Category: News

Armenian opposition says police sweep up party members after rally

AP Worldstream
Apr 06, 2004

The opposition leader whose party organized a large protest meeting in
the Armenian capital said Tuesday that police detained 127 members of
his party after the demonstration and that many have been sentenced to
up to a week in jail.

Artashes Gegamian, head of the National Unity party, said the arrests
took place at the party members’ homes or the residences or parents
and friends and that police threatened the members’ relatives and
acquaintances.

The arrests came after an estimated 8,000 protesters gathered in
central Yerevan.

“The deepening confrontations in society understandably makes the
people in power nervous,” he said Tuesday.

The opposition is seeking to oust President Robert Kocharian. He won a
second term in presidential elections a year ago that sparked mass
protests, including nearly daily demonstrations between the first
round of voting in February 2003 and the runoff in early March.

The opposition alleged widespread violations in both rounds of the
election. The election was followed by parliamentary ballot in which
the pro-government party won the most votes.

In April, Armenia’s Constitutional Court confirmed the results of the
presidential vote but suggested that a referendum be held within a
year to gauge the public’s confidence in the nation’s
leaders. Opposition leaders have pressed for the plebiscite.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Azeri Speaker warns Turkey against opening Armenian border

Trend news agency
6 Apr 04

BAKU

“If Turkey opens the border with Armenia, it will deal a blow not only
to Azerbaijani-Turkish friendship but also to the entire Turkic
world,” Azerbaijani Parliament Speaker Murtuz Alasgarov told a meeting
of the Milli Maclis today, Trend reports.

Alasgarov said that the opening of the border could undermine the
strengthening friendly and fraternal relations between Turkey and
Azerbaijan.

As for the calls for the restoration of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity militarily, the parliament speaker said there should be no
haste in this issue. We give preference to a negotiated settlement to
the conflict, but if this does not yield any fruit, then “Azerbaijan
is ready to liberate its lands in other ways”, he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Secretary of the National Security Council and Defense Minister of Armenia Serge Sarkisian arrived today in Tbilisi for a four-day official visit.

The Armenian official will push the issue of restoration of the railway link between Russia and Armenia via Georgia, which has been terminated after the Abkhaz conflict.

“The issue of restoration of the Sochi-Tbilisi-Yerevan railway link is of huge importance for Armenia. So, this issue will top the agenda of talks,” Serge Sarkisian said upon his arrival in Tbilisi.

The Armenian Security Council Secretary and Defense Minister will hold meetings with Secretary of the Georgian Security Council Vano Merabishvili, President Mikheil Saakashvili and Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

The Daily Star, Lebanon
April 5 2004

Tearing down Lebanese stereotypes of the ‘Armenian ghetto’

Special to The Daily Star
By Houry Mayissian

The discussion revolved around elections in Lebanon. Although the
title of the course was “International Communication,” our professor
never stuck by the book, always trying to stir up discussions on a
broad range of issues relevant to the course. I don’t exactly
remember what point he was trying to make, but he certainly made a
point for me. Turning to one of the students he asked: “Who doesn’t
have the right to vote in Lebanon?” The student looked confused for a
second and then, not so sure of herself, “Armenians?” she said. The
answer the professor was looking for was of course “citizens under
21.”

At first I thought her answer was just funny; insulting to a certain
extent, but also funny, because the young lady was a university
student and particularly a journalism student. Then, it struck me. Is
it possible that we’ve been citizens of this country for almost a
century now and yet people know so little about us?

Well, it seems that it is possible. The Lebanese not only know so
little about their fellow Armenian citizens living here, but also the
things they know are solely based on stereotypes. Two main
stereotypes particularly revolve around the Armenians living in
Lebanon: Armenians don’t know how to speak Arabic and the Armenians
live in a ghetto in Bourj Hammoud.

