A tragedy they will never forget
By DAVID SILVERSTEIN, Sun Staff

Lowell Sun, MA
April 23 2006

LOWELL — As he stood at City Hall, the plackard Joseph Dagdigian was
holding didn’t offer a pleasant picture. Though cartoonish, there was
nothing funny about the female figure depicted at the forefront of a
long procession, cradling in her arms the apparently lifeless form of
an infant. Tragedy was portrayed through the picture — a tragedy
Armenian-Americans throughout Greater Lowell came to remember.

Yesterday, city and state officials, as well as members of the
Armenian-American community, gathered in downtown Lowell to
commemerate the 91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turks, who were then in power over a
large portion of Eastern Europe, initiated a systematic cleansing of
their population by rounding up and either murdering or deporting any
Armenian residing within their borders. This movement began with the
execution of Armenian intellectuals, including educators, religious
figures, and other social leaders, but was soon extended to the
general population. About 1.5 million Armenians were murdered and
nearly 500,000 were forced to flee their homeland.

Yesterday, a crowd of about 50 people, both young and old, gathered
beneath a chilly gray sky and formed a small procession. Led by an
honor guard of Armenian-American veterans, they marched from the
intersection of Merrimack and John streets to City Hall.

Following addresses from state Sen. Steven Panagiotakos, Armenian
National Committee representative Tom Vartabedian, Mayor Bill Martin,
the Rev. Vartan Kasabian of St. Gregory Armenian Church in North
Andover and several others, a flag-raising ceremony took place.

According to a pamphlet passed out by Joseph Dagdigian, a member of
the Merrimack Valley Chapter of the Armenian National Committee, the
Turkish government refuses to formally acknowledge that these murders
were an act of genocide. As part of this ongoing denial, the pamphlet
says the Turkish government pursues a bevy of avenues, including
paying lobbyists in Washington, D.C., to help maintain their image
and prevent others from recognizing the genocide. The U.S.
government, the flier said, conceded to Turkish influence because it
couldn’t afford to lose the air bases in Asia Minor during the Cold
War.

In his address to the assembly, Vartabedian said, “When tragedies of
this magnitude occur, it is our responsibility to ensure that we do
not forget.”

Currently, legislative measures that would officially recognize the
genocide and create a formal day of remembrance are pending in both
the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. These measures, which
have the support of prominent scholars, writers and religious
leaders, as well as a number of Armenian organizations, are called
the Armenian Genocide Resolution.

Darkest days of Armenia remembered

Boston Globe, MA
April 23 2006

Armenian-Americans throughout the Boston area are gathering this
weekend and next week to commemorate the genocide that resulted in
the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.

Armenians mark Monday as the 91st anniversary of the night in 1915
when the Ottoman Turkish government arrested 200 Armenian community
leaders in Constantinople — the beginning of the campaign.

The Turkish government denies the claims, but, for Armenians and
their descendants throughout the world, the events are pivotal in
their people’s history.

“It was one of the defining events in Armenian history and certainly
modern Armenian history,” said Marc Mamigonian, director of programs
and publications at the National Association for Armenian Studies
and Research.

“It’s the reason most of us are living” in the United States “in one
way or another. Most everyone around here can trace a family member
to the Armenian genocide either as a survivor or someone who was lost.”

Many commemoration events are taking place in the Boston area.

Today at 3 p.m., St. James Armenian Apostolic Church in Watertown,
465 Mount Auburn St., will hold an annual Remembrance and Commemoration
of the Armenian Genocide.

Also today at 3 p.m. there will be a remembrance ceremony at North
Andover High School, 430 Osgood Street.

The ceremony will consist of a cultural presentation and requiem
service.

On Wednesday at 7:30 p.m., the public is invited to gather in the
Goddard Chapel at Tufts University in Medford for a program by the
Tufts University Armenian Club titled “Beyond Genocide Recognition —
Our Next Challenge.”

