
scourge of God, then we begin to understand the true power of this
threat.
For Israelis, there is the added dynamic of the virulent
anti-Semitism endemic to Islam and the Arab world. The privations,
pogroms, and humiliation visited upon the Jews living in dhimmitude
in Arab nations is well documented throughout the ages. The Jews are
depicted in the Qur’an and several sunna in an extremely unfavorable
light, which is easily interpreted as grounds to indulge in lurid
hatred and persecution against them. In the Arab press, all manner of
lies and slander about the Jews and Israel are presented as fact. To
the Arab/Muslim sensibilities, it is an affront that not only did the
despised Jew return to claim his homeland, but he additionally
brought democracy and developed the means to defend it. I think the
fact that the Jews can fight back nowÑmore than effectivelyÑbothers a
lot of people, actually.
Alan Dershowitz also reminds us that another “root cause” of terror
is that it works. Our open media are used against us in mass coverage
terror acts. Western governments often respond to terrorist demands,
caving in when pressured by their populace. Any quarter given to
terrorists is exploited as weakness in their cruel calculus. Even
when terror groups do not get what they’ve demanded, they gain much
when the whole world pays attention to what they’ve done. To quote
the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s chief observer at the
United Nations, Zehdi Labib Terzi, “The first several hijackings
aroused the consciousness of the world and awakened the media and the
world opinion much moreÑand more effectivelyÑthan twenty years of
pleading at the United Nations.” So, it is clear that when terrorism
is rewarded, it causes more terror. Any parent of a three-year-old
could tell you as much. The Turkish Armenians and Kurds were ignored
when they tried to use terror to make their case, so you don’t ever
hear about Armenian or Kurdish terror. There’s a reason.
Additionally, you don’t hear too much about Tibetan Buddhists, and
many other groups who have genuinely been wronged, resorting to
terror out of desperation and financial woe.
In the end, I really don’t care why the degenerate Islamic killers
hate us. I happen to think that the United States and Israel are not
what is wrong with this world. But even when there are legitimate
hardships for Muslims, murder is the wrong way to go about expressing
your outrage. As far as I’m concerned, the minute you murder
innocent, unarmed civilians to advance your “cause,” you have shown
me that whatever your grievance was, it is no longer relevant in any
sense. That’s not desperation or fighting for freedom. That is
murder, and it is evil.
Soon the more liberal-minded among us here in the west will get it.
Frankly, they will have no choice. I am sure that it was a bitter
pill to swallow for many leftists in Israel when they had to face the
fact that Islamofascism cannot be appeased. But when murderous fiends
are killing your family, your friends, and your countrymen, despite
your most honest, magnanimous, and lofty efforts, it’s time to face
facts.
No, I don’t care that they hate us. I have an functional moral
compass, and I’m not in thrall to relativism. I know that we’re in
the right here.

Aspen Times, CO
Aug 4 2004
Gulezian’s guitar playing infused with devotion to music’s power

By Stewart Oksenhorn
Aspen Times Staff Writer
The topic of conversation is that subset of contemporary instrumental
music that only an elevator or hotel lobby could love.
But Michael Gulezian has misunderstood my question, and the normally
mild-mannered, spiritual-leaning guitarist has turned into a
fire-breathing beast.
`It’s dreck,’ said Gulezian, using the Yiddish substitute for a word
that no longer can appear in The Aspen Times. `It makes me want to
scream. It’s the audio equivalent of Sominex. It’s wallpaper. If I
hear it in the supermarket, I run out.’
Gulezian thought I had asked what he did when he hears this music,
with its cheesy sounds, formulaic rhythms and empty melodies. But my
actual question was, what does someone like him do that separates his
contemporary instrumental music from the dreck. I explain the
misunderstanding, and Gulezian turns from Anti-Elevator Music Man
back into his humble self.
`Music,’ explained the 47-year-old Nashville resident, `should be an
active, participatory experience, an experience of community, a
common experience of a language that transcends spoken word. To water
that powerful thing down to a formula is shameful, even sinful.’