These are the two lenses through which the Armenians are most often
viewed. They are often blamed for living too close with each other,
holding each other too tight. They are even made fun of, supposedly,
because they don’t know how to speak Arabic well or have a funny
accent. While I do acknowledge that there are some elements of truth
in these images, it must be said that they are overly exaggerated and
often insulting.

It is true that most elderly Armenians don’t know Arabic well.

It would be much wiser, however, to try to understand the reason
behind it, rather than use it as a means to mock Armenians. Most of
these Armenians constitute the first generation born after the
survivors of the Armenian genocide of 1915 hit the region. Most of
these survivors were orphans when they got here; poor, with no money,
clothes, home or family. Gradually, they started building – building
houses, schools, churches, cultural organizations, gathering places,
sports’ groups, and newspapers: In other words, building a home. The
Armenian community came to be settled mostly in two major areas,
Bourj Hammoud and Anjar, which are to this day mostly inhabited by
Armenians. In these two areas the Armenians established tightly held
communities, in which the coming generation grew up surrounded by
everything that is Armenian. The kids went to Armenian schools, the
youth gathered in clubs, the neighbor was an Armenian family, the
shopkeeper was Armenian.

Taking into consideration the Armenian genocide, the loss of family,
friends and home which had a psychological

impact on these survivors, it wouldn’t be surprising that they held
so tightly to each other, helped each other out and stood by each
other. Their fear of a foreign land, foreign people and foreign
language made them stick to each other and to the community. They
seldom went outside of its borders. Perhaps, they didn’t even need
to.

This is the reason behind the elder Armenians not knowing Arabic
well. This is how the tightness of the Armenian community should be
interpreted instead of being classified as a ghetto.

The younger Armenian generations are past the problem of not knowing
Arabic well. Despite that, the stereotype, sadly, still prevails.
Even as a university student, I’ve had people asking me if I can read
or write Arabic!

Perhaps the media in Lebanon are to a certain degree responsible for
this image, or to be more accurate, responsible for not changing this
image. I remember that a few years ago a certain TV station had a
special talk show on the occasion of the Armenian genocide. The
featured guests were from the Armenian community. The show started
with a discussion about the historical causes of the Armenian
genocide, and its impact. Later, however, the host somehow segued
into asking questions about the “Armenian ghetto.” About why
Armenians allegedly preferred to shop from Armenians and a couple of
other outrageous questions. I, as an Armenian, was deeply offended to
hear a program supposedly dedicated to the Armenian genocide and
meant to be a gesture of compassion or support towards the Armenian
citizens of Lebanon, which was turned into an interrogation about the
so-called ghetto. It was not only rude, but also insulting.

I believe that as long serving and faithful citizens of this country
we deserve more respectful treatment from our fellow citizens.

Houry Mayissian is a journalism student at the Lebanese American
University

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Armenia’s Dashnaks call on authorities, opposition to begin dialogue

Mediamax news agency
5 Apr 04

YEREVAN

The Dashnaktsutyun Party, which is part of the ruling coalition,
issued a statement today calling on the Armenian authorities and the
opposition to begin a dialogue to stabilize the domestic political
situation.

“The internal political situation in the country is reaching a
critical point of open confrontation,” reads the statement by
Dashnaktsutyun’s Supreme Body adopted in Yerevan today.

“The intolerant radical behaviour of the opposition, on the one hand,
and the opposition’s unsecured participation in solving problems of
big importance for the country, on the other hand, provide the basis
of the current political tension,” the statement said.

Dashnaktsutyun called on the authorities and the opposition to begin a
dialogue and reach an agreement “in order to solve the following key
problems: the formation of an electoral system in the country, which
will fully meet international standards; the holding of constitutional
reforms necessary for strengthening democratic mechanisms; struggle
against corruption, the shadow economy and the clan system.”

“It is necessary to effectively use this period for voluntary
compromises. Otherwise, the entire responsibility for the
confrontation will fall upon those who will lose the opportunity to
reach an agreement,” the statement read.