Stephen Kurkjian, senior assistant metropolitan editor at The Boston
Globe, will speak at the North Andover and Medford events.

Donna Novak

Asbury Park Press, NJ
April 23 2006

This week marks the Holocaust

Events to target hatred, strife
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/23/06
BY RICHARD QUINN
STAFF WRITER

The emptiness where the Twin Towers once stood is more than an
unnerving scar from Sept. 11, 2001.

It’s a reminder of what killed more than 1 million Armenians in the
first quarter of the 20th century. Of how 6 million Jews died in the
Holocaust of World War II. Of why Rwanda, Somalia and Darfur are more
than answers to a geography quiz.

“This is deep-seated hatred,” said Susan Rosenblum, a Lakewood High
School teacher whose self-created class is titled “Holocaust and
Man’s Inhumanity to Man.”

Rosenblum is the keynote speaker at today’s New Jersey Jewish War
Veterans ceremony at Liberty State Park, in the shadow of the New
York skyline torn apart when the Twin Towers collapsed Sept. 11,
2001. The event will be held to remember the Holocaust.

Sadly, there is a lot of hatred in history to remember this week.

Monday is the day Armenians across the globe remember the April 24,
1915, arrests of more than 200 Armenian community leaders in
Constantinople. Hundreds more arrests followed and, eight years
later, the estimated death toll was 1.5 million people.

Tuesday is Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah – a Hebrew phrase that roughly
translates to Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, although most
people refer to it simply as Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

And a week from today is a national march in Washington to protest
the atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan, where an estimated
200,000 to 400,000 people have died and 2.5 million people displaced
in a feud between ethnic Africans and Arabs.

The thread woven between these and future genocides is hate, said
Paul Winkler, executive director of New Jersey’s Commission on
Holocaust Education.

In fact, this year’s state-sponsored Holocaust commemorations will be
linked to the strife in Darfur to show that the sins of the Holocaust
are just as real today as they were in the 1930s and 1940s, Winkler
said.

“The importance is that the same systematic approaches have been used
in every genocide that has occurred,” he added. “It’s the same
ingredients of find someone to blame, make those people seem as
though they are lower than human, use the bias and prejudice and
bigotry to carry out the genocide.”

Holocaust recalled

At the Shore region, the Holocaust is remembered most publicly.

Across Monmouth and Ocean counties this week, schools and community
centers will host survivors and rescuers who tell firsthand accounts
of the world’s most-talked-about genocide.

Manfred Lindenbaum, 73, of Jackson is one of those survivors. He
still has trouble comprehending how such crimes against humanity
could be committed, but he speaks to schoolchildren to fuel
understanding in today’s generation.

“When a survivor speaks, the kids listen in a different way,” he
said. “We can really testify how rapidly the deterioration of
humanity came about.”

Fellow survivor Abe Chapnick also speaks.

Now 75 and living Howell, he spent more than three years as a young
man in three concentration camps in Poland and one in Germany.

“I speak because I feel that somehow I can relieve the suffering,” he
said. “I speak because I have an obligation to all the people who
didn’t make it.”

Connecting with history

Stories like those told by Lindenbaum and Chapnick only matter if
someone’s listening.

Dale Daniels, executive director of the Center for Holocaust Studies
at Brookdale Community College, said her center is working to create
more programs to connect history to today. The center now has a
traveling exhibit – featuring haunting black-and-white stills of
survivors – that will be in Monmouth and Ocean counties later this
year.

“Unfortunately, we know they won’t always be with us,” Daniels said.
“This is a way of permanently making them a part of the center.”

In her keynote address at Liberty State Park, Rosenblum will
emphasize that education can prevent genocide.

“Because they have become so sensitized to hatred and bigotry, they
look at things with much different glasses,” Rosenblum said. “That’s
the whole point.”