Gulezian’s music is, in fact, no relation to the simplistic,
synthesized bromide one hears in the hallways of shopping malls. On
albums like `Language of the Flame’ and the forthcoming live
recording `Concert at St. Olaf College,’ Gulezian’s music, mostly
solo guitar work, is inventive and complex; like his heroes of the
finger-style guitar – especially the late Michael Hedges, and John
Fahy, Gulezian’s first major influence – he melds rhythm, melody and
harmony using just one instrument and 10 fingers. The less-humble
side of Gulezian actually boasts that he is `a technical monster.’
But the more artistic side of Gulezian counters that the art is not
about the technique.
`It’s not about the technique,’ said Gulezian, who performs tonight
at Main Street Bakery. `That’s the last thing people should be paying
attention to. It’s about whether I’m transforming something about the
heart and soul to people who are listening. Technically, I can blow
anybody away. But if that’s all you’re going to do, you’re going to
play to an audience of nothing but guitar junkies.’
Though tonight’s concert is his Aspen debut, Gulezian spent his high
school years as a Coloradan, attending a small prep school in Cañon
City, Holy Cross Abbey, run by Benedictine monks. His love of music,
however, was already instilled in him by the time he got to high
school.
Gulezian’s mother, an Armenian born in Syria, sang Armenian folk
songs in a beautiful voice; his father, a New York native also of
Armenian descent, was an ethnomusicologist who transcribed ancient
Egyptian music scrolls for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
`When I say I heard music growing up from other cultures,’ said
Gulezian, `I mean cultures from thousands of years ago. That’s the
environment I grew up in – listening to Motown and the Beatles, and
also traditional classical music from the Middle East and India.’
Gulezian began playing Western classical music on guitar at 7. `But
to be honest, it didn’t resonate in my heart,’ he said. `I practiced
because I was diligent. But nothing really got me until I was 12, 13,
when I heard finger-style players like Doc Watson, and the
Mississippi Delta players like Leadbelly and Mississippi John Hurt.’
Those blues players got to his heart. But it was Fahy, the pioneering
finger-style guitarist who broke the trail for Leo Kottke and the
like, who got into Gulezian, heart, soul and mind.
`That blew me away,’ said Gulezian. `John Fahy was to steel-string
instrumental guitar music what Andrés Segovia was to classical
guitar. Nobody took classical guitar seriously until Segovia started
playing it.’
For Gulezian, the Maryland-born Fahy opened up a world of
near-infinite possibilities. `He provided the model for someone to be
idiosyncratic and create his own artistic path. I knew I could
express the deepest part of me.’
That seems to get to the heart of the original question. What
separates the contemporary instrumental music played by Gulezian –
and Pierre Bensusan, Kottke, Alex De Grassi and the like – from
elevator sounds is the element of humanity. Gulezian’s music has a
personality, rather than a formula, behind it.
Gulezian concludes: `I guess the answer is I love it so much and
respect it so much and have such awe for the power of music, I treat
it with devotion.’

Armenian National Committee of Wisconsin
4100 N. Newman Road
Racine, WI 53406
[email protected]
PRESS RELEASE
August 4, 2004
For Immediate Release
Contact: A. Zohrab Khaligian
[email protected]
ANC OF WISCONSIN ENDORSES SENATOR RUSS FEINGOLD
RACINE, WI–The Armenian National Committee (ANC) of Wisconsin is proud to
announce their endorsement of Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) for
reelection to the United States Senate.
“In his two terms in office, Senator Feingold has demonstrated to be a
strong advocate of Armenian-American issues,” stated ANC of Wisconsin
representative Zohrab Khaligian, “which is evident by his support of many
Armenian-related initiatives before the local Armenian community even
contacts him.”
“Additionally, Senator Feingold’s offices in Washington, DC and Wisconsin
maintain regular contact with the Armenian National Committee to ensure the
Senators’ continued support of Armenian-American initiatives,” continued
Khaligian.
The following is a brief look at Senator Feingold’s recent record on
Armenian issues:
* On June 12, 2003, he co-sponsored S.Res.164, which marks the 15th
anniversary of the US implementation of UN Genocide Convention, and calls on
the United States to learn from the lessons of past genocides–including the
Holocaust and the Armenian, Cambodian and Rwandan genocides–to prevent
future atrocities.