Armenian opposition to stage protest in Yerevan on 9 April

Mediamax news agency
5 Apr 04

YEREVAN

The [opposition] Justice bloc and the National Unity Party leaders,
Stepan Demirchyan and Artashes Gegamyan, said in Yerevan today that
they “will start mass protest actions on Freedom Square at 1600 [1100
gmt] on 9 April”.

They called on their adherents “to take part in the struggle for
returning power to people”.

Demirchyan and Gegamyan’s joint statement was announced at a briefing
at the Armenian National Assembly today, Mediamax reports.

“One year’s existence of the authorities formed through election fraud
was enough to prove that the existence of an illegal regime threatens
the national interests of Armenia,” Demirchyan and Gegamyan’s
statement reads.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

National Geographic magazine
March 2004

By Frank Viviano Photographs by Alexandra Avakian

For 3,000 years Armenians survived conquerors, calamities, and diaspora.
Defiance and a long memory continue to sustain them as they rebuild their
Caucasus homeland.

Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt.

“You are looking at the great Armenian paradox,” Jivan Tabibian said. We
stood at the second-floor window of the Foreign Ministry building in
Yerevan, watching clouds scuttle across Mount Ararat’s ice-capped
16,854-foot (5,137-meter) crown. Tabibian, a diplomat whose portfolio
includes ambassadorships to four countries and two international
organizations, was discussing a policy initiative when he abruptly fell
silent, gazing at Ararat. It’s impossible not to be distracted by Ararat in
Yerevan. Despite its enormous mass, the great peak seems to float
weightlessly over the city, engaged in permanent dialogue with Little
Ararat, its 12,782-foot (3,896-meter) neighbor.

The vast snowy brow of Ararat glowers, pronounces, with hallucinatory power.
Its name is derived from that of a Bronze Age god, Ara, whose talismanic
cult of death and rebirth mirrored the seasonal transitions of Ararat from
lifeless winter to fertile spring. Little Ararat, by contrast, is an
exercise in calm, rational idealism, a volcanic cone so perfectly shaped
that it suggests not so much what a mountain is as what a mountain ought to
be.

You can’t ponder the two Ararats for long without drifting into
philosophical reflection, and the Armenians have been pondering them since
the birth of civilization.

The philosopher in Jivan Tabibian maintains that his people’s identity is
inextricably bound to the experience of loss, to the serial reorderings of
the map that have often stranded their most hallowed landmarks in someone
else’s state. Like the Monastery of St. Gregory the Illuminator deep in the
hills of Nagorno-Karabakh, Mount Ararat lies outside the contemporary
Armenian Republic, beyond the closed frontiers of a hostile Turkey.

“The paradox embodied in that mountain,” Tabibian said, “has to do with our
sense of place,” the concept that is so essential to most national
identities. “We are not place bound”-an impossibility, given Armenia’s
ceaseless traumas, metamorphoses, and peregrinations-“but we are intensely
place conscious.”

Later I repeated Tabibian’s enigmatic words to Vartan Oskanian, the Republic
of Armenia’s foreign minister. And he too offered a philosopher’s reflection
on Ararat. “Every morning we look at it,” he said. “It’s only 25 miles (40
kilometers) from this building, and we feel we can almost touch it. But we
can’t go there. Ararat is our pride and our frustration. Our history. The
unfulfilled dreams that drive us.”

Get the whole story in the pages of National Geographic magazine.

Read this 1926 manuscript unearthed from our archive: “A Holy Spectacle” by
Geographic legend Maynard Owen Williams.