ON THE WEB: Visit our Web site, , and click on this story
for more information on Holocaust education in New Jersey.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Sun-Sentinel.com, FL
April 23 2006

Day to remember

Anna Topalian
Delray Beach
Posted April 23 2006

April 24 marks the 91st anniversary of the Armenian genocide
perpetrated by the Turks in 1915. They massacred 1.5 million
Armenians and drove thousands into the deserts to die. Women were
raped, men were killed, children were left without food or water.

The Armenian intelligensia were systematically killed. The Turks’
plan was to annihilate the Christian Armenian population of eastern
Turkey. Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity in A.D.
301.

This was man’s inhumanity to man. We shall never forget.

Armenian Chernobyl victims receive compensation worth $10

Regnum, Russia
April 23 2006

“The Armenian government did not adopt state program on aid for
relatives of victims of the Chernobyl tragedy this year, and Ministry
of Labor and Social Affairs believed it to be inexpedient to consider
proposals package of liquidators of the catastrophe’s consequences,”
stated assistant to president of Armenian Chernobyl Union Viktoria
Movsesyan, speaking with a REGNUM correspondent.

According to her, liquidators of consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy
have no special privileges. “They are supplied in the framework of
state order for disabled people. Moreover, privilege of paying only 50%
of price for public utilities is replaced by absolutely inadequate
money compensation worth 4,500 drams ($10),” she stressed. Also,
the assistant of Union president informed, state granted 2151,000
drams ($4780) on the occasion of 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl
NPP tragedy to organize events and to render material assistance
to invalids.

According to Viktoria Movsesyan, more than 400 disabled children
are Union members. They do not have the status of disabled people
and receive medical aid like all other Armenian citizens, despite
the fact, that the Republican Center of Radiation Medicine and Burns
receives medicines, which must be delivered to victims of Chernobyl
tragedy for free. “However, nobody of Chernobyl Union members went
to the law,” stressed Viktoria Movsesyan. April 26 is commemorated
as Memorial Day of Victims of Catastrophe at the Chernobyl NPP.

The Moscow Times, Russia
April 24 2006

Armenian Student Killed by Skinheads

By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer

An Armenian teenager standing on a crowded metro platform in the
heart of the city was stabbed to death Saturday by an unknown
attacker.

The slaying of Vagan Abramyants, 17, took place around 5 p.m. at the
Pushkinskaya metro station as the boy was en route to an Orthodox
Easter party.

A train heading to Vykhino entered the station, and seven young men
got off. Abramyants, who was with 11 acquaintances, was unexpectedly
attacked.

Interfax, citing police reports, reported that one of the men stabbed
Abramyants in the chest and that all of them fled on the departing
train. Abramyants died on the spot.

Witnesses said the attackers had shaved heads, black clothes and
boots, police said.

Abramyants’ death was the latest in a string of attacks across Russia
on dark-skinned people from the Caucasus, Asia, Africa and elsewhere.

Two weeks ago, a Senegalese student was shot dead with a gun with a
swastika on it. A young man shouting “Heil Hitler” stormed into a
central Moscow synagogue earlier this year, stabbing worshipers.

After the attack on Abramyants, dozens of police officers formed a
semicircle around the body, which lay sprawled in the central
corridor of the metro station, as shoppers, kids and couples streamed
past.

The upper body was covered with a sheet. Abramyants’ hands and feet
were visible; his legs, from the knees down, could also be seen.

The metro branch of the prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal
probe but has not yet classified the attack as a hate crime. No
suspects had been detained as of Sunday.

Ara Abramyan, an Armenian community leader, said Sunday that
Abramyants was a Russian citizen who lived in Tyoply Stan, in
southwestern Moscow.

Abramyants was a student at the Moscow Management Institute, Abramyan
said.

Abramyan, sounding a criticism that has become common among minority
leaders, accused the police of not acting aggressively enough against
skinheads.

“I was there yesterday and talked to the police chief,” Abramyan
said. “I can’t understand how a group of people could simply stab a
person in the metro in the very center of Moscow and get away. How
did the police manage not to arrest anyone? What about their video
cameras?”