* On January 27, 2004, Senator Feingold joined Senators Barbara Boxer
(D-CA), George Allen (R-VA), Jon Corzine (D-NJ), John Kerry (D-MA), and Paul
Sarbanes (D-MD) in co-signing a letter encouraging President Bush to renew
his call for Turkey to immediately lift its decade-long blockade of Armenia.
This letter was sent in anticipation of a meeting at the White House between
President George W. Bush and visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan.
* On April 20, 2004, Senator Feingold sent a statement to be read at the
commemoration of the Armenian Genocide at the Wisconsin State Capitol. This
year’s statement read:
“Today, we remember the Armenian men, women and children who lost their
lives during the Armenian genocide. 89 years ago between 1915 and 1923, the
Ottoman Empire undertook a policy to isolate, exile and eliminate the
Armenian population. One and a half million Armenians were systematically
murdered in this campaign. Hundreds of thousands more were forced to flee
their homes.
The Armenian genocide must not be denied or forgotten. We have an
obligation to remember and remind others of the horror that occurred. As
seen by the killings in Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda over the past decade,
targeting people for their ethnicity is still a frequent occurrence. Its
repetition demands that we speak out and inform others in order to prevent
future atrocities . . .”
* On April 23, 2004, Senator Feingold joined 21 of his Senate colleagues in
cosigning a letter to the President Bush, which urged him to characterize
the Armenian Genocide as “genocide” in his annual commemorative statement.
* On April 27, 2004, Senator Feingold submitted a statement to the United
States Senate in commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. This year’s
statement read:
“People around the world are joining together to solemnly remember and honor
the men, women and children who perished in the Armenian genocide. 89 years
ago, one and a half million Armenians were systematically massacred at the
hands of the Ottoman Empire . . .
Throughout the 20th century, the international community failed to acts as
governments in Germany, Yugoslavia and Rwanda attempted to methodically
eliminate people because of their religion and ethnicity. Minority groups
were abandoned by the international community in each instance to be
overwhelmed by violence and despair. In Armenia, as in Rwanda and the
Holocaust, the perpetrating governments scapegoated their minority groups
for the difficulties they faced as societies. They justified their
campaigns of hatred with political and economic reasons in an attempt to
rationalize their depravity.
This is why we must remember the Armenian genocide. To forget it is to
enable more genocides and ethnic cleansing to occur . . .
In the shadow of the Holocaust, in 1948, the United Nations adopted the
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide . . .
The Convention required its parties to create domestic legislation to hold
perpetrators of genocide accountable for their actions and to place these
perpetrators before domestic courts or international tribunals.
The international community has a long way to go in punishing and
especially, preventing genocide. But we have made the first steps. As we
move forward, we must learn the lessons of Armenia’s genocide. Can we
recognize the rhetorical veils of murderous leaders, thrown up to disguise
the agenda at hand? Have we, the international community, learned that we
must not stand by, paralyzed, as horrors occur, but to work collectively to
prevent and stop genocides from occurring? We owe the victims of the
Armenian genocide this commitment.”
“We are truly fortunate to be represented by Senator Feingold and we
encourage every Wisconsin Armenian American to support the Senator so he may
continue to be our advocate in Washington,” concluded Khaligian.
Russ Feingold began his political career in 1982, when at the age of 29 he
was elected to the Wisconsin State Senate representing the 27th District.
In 1992, after two successful reelection campaigns for State Senate,
Feingold defeated two-term incumbent Senator Robert Kasten to represent
Wisconsin in the United States Senate. Currently he is vying for his third
term in the US Senate.
The Armenian National Committee is the largest Armenian American grassroots
political organization in Wisconsin and nationwide. The ANC actively
advances a broad range of issues of concern to the Armenian American
community.

The Christian Science Monitor
August 03, 2004
Iraqis decry attacks on Christians
By Scott Baldauf and Dan Murphy | Staff writers of The Christian Science
Monitor
BAGHDAD – A rare display of violence against Christians here may signal that
Sunni insurgents are broadening their effort to destabilize Iraq and stir up
differences between Islam and other faiths.