Embattled Azeri imam hopes authorities to show common sense

Ekspress, Baku
4 Apr 04

The imam of an embattled mosque in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, has
said that his comments as a rights activist on the October
post-election riots might have been the reason for his arrest. Ilqar
Ibrahimoglu was taken into custody in the aftermath of the riots and
was given a conditional sentence and released on 2 April. Ibrahimoglu
said that the authorities’ attempts to turn the Cuma mosque into a
museum were “misunderstanding” and hoped that “common sense and logic
will eventually prevail”. The following is the text of Roya Rafiyeva
report by Azerbaijani newspaper Ekspress on 5 April headlined “Why was
I arrested?” and subheaded “Ilqar Ibrahimoglu still does not know the
reasons”; subheadings inserted editorially:

One of those arrested in the aftermath of the 15-16 October
[post-election] clashes, Ilqar Ibrahimoglu, received a suspended
sentence and was released from custody on 2 April. In addition to
being the imam of the Cuma mosque, he is also the secretary-general of
the Azerbaijani branch of IRLA [International Religious Liberty
Association] and the coordinator of DEVAMM [centre for the protection
of freedom of conscience and religion]. Saying that “I am the only
international expert in the Caucasus to deal with religious freedom”,
Ilqar Ibrahimoglu gave one of his first interviews after being
released to Ekspress.

[Correspondent] You claim that the accusations levelled against you
were unfounded. You are also saying that these accusations have not
been proven.

[Ibrahimoglu] It would be good to address this question to those who
arrested me illegally and kept me in custody for four months without
any reasons whatsoever. I can tell you quite frankly that I did not
expect to be released yesterday [2 April]. I was prepared to go back
to prison after the trial. It is still unclear to me who was
interested in my arrest and why. I knew there would be a hue and cry
both inside and outside Azerbaijan over my arrest.

[Correspondent] Do you have evidence of what you did on the day of the
clashes?

[Ibrahimoglu] My role in the events was only that as a human rights
campaigner I monitored the situation for seven to eight minutes before
clashes began on Azadliq Square. I met many journalists there and even
went up to the rostrum. But let me repeat that I had left the square
before the events started and continued the monitoring from the
courtyard of a nearby building together with other human rights
champions, including a representative of the OSCE.

Black PR

[Correspondent] Was any pressure put on you while you were under
arrest?

[Ibrahimoglu] On 17 October, I first appealed to local and
international human rights advocates after I saw the first signs of
pressure. I went to the Baku office of the Council of Europe at their
invitation and tried to clarify the issue. I was the guest of the
Norwegian embassy for four days until the issue was cleared up. During
those days a representative of the Interior Ministry told me that
allegedly I was not on the wanted list, that there was some
misunderstanding and that no measures would be taken against me
because I had nothing to do with the events.

On the 22nd, I attended an OSCE Human Rights monitoring conference as
a member of an Azerbaijani delegation, which also included
representatives of the Foreign Ministry, the ombudsman’s office, and a
number of human rights and NGO activists. We officially crossed the
[presumably Georgian] border and there were no problems again. But as
soon as I left Azerbaijan, an extensive “black PR” campaign was
unfolded against me. I was following it through the Internet. The most
frustrating thing of all was that while we were raising the issue of
desecration of a mosque in Susa [Shusha] at the conference, which was
also attended by Armenians, such issues were being brought up against
us in Baku. The Armenians now want to give this mosque to the French
and as an advocate of religious rights I stated there that this was a
violation of international norms and European conventions. As a matter
of fact, a representative of the Foreign Ministry officially thanked
me for defending Azerbaijan’s national interests.

The conference continued till 28 October. Then I observed Georgian
elections until 3 November. And on 3 November, as I had planned, I
returned to Azerbaijan. And no measures were taken against me again.

Arrest

[Correspondent] But how were you arrested?

[Ibrahimoglu] One TV channel officially announced on 20 November that
Ilqar Ibrahimoglu was in Georgia and that he was wanted by
Interpol. Then I understood that the issue was taking a new
turn. Since there were some blind spots, I talked to lawyer Elton
Quliyev about my defence. Finally, on 28 November I was invited to the
Prosecutor-General’s Office as a witness. On 1 December, I went there
with Elton Quliyev. They asked me different questions about the
October events and about my work as a human rights campaigner. I
thought that it was being done in the interests of the investigation,
therefore, I answered all the questions to the best of my
knowledge. They even allowed me to go to the mosque for the afternoon
prayer.