Two million Armenians live in Russia, Abramyan said. He added that
Armenians have been advised against riding the metro in the evening
and going out in the outlying districts of cities, where most
racially motivated attacks occur.

A woman who phoned Ekho Moskvy radio Sunday, calling herself
Sharipova, said one of Abramyants’ acquaintances was also slashed on
the face.

Police and prosecutor’s office officials could not be reached for
comment.

Abramyants’ killing was not the only hate crime committed over the
weekend.

On Friday, four Chinese students from Kostroma State University were
beaten by three attackers near their dormitory in Kostroma, a city on
the Volga, RIA-Novosti reported.

The students were treated for minor injuries but did not require
hospitalization.

Police detained and charged three suspects in the attack, including
one who was also charged with an attack on an Azeri girl on Thursday.

Also, a Zambian student was attacked Saturday in St. Petersburg,
Interfax reported, citing police.

Police are not listing the attack on the student, whose name and age
they declined to disclose, as a hate crime, saying he was simply
robbed.

The student was on his way to visit an acquaintance on Shkolnaya
Ulitsa when an attacker hit him with a bottle on the head from
behind, and he fainted. When he regained consciousness, his wallet,
with 1,000 rubles, was missing.

In recent years, skinheads and other fascist groups have celebrated
April 20, Adolf Hitler’s birthday, by attacking dark-skinned people.

Azerbaijan Leader, Under Fire, Hopes U.S. Visit Improves Image
By C. J. CHIVERS

The New York Times
April 23, 2006 Sunday
Late Edition – Final

Next week, after years of waiting for an unequivocal nod of
Western approval, President Ilham H. Aliyev of Azerbaijan will
fly to Washington to be received at the White House, a visit his
administration hopes will lift his stature.

Being a guest of President Bush has been billed in Mr. Aliyev’s circle
as a chance for the 44-year-old president — dogged by allegations of
corruption, election rigging and repression of opposition figures —
to gain more international legitimacy.

“We have long waited for this visit,” said Ali Gasanov, a senior
presidential adviser. “Now it has been scheduled, and we hope that
we will be able to discuss global issues.”

For President Bush, who has made democracy promotion a prominent
theme of his foreign policy, Mr. Aliyev’s visit could prove tricky.

Mr. Aliyev’s invitation arrived during a period of increasing
diplomatic difficulties between the United States and both Russia
and Iran, countries that border Azerbaijan.

But while Azerbaijan’s strategic location could hardly be better and
its relations with the United States have mostly been warm, no leader
in the region more fully embodies the conflicting American objectives
in the former Soviet Union than its president.

Mr. Aliyev is a secular Muslim politician who is steering oil and gas
to Western markets and who has given political and military support to
the Iraq war. But his administration has never held a clean election
and has used riot police to crush antigovernment demonstrations.

The invitation, made last week, has raised eyebrows in the former
Soviet world, where Mr. Bush’s calls for democratization have increased
tensions between opposition movements and the entrenched autocrats.

Opposition leaders have long said the United States’ desires to
diversify Western energy sources and to encourage democratic growth
have collided in Azerbaijan. By inviting Mr. Aliyev to the White
House, they say, Mr. Bush has made a choice: oil and location now
trump other concerns.

Ali Kerimli, leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, noted that
when Mr. Aliyev was elected in 2003 in a vote deemed neither free nor
fair, the White House withheld an invitation, awaiting improvement
by Azerbaijan in promoting civil society and recognizing human rights.

“It is difficult for Azerbaijan’s democratic forces to understand
what changed,” said Mr. Kerimli, who was beaten by the police as were
several thousand demonstrators during a crackdown on a protest over
fraudulent parliamentary elections last fall. The demonstration had
been peaceful until the police rushed in with clubs.

“I think the White House must explain what has happened when three
years ago Aliyev was not wanted for a reception in the White House, and
now he falsifies another election and is received,” Mr. Kerimli said.