Bombing attacks against churches in Baghdad and Mosul Sunday night killed at
least 11 and injured dozens more. The explosions were a strong show of force
and coordination by jihadi elements that the interim government has called
the biggest threat to Iraq’s stability.
Many Iraqis reject these wedge efforts and express frustration with civilian
attacks. But there are few signs that terrorist cells have been disrupted.
In fact, as the Iraqi government shores up security at police stations and
other high-visibility locations, insurgents are increasingly attacking
vulnerable targets, like churches and truck drivers.
After graphic video of a Turkish hostage being killed by militants was
posted on the Internet, the Turkish truckers’ association announced Monday
that it will no longer transport goods bound for US forces in Iraq,
according to the Associated Press.
The detritus of calamity is evident outside the St. Peter and Paul Chaldean
Catholic Church in Baghdad’s Al Doura district.
The Rev. Faris Toma, pastor of St. Peter and Paul, spent the night
comforting bereaved parishioners. Ten churchgoers were killed Sunday evening
by a remote-control car bomb that went off just as church members headed out
to the parking lot.
“Why do they kill all the Iraqi people?” he asks in exasperation. “Why don’t
they kill the Americans? They are the occupiers. We are innocent.”
Attacks against Iraqi Christians have been rare up until now. While
Christians have been targeted by kidnap-for-ransom gangs, and
Christian-owned liquor stores have been destroyed by Shiite militias, these
attacks were probably not sectarian.
The vast majority of Iraqis are comfortable with the country’s Christian
minority. Representatives of both Moqtada al-Sadr’s militant Shiite group
and Sunni political organizations condemned the attacks. “This is a cowardly
act,” Sadr spokesman Abdul Hadi al-Daraji told Al Jazeera television.
Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also gave
a rare response, calling the church bombings a “hideous crime.”
Analysts say that Sunni militants with an ideology similar to Al Qaeda’s
were almost certainly behind the church bombings. Al Qaeda-linked groups,
intolerant not just of Christians but of Muslim sects that don’t share their
views, have targeted churches in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Pakistan.
While Iraq has armed Shiite groups that have participated in attacks on US
forces and been involved in the assassinations of political opponents, they
haven’t been known to use terrorist attacks on civilian targets.
Iraqi officials say they believe the attack was carried out by a cell
connected to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with Al Qaeda ties
who has taken responsibility for a number of car-bombings inside Iraq.
Since the apparent immediate aim of the Zarqawi group and others that share
its methods is to embarrass the US-installed interim government, the actual
nature of the target is less important to them than simply carrying out
successful attacks.
During the rule of Saddam Hussein, the Christian community largely stayed
out of the major conflicts and divisions in Iraqi politics. Though some
Christians were elevated to senior positions – Tariq Aziz, a Christian, was
a longtime foreign minister and one of Mr. Hussein’s closest allies – most
quietly went about their lives as small businessmen and shopkeepers.
Since the fall of Hussein, and amid a rise in militant Islamic movements,
Christian leaders have worried that they would be targeted.
At St. Peter and Paul church, witnesses are busy putting their house of God
back in order.
But while church members are clinging to one another, and to sympathetic
Muslims and others in the surrounding community, they recognize that their
fears may take a long time to overcome.
Bashar Badri, a guard and a church member, knew some of the church members
who died in the blast. One of his friends, Firas Benjamin, and his fiancée,
were planning to get married at this church on Thursday. Both were burned to
death in their car.
But while this attack has shaken many church members, he says Iraqi
Christians will not be intimidated.
“I think the people of this community will not leave Iraq, they will not
leave the church,” says Mr. Shamon. “We have been through many wars, so I
think we can carry on our lives.”
At the Armenian Catholic Church in the prosperous Tahrir Square
neighborhood, witnesses heard a smaller series of blasts, which brought them
outside for a larger explosion. It’s a common tactic, police say, to
maximize the number of casualties.
The tactic failed. A massive concrete wall, forming a grotto, served as a
bunker to protect the curious parishioners.
Across the street, a brick wall has collapsed into a pile of rubble. But it
was strong enough to protect Samir Matti’s sister and her two children, who
had been sitting in the front room of their home, watching television, when
the car bomb exploded just 15 feet away.