But at 1800 they asked me whether I had an identity card of a human
rights advocate. I said I was the head of two human rights
organizations and that there was sufficient information about me on
their web sites. Several hours afterwards they told me that I was
being detained on suspicion, and from that moment I refused to give
any more evidence. This is how the four months passed. I was kept at
the “death section” of the Bayil prison in room No 120. It was not
possible to carry out any religious rituals there.

Prison

[Correspondent] Were you held there alone?

[Ibrahimoglu] No, there were four of us. Sometimes they were replaced
by others. They were all post-election prisoners. In the old days
death row inmates used to be kept in this section of the prison.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the prisoners. The
press was of vital importance to us there. That was our only source of
information. Naturally, we were also receiving Ekspress newspaper.

[Correspondent] When you came out of the dock you said you would fight
for rehabilitation. But so far none of the October prisoners has been
rehabilitated.

[Ibrahimoglu] According to my information, there are appeals
already. We are now part of Europe and there are new legal
opportunities for that. For this reason, I can be rehabilitated using
local and international institutions. I monitored the situation on
Azadliq Square as a human rights campaigner. I am not supposed to
prove that I am not a camel. There is a presumption of innocence.

Attacks on Cuma mosque misunderstanding

[Correspondent] Why do you think you were arrested?

[Ibrahimoglu] I think my comments as a rights activist may have been
the reason for my arrest. But I am saying quite candidly that not
everything is clear to me.

[Correspondent] After your arrest the Cuma mosque came under attacks.

[Ibrahimoglu] I still cannot understand who needed that and why. Since
2003, there have been quite a few attacks on the organizations of
which I am a member and the Cuma mosque is the latest of them.

The community is registered and its registration has not been
repealed. In 2001 we submitted documents to the Justice Ministry for
renewing our registration. There are no problems with the community as
it has always functioned in accordance with Azerbaijani laws and
international norms. I also think it is absurd to turn the mosque into
a museum. I think there was some misunderstanding and I hope common
sense and logic will eventually prevail.

A1 Plus | 18:55:52 | 05-04-2004 | Politics |

VIOLEMCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS BECOMES DANGEROUSLY COMMONPLACE IN ARMENIA

Geghamyan-staged rally had heavy consequences for the journalists
fulfilling their professional duty today. Aravot and Haykakan Zhamanak
newspapers’ correspondents Anna Israelyanand Hayk Gevorgyan underwent
violence: they were beaten and their cameras were snatched out and
broken.

Cameras of Kentron, Hay TV and H1 TV companies were broken as well.

Among those became victims of brutality was Investigating Journalists
Association member Onik Grigoryan.

Camera was pulled out also from Shant TV company cameraman hands.

National Unity cameraman was beaten and his camera was broken.

It should be noted that legions of policemen lined the pavement from
early morning to provide security.

When our correspondent on the scene asked one of them why they let
offenders act with impunity, he answered: “Who knows who they are?”

—

A1 Plus | 17:25:41 | 05-04-2004 | Politics |

DASHNAKS SPEAKING ON POLITICAL SITUATION IN ARMENIA

Dashnaktsutyun, one of the ruling coalition parties, issued a statement on
Monday saying the opportunity to make amendments through consensus to the
Constitution and the Electoral Code could constitute favourable ground for
softening political situation in Armenia.

“The coalition should be guarantor of dialogue”, the party member Armen
Rustamyan cited the statement at a news conference.

Before issuing the statement, the party said tension run higher in the
republic and escalated into open confrontation.

Rejecting the idea of power handover, Rustamyan, at the same time, said it
would be better to comply with the opposition demand to conduct confidence
referendum in order not to aggravate the crisis.

Another Dashnak Levon Lazarian said the opposition uncompromising stance
can lead to serious shocks and the authorities must make their step.

—