American officials insist nothing has changed, and say Mr. Aliyev
has been invited for what they call a “working visit,” during which
he will be urged to liberalize his government and its economy, which
is tightly controlled by state officials and clans.

“If we are going to elevate our relationship with Azerbaijan to
something that is qualitatively different, then there has to be
progress on democratic and market reforms,” a senior State Department
official said. “I am sure we will talk in these clear and blunt terms.”

The United States’ relationship with Azerbaijan rests on three
principal issues: access to energy resources, international security
cooperation, and democratic and economic change.

On the first two issues, the United States has made clear it is
satisfied. Mr. Aliyev has supported new pipelines to pump Caspian
hydrocarbons away from Russia and Iran to Western customers, and
provided troops to United States-led military operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq.

Azerbaijan also grants overflight rights to the American military and
is cooperating with a Pentagon-sponsored modernization of a former
Soviet airfield that could be used by American military planes.

Mr. Aliyev often welcomes foreign delegations to Baku, the capital,
describing in smooth English his efforts to push his nation toward
Western models of democracy and free markets.

But Azerbaijan has remained undemocratic. No election under Mr.
Aliyev or his late father, Heydar Aliyev, has been judged free or
fair by the main international observers. Instead, fraud and abuse
of state resources for chosen candidates have been widespread.

Ilham Aliyev’s government maintains a distinctly Soviet-era state
television network and has elevated Heydar Aliyev to the status of
a minor personality cult figure.

Moreover, Azerbaijan’s government is often described as one of
the world’s most corrupt. A criminal case now in federal court in
New York against three international speculators describes enormous
shakedowns and bribes in the late 1990’s at Socar, Azerbaijan’s state
oil company. Mr. Aliyev was a Socar vice president at the time.

Last year the Azerbaijani government showed signs of paranoia,
arresting several people shortly before the parliamentary election
and accusing them of plotting an armed coup.

Public evidence for the charges has been scarce, and a lawyer for two
of the men held in solitary confinement for months since — Farhad
Aliyev, the former minister of economics, and his brother Rafiq —
has urged Congress to raise issues of their treatment when Mr. Aliyev
comes to Washington. (The president is not related to the accused men.)

American officials say that Azerbaijan has been liberalizing slowly,
and evolving into a more responsible state. But given Mr. Aliyev’s
uneven record and the allegations against him, his visit has raised
fresh questions about the degree to which American standards are
malleable.

“Russian public opinion, when it looks at the United States policy in
Azerbaijan, cannot ignore the fact that the United States has a desire
not in favor of democracy but in favor of profits and geopolitical
domination,” said Sergei Markov, director of the Institute for
Political Studies here and a Kremlin adviser.

Mr. Markov and others have noted that the West has penalized Belarus
for police crackdowns after tainted elections last month.

“This is one of the reasons that Russian public opinion is very
suspicious of United States policies in the former Soviet political
sphere, and its propaganda about democracy,” Mr. Markov said.

“Ilham Aliyev will be in the White House not because he promotes
democracy,” Mr. Markov said. “He will be in the White House because
he controls oil.”

In Armenia, Mr. Aliyev’s invitation has also generated interest.

Armenia fought Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a wedge of territory
within Azerbaijan’s boundaries that each country claims. The conflict
has been frozen for several years, but Mr. Aliyev’s recent statements
have often been bellicose.

“The visit at this time should not be viewed as appreciation of their
democratic or other policies,” Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s foreign
minister, said via e-mail.

The Brockville Recorder and Times (Ontario)
April 22, 2006 Saturday
FINAL EDITION

REMEMBERING 20TH CENTURY’S FIRST GENOCIDE

BY SALIM MANSUR

In the spring of 1915 with Europe at war, the Turkish rulers of the
Ottoman Empire ordered the deportation and killing of the Armenian
population within their territory.

Between April 1915 and the end of the war in November 1918, the
organized destruction of a people identified by ethnicity and
religion was conducted by a government that ruled an empire in the
name of Islam.