Mr. Matti says he has no confidence that either the Iraqi government or the
US can stop insurgents who use car bombs. “The enemy, he’s a hidden person,”
says Matti. “He could be in that car, or in this car. I don’t know how you
can find him.”
“Islamic fundamentalists did this, probably,” says Adel Mansour, a neighbor
who attends a Syrian Catholic church elsewhere. “They have support, money,
they are organized, and they did this for political reasons. They want
people to turn against the local government.”

Taipei Times
Mon, August 2, 2004
Iraqi chaos starting to breed sectarian strife
`PROMOTION OF VIRTUE’: The radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his army of
devotees have been blamed for a campaign of intimidation and violence
against Iraqi Christians
THE OBSERVER , LONDON
Monday, Aug 02, 2004,Page 7
“The al-Sadr tide is the only active tide in the country.”
Sheikh Raed al-Kadhimi, one of Moqtada al-Sadr’s aides
First came the warning: a sheet of paper stuck to the door of Na’aman
Khalil’s shop ordering him to close his off-license.
“You are corrupting the people of the Earth and you should stop,” said the
message, signed by a group calling itself the Monotheistic Movement of
Jihad.
Five days later, a parcel of and gutting the shop. Four other alcohol stores
along the same street in Baghdad’s largely Christian al-Ghadir district were
bombed that same night.
No one was injured, but the message was clear. After the bombings and a
spate of other attacks across Baghdad, most of the city’s alcohol shops
closed.
“They have achieved their aim. Whatever they wanted, they have got it,” said
Khalil, 24, who says the bombing cost him 7 million dinars in destroyed
stock. “If I open the shop again I don’t know what action they would take.
Probably they would kill me.”
There have been no arrests, but police and many Iraqis blame the attacks and
explosions on supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric.
A few days before the warning letter arrived, several of al-Sadr’s followers
met around 30 Shiite tribal leaders in the al-Hekma mosque in Sadr City, the
slum area in eastern Baghdad which forms the cleric’s powerbase.
They produced an edict in which they listed nine crimes punishable by death.
These included theft, kidnapping, robbery, spying “for the Wahabis, al-Qaeda
and Saddamists,” trafficking in women, and selling alcohol, pornographic CDs
and drugs.
The edict, it states, was drawn up because of the “critical and sorrowful
situation and lack of security and to serve the common good.” Most of the
tribal leaders who signed were from Amara, Kut and Nasiriyah, towns in
southern Iraq where a Shiite uprising in April was strongest.
“After the end of the dispute between our army and the Americans, our army
is working on stability and controlling the looters and other violent
groups,” said Sheikh Raed al-Kadhimi, one of al-Sadr’s aides in Baghdad. He
boasted of a number of checkpoints and patrols in Sadr City, and said one
had captured several hundred tonnes of stolen sugar, which he said were
returned to the government.
The movement, made up largely of young, unemployed urban men, has easily
moved into the power vacuum left by the absence of properly trained and
equipped Iraqi police and security forces.
“Neither the government nor the police are controlling the situation,” said
al-Kadhimi. “The al-Sadr tide is the only active tide in the country.”
Much of the movement’s strength is in its organization. The group has its
own religious police, the al-Amur bil Ma’arouf, or Promotion of Virtue.
They have divided Baghdad into three areas: east, west and the central
Kadhimiya area, home to the biggest Shiite shrine in the city. Each area has
its own unit. In Kadhimiya it numbers around 40; in the eastern sector,
around Sadr City, it is at least 100 according to Sayed Adnan al-Safi, an
al-Sadr official and editor of one of the movement’s newspapers.
“In Kadhimiya we have minimized and controlled places where alcohol is sold.
We have controlled the sale of immoral CDs and we have stopped fraud,” said
al-Safi. “People have begun to understand and are co-operating with us to
control the general violence. We are not issuing any punishments ourselves,
otherwise we would be considered a state within a state. We pass cases on to
the police for punishment.”
There is little doubt that the movement is about more than controlling
crime. In the past week al-Sadr’s followers have proselytized among Iraq’s
minority faiths. A group of them delivered a video of speeches by al-Sadr to
the Armenian Orthodox church in Baghdad. A priest, who asked not to be
named, said the speeches criticized the Christian faith.