The nationalist Turks who succeeded the defeated power-holders in
Istanbul continued the massacres of Armenians in eastern Anatolia and
into the Caucasus. Some 1.5 million Armenians perished during this
period between 1915 and 1923.

This destruction of the Armenian people was the first genocide of the
20th century, a prelude to what would come later under Hitler’s Third
Reich as the “final solution” for the Jews.

It took nearly 90 years for the Canadian parliament – by a vote of
153 (yeas) to 68 (nays) on April 21, 2004 – to pass a resolution
acknowledging the Armenian genocide and condemning it as a crime
against humanity.

Neither the passage of time required for such an acknowledgment nor
the number of parliamentarians voting on record against it came as a
surprise, since the mass murderers of our age well understand that
the human capacity to deny evil is far greater than our inclination
to oppose it.

A mere 24 countries around the world have acknowledged the facts of
the Armenian genocide, and with the exception of Lebanon – possessing
a sizable Christian population – there is a wall of silence on this
subject from the Muslim-majority member states of the United Nations.

On April 24 every year, Armenians remember their dead. It was on this
night in 1915 the Turkish government ordered arrests of Armenian
community leaders in Istanbul, marking the start of the genocide.

Turkey continues to dispute what occurred. It is a sensitive issue,
and Turks willing to critically examine the events relating to the
Armenian genocide face persecution from authorities for “insulting
Turkishness.”

Orhan Pamuk, the widely translated and respected Turkish writer, was
charged last year with the crime of insulting Turks when he told a
Swiss newspaper that “30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians were
killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares talk about it.” The
case was dropped in January this year under heavy pressure from the
European Union.

That the world is a cynical place is not news, however, nor is the
fact that human nature is flawed.

Even as I write this column, the systematic depredation of the
wretchedly poor in Darfur remains unabated – while the United Nations
and its grandees, led by Kofi Annan, quibble over the meaning of
“genocide.”

Historians and philosophers struggle to find lessons from the tales
of human wickedness, and teach future generations to do better.

It is in vain, for the collective ears of humanity remain stuffed
with wax. Prophets have admonished, as Amos of the Old Testament did:
“They drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the finest
oils; but they are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph.”

The lesson of history is that, to paraphrase Santayana, there is no
lesson.

Each generation gets tested by the evil of its time and, in learning
nothing from the past, fashions its denial of crimes witnessed.

The present generation, not to be outdone in ingenuity, incessantly
speaks of being history’s victim and denies bearing any
responsibility or accountability for the ruin of Joseph.

Salim Mansur is a columnist with the Toronto Sun.

The lesson of history is that, to paraphrase Santayana, there is no
lesson. Each generation gets tested by the evil of its time and, in
learning nothing from the past, fashions its denial of crimes
witnessed.

Las Vegas Sun
April 22 2006

Armenian left a ‘lasting legacy’

Genocide commemoration will go on, even though last survivor is gone
By Ed Koch <[email protected]>
Las Vegas Sun

At last year’s 90th annual Armenian genocide commemoration ceremony
in Las Vegas, Malvine Papazian Handjian, a frail and ailing
92-year-old genocide survivor, passed four lighted candles to four
local youths.

It was symbolic of lighting the way so that future generations will
not forget the horror she witnessed as a 10-year-old Armenian refugee
on the streets of Izmir, Turkey, during the first genocide of the
20th century.

Between 1915 and 1923, 1.5 million Armenians were killed as the
Ottoman Empire tried to rid the nation of Armenians.

Handjian died a month after the ceremony.

“She left a lasting legacy,” said her son-in-law John Dadaian,
chairman of the local genocide commemoration ceremony. “She was
motivated and articulate, and she long stood as a symbol of the truth
against those who say the genocide never happened. She survived to
tell her story over and over.”