“We have been living in Iraq for 100 years and have never had a problem
between Muslim and Christian,” he said.

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
=================================================
Tuesday 3 August 2004
ARMENIA: IMPRISONMENT, NO REGISTRATION, AND NO IDENTITY DOCUMENTS FOR JW’S
Armenia continues to jail Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objectors, in
clear breach of its Council of Europe and OSCE commitments, although human
rights ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan has denied to Forum 18 News Service that
the commitments have been broken. The head of the state religious affairs
department, Hranush Kharatyan, has rejected the right upheld in
international human rights agreements of religious believers to spread
their beliefs by peaceful means. An alternative service law is
theoretically in force, but in practice cannot yet be applied. Jehovah’s
Witnesses see the alternative service terms as excessive punishment for
their refusal to do military service, and are also being denied identity
documents – necessary eg. for employment or marriage – on completing
jail terms. Also, for the twelfth time since 1995, Jehovah’s Witneses have
been denied state registration. Stefan Buchmayer, the OSCE’s Yerevan human
rights officer, told Forum 18 that “one cannot find real legal
justification for the refusal.”
ARMENIA: IMPRISONMENT, NO REGISTRATION, AND NO IDENTITY DOCUMENTS FOR JW’S
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service
Armenia’s Jehovah’s Witness community has just received its twelfth
registration denial since 1995, with fourteen members in prison for
refusing military service on religious grounds and a further eleven
expecting to be tried for refusing the lengthy and harsh alternative
service, the terms of which they see as a punishment for refusing military
service. Problems for those completing prison terms also seem to be
mounting. Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18 News Service that seventeen
recently freed young men are being refused identity documents (internal
passports) because they are not registered with the military commissariat,
while a further seven who have identity documents are being refused
residency registration, a requirement in Armenia.
Officials blame the Jehovah’s Witnesses for allegedly failing to try to
resolve these problems with the government. “If those being released
are not getting passports they have put themselves in that situation,”
the human rights ombudsman Larisa Alaverdyan told Forum 18 from the capital
Yerevan on 2 August. Hranush Kharatyan, head of the government’s religious
affairs department, told Forum 18 the same day that the Jehovah’s Witnesses
had failed to respond to her invitations to discuss how to amend their
statute to get registration.
Fifteen Jehovah’s Witnesses from various parts of Armenia, who did not
possess an internal passport before they were called up by the army, found
that after their release the local military commissariat refused to issue a
certificate to them until they are registered with the military
commissariat, saying they will not issues the certificates until the
Jehovah’s Witnesses have served their time. The passport office will not
issue an internal passport without this certificate. In two further cases,
both in central Yerevan, two young men who had passports before their
prison terms were refused them when they asked for their return. Both have
made official complaints to the military commissariat and the general
prosecutor.
“This is a clear violation of their human dignity – they can’t
do anything without a passport,” Jehovah’s Witness lawyer Rustam
Khachatryan told Forum 18 from Yerevan on 2 August. “They can’t get a
job or even marry. But our clever state does allow people to pay taxes
without a passport.” He said the military commissariats are obliged to
give out these certificates, but said they deliberately refuse to give them
to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Human rights ombudsman Alaverdyan agreed that the lack of a passport would
create “an awful lot of problems” in Armenia. “People can’t
leave the country, can’t vote, can’t engage in any legal transactions, for
example.” But she said the Jehovah’s Witnesses have not reported the
problem to her and unless they do she can take no action. Yet she insisted
they have to comply with the law and get the required certificates from the
military commissariat like any other young men.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses have been applying for registration as a religious
community since the early 1990s, but their opposition to military service
and what many regard as their aggressive style of proselytism have offended
state officials and the leadership of the dominant Armenian Apostolic
Church.
Their latest application was submitted for the required “expert
assessment” to the government religious affairs department on 16
March, three months after a meeting between state officials and the
Jehovah’s Witnesses organised by the Yerevan office of the Organisation for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) tried to break the registration
deadlock. The religious affairs department concluded on 24 March that the
Jehovah’s Witness statute was in accordance with the law. “We didn’t
refuse the application – we gave a positive view about
registration,” its head, Hranush Kharatyan, told Forum 18.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses then submitted the application to the State
Registry of Legal Entities at the Ministry of Justice on 18 May, but it
ruled at the end of June that the statute contradicted the religion law and
other laws. Gyurgen Sarkisyan, who maintains the State Registry, had
previously told Forum 18 that “with an expert conclusion signed by the
minister and all documents, they will be registered” (see F18News 4
February 2004 ).
Sarkisyan’s phone was not being answered when Forum 18 tried to speak to
him on 2 August.
Despite having signed the expert assessment approving the application,
Kharatyan of the religious affairs department insisted to Forum 18 that a
provision in the statute describing the Jehovah’s Witness practice of
door-to-door preaching violates the law. “This amounts to proselytism
and the religion law forbids this,” she declared. “They don’t
have the right to do this.”
She flatly rejected suggestions that in a democratic country, believers of
any faith have the right to spread their beliefs by peaceful means.
“We keep getting a mass of complaints that Jehovah’s Witnesses come to
people’s homes every day and bombard them with visits,” she claimed.
Kharatyan also argued that other provisions of their statute violated the
law, although she maintained that the Jehovah’s Witness rejection of
military service was not an issue.
Stefan Buchmayer, human rights officer at the OSCE office in Yerevan,
reported that the denial of registration was for “technical
reasons” which the Justice Ministry did not fully explain. “The
Jehovah’s Witnesses cleared the expert assessment, so registration with the
justice ministry should have been only a formality,” told Forum 18 on
2 August. “One cannot find real legal justification for the
refusal.” He said his office has been closely following this issue.
“Unfortunately it has dragged on for many years.”
Despite its 2001 commitment to the Council of Europe to free all imprisoned
conscientious objectors and introduce civilian alternative service by
January 2004 (see F18News 19 April 2004
), the courts have
continued to jail young male Jehovah’s Witnesses. As late as 26 May 2004,
Ruslan Avetisyan was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and is now being
held in Nubarashen labour camp, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. Also
held in the same camp is Mikael Lazarian, sentenced to two years’
imprisonment the same month. The other twelve prisoners are being held in
labour camp in Kosh. Other Jehovah’s Witnesses freed early from prison for
good conduct are required to report regularly to the local police station.
On 1 April 2003, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told Forum 18 that a
“full stop” would be put to the imprisonment of conscientious
objectors by the end of 2003 (see F18News 1 April 2003
).
Parliament’s deputy speaker Tigran Torosyan, who heads the Armenian
delegation to the Council of Europe, told Jehovah’s Witness representatives
at the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly in Strasbourg on 22 June
that all conscientious objector prisoners would be freed once the new law
on alternative service came into force on 1 July.
Alaverdyan, who said she has visited 21 imprisoned Jehovah’s Witnesses
since taking up the post of ombudsman, claimed there is a “new
situation” now that the alternative service law has taken effect.
“The situation has changed completely,” she told Forum 18.
However, the fourteen Jehovah’s Witnesses remain in labour camp.
Moreover, Buchmayer of the OSCE pointed out that, although the alternative
service law theoretically came into force on 1 July, in practice it cannot
be applied until promised amendments are approved by parliament. “This
will not now be until parliament’s autumn session at the earliest,” he
told Forum 18, “unless a special session is called, which is unlikely
for such an issue.”
Buchmeyer categorically stated that the continued imprisonment of
conscientious objectors violates Armenia’s commitments to the Council of
Europe and OSCE commitments, a point rejected by Alaverdyan.
In a new development, eleven Jehovah’s Witnesses called up in recent months
have refused the alternative service offered to them, regarding unspecified
work – perhaps cleaning sewerage systems or working in psychiatric
homes for three and a half years under military supervision – as
excessive punishment for their refusal to do military service. “This
does not meet European norms,” Khachatryan told Forum 18. The length
of the proposed alternative service has been criticised by the Council of
Europe (see F18News 4 February 2004
).