Handjian told of atrocities – an Armenian priest being pulled out of
his burning church by his long beard before he was brutalized;
teenage girls carried off by Turkish soldiers to be raped and killed.

“We must never forget – never forget,” Handjian told the Sun in an
April 24, 2004, story. “I saw these things with my own eyes. And I
will never forget.”

Commemoration services this year begin at 1 p.m. Sunday at Christ
Lutheran Church, 111 N. Torrey Pines Drive. Dadaian called for
recognition of the genocide, which has become a political hot potato.
While Armenians have pushed for such recognition, Turks have argued
against it and in many cases denied it.

Dadaian says no U.S. president since Ronald Reagan has formally
recognized the mass slayings as a genocide.

Congress has twice passed resolutions – once in 1975 and again in
1984 – recognizing the Armenian genocide, but not recently. Sen. John
Ensign, R-Nev., has introduced a resolution in the Senate that would
recognize the genocide.

Gov. Kenny Guinn issued a proclamation recognizing “the 91st
anniversary of the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.”

Among those scheduled to attend Sunday’s commemoration ceremony,
sponsored by the Armenian American Cultural Society of Las Vegas, are
Ensign, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar
Goodman, who met with local Armenian-Americans who want to build a
genocide monument on city land.

An estimated 20,000 people of Armenian descent live in Southern
Nevada .

Handjian was the last known genocide survivor in the Las Vegas
Valley. She and her late husband, Kourken, also a genocide survivor,
were the subject of the 2002 documentary film “The Handjian Story: A
Road Less Traveled,” produced and directed by their granddaughter,
Denise Gentilini. The movie, which won an award at the Moondance Film
Festival in Denver, is used in classrooms to teach about the
genocide.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Western Daily Press
April 22, 2006 Saturday

We’ve been nuked!

All they want to do is cycle to China – but yesterday an intrepid
West adventurer and his two pals became the latest casualties in the
ongoing nuclear row between the US and Iran.

Presidents George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won’t have heard of
Chris Taylor from Little Somerford, Wiltshire. But the 21-year-old is
certainly cursing them.

For Mr Taylor and his two friends George Wallis and Dave Wilson have
been barred from entering Iran, after cycling all the way to the
border and waiting two weeks for their visa applications to be dealt
with.

And now the trio – who are cycling about 10,000 miles to China to
raise money for Oxford’s Children’s Hospital and Medicins Sans
Frontiers – have had to redraw their plans considerably.

Instead of cycling straight on through Iran, into central Asia and on
to Beijing, they have had to turn left and head north around the
Islamic Republic.

And their woes don’t end there – for the border between Turkey and
Armenia is closed.

That means the cyclists will have to go that little bit further to
Georgia, skirt round Armenia and head instead for Baku, the capital
of neighbouring Azerbaijan, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Then
the three will have to catch a ferry across the world’s biggest
inland sea, to continue their journey from the other side.

The ferry crossing actually means that – despite the delays – the
trio will have to cycle 500 kilometres less, thanks to President
Ahmadinejad.

The trio found themselves stuck in the eastern Turkish city of
Erzurum while waiting to cross the nearby Iranian border.

“Our visa agency strung this saga out for four days, ” explained Mr
Taylor. “After resolving to camp in a phone box until we had an
answer, we finally received the bad news: unless we wanted to be
accompanied by a guide, the Alien Affairs Bureau stated that we could
not travel to Iran.”

He added: “We are obviously disappointed at not being able to
experience Iran, as our planned route would have taken us through
some of the major, historic Silk Road towns.

“Iran is also widely regarded as a very hospitable country, although
judging by our experience so far, I am sure both Georgia and
Azerbaijan will be equally friendly towards us.”

As the Western Daily Press reported last month, the three have had a
series of adventures on their travels through the Balkans and Turkey.
When the trio cycled through eastern Turkey they became instant media
stars, with camera crews and reporters following their every move.

The trio are now setting off for Georgia, and hope to arrive in
Beijing in August. For more information on their adventures, log on
to