Khachatryan noted that Aram Manukyan, a Jehovah’s Witness from Yerevan
called up in May, is expected to face trial in the next ten days. He said a
further four are awaiting the opening of criminal cases against them, while
six more are likely to face similar cases in the near future.
Both ombudsman Alaverdyan and Kharatyan of the religious affairs department
seemed annoyed at Forum 18’s questions about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’
difficulties. “Why don’t the Jehovah’s Witnesses work with us to
resolve their problems, instead to complaining to people like you?”
Alaverdyan asked Forum 18. “Organisations like yours seem only
interested in having continuing cases to take up rather than resolving them
properly.” Kharatyan echoed these sentiments. “Why don’t the
Jehovah’s Witnesses come to us if they want to resolve these issues?”
she exclaimed. “I absolutely don’t understand why they go running to
others to complain and don’t come to us.” She said her office had
helped other religious communities bring their registration applications
into line with the law.
A printer-friendly map of Armenia is available at
;Rootmap=armeni
(END)
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F18News
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PRESS RELEASE
Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Information Services
Address: Vagharshapat, Republic of Armenia
Contact: Rev. Fr. Ktrij Devejian
Tel: (374 1) 517 163
Fax: (374 1) 517 301
E-Mail: [email protected]
August 4, 2004
His Holiness Karekin II Extends Sympathies to Pope John Paul II
His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians,
has sent a letter of sympathy and support to Pope John Paul II, related to
the terrorist events directed against Catholic churches in Iraq on August 1,
2004.
The letter of His Holiness states in part, “We are saddened that some
extreme elements are attempting to endanger the centuries of friendship and
peaceful co-existence among the Christian and Muslim peoples of the East,
and offer our prayers to the Almighty that the love of our Lord Jesus Christ
will enter into the hearts of men, reconcile them one to another, and that
violence and war will be eliminated from the region and all of humanity.”
The Catholicos of All Armenians has sent a similar letter to the Patriarch
of the Armenian Catholics, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX.

The Jordan Times
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
The need for reconciliation
The recent attacks on churches in Iraq belonging to Chaldean, Assyrian,
Armenian and Catholic denominations represents an ominous turn of events in
Iraq, sending the message that no one is being spared in the spiralling
chaos that is Iraq today.
The five car bombs detonated outside five churches in Baghdad and Mosul
define a new target for those fanning the flames of instability in Iraq.
This deliberate attempt to spark yet another sectarian conflict comes at the
worst possible time, when religious rivalry and tensions between the Shiite
and Sunni Iraqis have reached new heights.
There is no doubt that those behind the attacks seek to sow distrust among
all ethnic and religious groups in Iraq for the ultimate purpose of further
weakening the country and having it fall prey to their distorted aims.
The Christian community in Iraq has long been active in the society and
contributed a great deal to the country’s development on all fronts. There
are still around 800,000 Christians living in this Arab country. Many others
emigrated, seeking better living conditions. It would be a tragedy if more
Christian Iraqis were forced to flee their homeland to secure sanctuary in
Western countries.
Although Roman Catholic Chaldean Patriarch Rev. Emmanuel Delly, spoke
steadfastly about the unity of Christians and Muslims in Iraq following
Sunday’s attacks, more effort must be exerted to prevent any further attacks
on Christians and their centres of worship.
Arab governments, including the Iraqi interim government, must condemn the
recent wave of violence in the strongest possible terms. All religious
communities, especially the Muslims within and outside Iraq, should issue an
immediate warning to the attackers to stop the carnage.
It must be remembered that Iraq has been a model of tolerance and peaceful
coexistence for its Muslim and Christian communities. The worst thing that
could happen now in the Middle East is to spark religious strife between the
followers of these faiths. This would shatter all hopes for a Middle East
that is free of religious and ethnic hatred.
The faction or factions who are bent on striking Christian targets must be
stopped. This urgent objective is linked to the larger imperative of
restoring law and order in the country.
There is legitimate fear that the expanding violence in Iraq will drive the
country to madness and bloodshed. That is precisely why it is important for
clerics of all faiths and denominations to condemn such acts and urge the
perpetrators and their supporters to follow the path of reconciliation if
Iraq and the entire Middle East are to be saved from the abyss.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress