The International Herald Tribune
May 5, 2006 Friday
Civility vs. free speech: A democratic quandary;
Europa
by Richard Bernstein
Some years ago there were a number of unsuccessful efforts at
American universities to enact hate-speech codes that would have
punished students and faculty for expressing opinions or hurling
epithets that would have insulted others because of their race, sex,
sexual orientation or handicap.
Most of these efforts failed, in part because they presented too
sharp a contradiction with the right of free speech. And indeed,
despite the United States’ sad history of slavery and racism, the
American value of free speech, even deeply offensive free speech, has
generally taken priority over the value of protecting the feelings of
minorities.
There have been a few reminders lately that this is not the case in
Europe, with its even sadder history of genocide I say sadder
because, however bad American racism has been, it never involved a
systematic effort actually to wipe out a people. David Irving, the
renegade British historian, has actually been sentenced to a term in
prison in Austria for the crime of Holocaust denial.
There is no doubt that Irving denied the Holocaust for years.
Moreover, the law is the law and to fail to enforce it on the
possible grounds that, however objectionable Irving’s views may have
been, it seems excessive to toss somebody in prison for them would
sap the law in general of its dignity.
But there have been other signs recently in some European countries
that the effort to protect people from insult has taken priority over
the value of free expression of uncivil views, and these instances
make one wonder whether Europe has made the right choice.
There is, for example, the case in Poland of Kaziemira Szczuka, a
well-known television personality, who, a few weeks ago, mimicked the
high-pitched voice of a severely disabled 18-year-old who frequently
reads prayers on a far-right Roman Catholic radio station, Radio
Maryja. The station that aired Szczuka’s little satire was fined the
equivalent of ¤125,000, or $157,000, by Poland’s National
Broadcasting Council, which found the satire an unacceptable insult
to a disabled person and to religious belief, even though Szczuka
said she didn’t know the young prayer reader was disabled.
One could certainly argue that civil behavior does not allow ridicule
of anybody’s religious belief viz: that small Danish newspaper and
its satirical cartoons on the Prophet Muhammad. But mockery, even if
it is in bad taste, cannot be made a criminal offense in a democratic
society.
This is especially true if the mockery is of Radio Maryja, which is
estimated to have four million to six million listeners a day and
does not hesitate to take part in Poland’s political battle,
entreating its listeners to vote for President Lech Kaczynski’s Law
and Justice party and against Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform in
elections last autumn.
The radio’s emphasis on piety, exemplified in the broadcast prayers
of the young handicapped woman, provide a kind of support for its
political urgings.
There are other problems with the Szczuka case. A few weeks after her
television station was punished because of her remarks, the Polish
authorities conspicuously did not punish Radio Maryja itself after
one of its regular guests made some remarks that Poland’s
professional journalists’ association and many others found to be
blatantly anti-Semitic. This unevenness of enforcement suggests that
hate-speech codes can be politically interpreted and politically
enforced.
Several European countries, committed to a sort of absolute civility,
enforce laws against hate speech almost routinely. In March, the
German government banned a group of Turkish nationalists who wanted
to march in support of their tasteless and erroneous idea that the
genocidal massacres of Armenians in Turkey during World War I never
took place.
And there is an ongoing trial in Mannheim of Ernst Zundel, an
Internet purveyor of primitive anti-Semitism and of the notion that
the Holocaust is a Jewish myth created to exact tribute from a
gullibly guilty world. Zundel, who committed his acts of Holocaust
denial while living in Canada and the United States, is a challenge
to free-speech absolutists. Look up ”Zundelsite” on the Internet
and you will see what I mean.
You will also find on the Web that Zundel is viewed as a sort of cult
hero by an undeterminable number of people who have come to support
his 25-year career of Holocaust denial and who see him, now that he
is on trial for his views, as a martyr to a suppressed truth.
The trial itself has been a circus, well described in the German
press. At one point, Zundel’s lawyer was barred from the court after
making what the journalistic observers saw as neo-Nazi speeches, even
finishing up one peroration with the phrase, ”Heil Hitler!” She
played successfully to a courtroom audience made up of 80 to 100
Zundel supporters who have raised their arms in what appeared to be
the Nazi salute.
The trial itself, in other words, has at least to some extent become
a platform for the propagation of the very ideas whose expression
brought about the trial in the first place. Equally perverse, in
prosecuting Zundel, the state has helped to create a thrilling sense
of illicit community and radical solidarity among those interested in
rebellion against the established moral order.
In Germany, of course, it is not difficult to understand the yearning
to enforce the rules of civility. The victims of the Holocaust are
certainly morally entitled to protection from the vicious calumnies
of people like Zundel.
The question is: Should they also be legally entitled to that
protection? Perhaps, sadly and although this flies in the face of a
near European consensus they shouldn’t be.
During the uproar over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, Muslims
attacked the Holocaust denial laws in several European countries as
rank hypocrisy because those same countries permitted insults to
Muslims, and, as the American legal scholar Ronald Dworkin observed
recently in The New York Review of Books, they had a point. But,
Dworkin continued, the response should not be to broaden the coverage
of the laws against insult to religion but to strike them down.
Free speech, he argues, is an indispensable requirement of a
democratic society, not something that can be bargained away to
mollify this or that offended group.
And so, as an American in Europe and a Jew mightily offended by
Holocaust denial, I nonetheless come down on the side of free speech
rather than on the prohibition of offensive speech. One of the
cultural differences between America and Europe in this regard is
that in America this issue is debated. In Europe it is not.
–Boundary_(ID_WaltCu64u4F1SZUgkZmOtg)–

AZERBAIJAN: FOUR PEOPLE MORE ARE JUDGED FOR BETRAYAL OF MOTHERLAND
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 3, 2006 Wednesday
In the grave crimes Court under the chairmanship of Gadim Babaev
private session of the court on the case of four military people
accused on the basis of Article 274 (Motherland betrayal) and 338.1
(infringement of action post rules) has taken place. All the four
military are accused of giving Armenia secret information. Soldiers
of military service for a regular term Binali Mamedaliev (arrested in
October 2005), Shakhriar Ismailov, Shamkhal Agadzhamaliev and Parviz
Khabibov (arrested in 2006) served in Fizulinskiy region. During
their service time they were hooked by Armenians and worked for them.
The hearing of the case will take place on May, 4. As there it concerns
secret information, the case will be closed, and no information
is given about any mentioned facts. It is not the first case when
Azerbaijan soldiers are judged for cooperation with Armenians. Armed
Forces command has not yet given any explanation to the facts.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
May 3, 2006 Wednesday
COMMITTEE ON ARMENIA NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
HAD A SESSION IN YEREVAN
The 4th session of Interagency committee on Armenia National Security
Strategy project development too place today in Yerevan. Armenia
Defense Department Press-secretary Colonel Seyran Shakhsuvaryan
stated that the session was conducted under the chairmanship of
Armenia President Serzh Sarkisyan. The members of the 4th session
chose from 250 offers and included in the agenda the ones concerning
the following topics: Armenia outer security strategy, All-Armenian
integration strategy. After exchanging opinions, amendments have been
made and the offers accepted. The Committee secretariat is
responsible for editing the new topics.

Turkey warns France ties could be hit by Armenian genocide bill
Agence France Presse — English
May 3, 2006 Wednesday 11:08 AM GMT
Turkey warned France Wednesday that bilateral ties could suffer if
the French parliament adopts a bill that would criminalize any denial
that Armenians massacred during World War I were victims of genocide.
“In our meetings (with French officials), we stress that adoption
of the bill could lead to irreparable damage in long-standing
Turkish-French ties and that this should not be allowed,” foreign
ministry spokesman Namik Tan told a press conference here.
Tan said Ankara is doing everything it can to block the bill, adding
that the French government is doing the same.
The bill, expected to be voted later this month, provides for one
year’s imprisonment and a 45,000 euro (57,000 dollar) fine for denying
that Armenians were victims of genocide, according to Turkish press
reports.
If adopted, it will follow a 2001 French decision that infuriated
Turkey by acknowledging that the mass killings in the dying days of
the Ottoman Empire amounted to genocide.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in
orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917 by Turks, as the Ottoman
Empire, modern Turkey’s predecessor, was falling apart.
Turkey categorically rejects the claims, saying 300,000 Armenians and
at least as many Turks died in civil strife when the Armenians took
up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian
troops invading Ottoman soil.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

French experts trying to detect A-320 flight recorders’ signals
by Galina Solodovnikova
ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 4, 2006 Thursday 03:54 AM EST
The French experts have begun the search for the flight recorders of
the Armenian Airbus A-320 that plunged into the Black Sea on May 3.
“Despite the fact that the French have brought along all the necessary
equipment for the search of flight recorders, they are unlikely to
be found,” technical director for safety problems of the Interstate
Aviation Committee /IAC/ Rudolf Teimurazov told Itar-Tass.
He explained that “the equipment of the French experts has to detect
signals emitted by the flight recorders, but even if these signals come
in, it will be extremely difficult to pinpoint their exact location.”
The IAC remarked that “flight recorders of foreign origin have small
beacons emitting signals at a certain frequency using their own
electric charge.”
According to head of the Federal Air Navigation Service Alexander
Neradko, “the crashed A-320 had at least two flight recorders that
logged voice messages and flight parameters.”
Deputy head of the Emergency Situations Ministry’s operations
department Andrei Legoshin said the rescuers engaged in the operation
at the A-320 plane crash near Sochi, are monitoring and cleaning fuel
spills caused by the accident and collecting aircraft fragments.
“The second task for today is to scan the sea ground at the crash
site, to detect and hoist plane fragments,” Legoshin told reporters,
adding that the sea has calmed which makes the job much easier.

Armenian, Azeri presidents to meet over N Karabakh in June
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 5, 2006 Friday
A meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny
Karabakh will be held in early June within the framework of a meeting
of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
However, the exact date and the place of the two presidents’ meeting
haven’t been defined yet, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan
said at a forum devoted to the 5th anniversary of Armenia’s membership
in the Council of Europe.
According to Oskanyan, “the Armenian and Azerbaijanian foreign
ministers will discuss issues of preparations of the presidents’
meeting at their meeting in Strasbourg in two weeks.”
“The further pace of the negotiation process,” Oskanyan said,
“mainly depends on the availability of political will on the part of
Azerbaijan’s authorities.” “Just before a meeting of the presidents
in Rambouillet Armenia had made certain steps, and we expect that
the Azerbaijanian side will undertake return steps which will make
it possible to move the process,” the minister said.
The Armenian foreign minister urged not to look for ” a political
hidden motive in the fact that the co-chairmen of the Minisk OSCE
Group for Nagorny Karabakh, representing Russia, France and the United
States, haven’t visited the region together of late.
According to Oskanyan, it was “caused by lack of coincidence of the
mediators’ schedules, in the next few days, a joint visit of the
co-chairmen to the region will be held.”

Sydney MX (Australia)
May 4, 2006 Thursday
SYD Edition
TAKE IT ON DARCHINYAN
So good is Australia’s latest boxing import that his rivals are
running scared to higher weight divisions, as BEN BLASCHKE reports
Vic Darchinyan stands less than 167cm and smiles like an astronaut
in outer space, but walk into his left hand and there’s no doubt who
will be seeing stars.
The Armenian-born world champion is today’s version of the smiling
assassin – a lean, mean punching machine with a ruthless streak that
belies his otherwise amicable nature.
“I read the other day that I’m the hardest puncher pound for pound
and I love it,” he said this week in his best broken English.
“I know I can hit hard. It’s not (just) pleasure knocking people
out – I love it. I love entering the ring. I feel a bit sorry for
my opponent.
“The last one (Diosdado Gabi) – in one punch I broke his chin, one
punch knockout. It’s good.”
Did he have any contact with Gabi afterwards?
“No I didn’t have any contact with him,” Darchinyan said.
“The next day I saw him and his chin was already (indicates swollen
face) … I feel sorry for him, but what can I do? If I don’t punch
him he’ll punch me back.”
Clearly, Darchinyan – the IBF world flyweight champion makes no
apologies for the havoc he wreaks.
Unbeaten in 25 fights – 20 by knockout – he will be looking to add
to his already imposing record when he faces Mexican slugger Luis
Maldonado in Las Vegas next month. And he has the same fate planned
for the veteran Maldonado.
“He is undefeated and has 25 knockouts, but I know I will do the job
and I know I will knock him out,” Darchinyan said.
Following in the footsteps of his predecessor Kostya Tszyu, who
emigrated to Australia from Russia in 1991 and went on to unite the
belts in the junior welterweight division, Darchinyan is quickly
forging a fierce reputation in the name of his new homeland after
becoming Australia’s sole world champion two years ago.
Trained by three-time world champ Jeff Fenech, he has obliterated
all before him since returning permanently after the Sydney Olympics
and is already tipped to go down as one of the greatest of all Aussie
fighters.
“Without doubt he’s the best flyweight in the world right now and
soon he’ll unify the titles,” Fenech predicted, looking ahead to
potential bouts with WBA champ Lorenzo Parra and WBC holder Pongsaklek
Wonjongkam.
“He can punch up three or four weight divisions – he’s right up with
the best of them.”
Of more concern to Darchinyan is where to go from here.
A recent trip to Mexico to take on highly rated local Jorge Arce was
supposed to set him up for a run through the division, but instead
exposed Darchinyan’s greatest hurdle – fear.
“I challenged him, but he didn’t take my fight – he moved up a weight
division. He doesn’t want to fight me,” Darchinyan said.
“I don’t think people are running scared – I know they’re scared.
Why don’t they want to fight me?
I’m not the challenger, I am champion. They have to fight me to get
my belt, but they still won’t fight me.
“I’ll challenge (Arce) again and if he still doesn’t want to fight
me I’ll jump up too because no one wants to fight me in my weight
division.
“I want to go up, I want to show everyone I am strong – in any weight
division.”

Edmond Kassapian
by Shirley Lau
South China Morning Post
May 5, 2006 Friday
La Rochelle-based Edmond Kassapian is the president of Genevieve
Lethu, a 15-year-old French tableware and cutlery brand that opened
its first store in Hong Kong in December. An Armenian born in France,
Kassapian has a penchant for Chinese tableware, although, he says,
when it comes to fine quality you can’t beat France.
“I like the beautiful colours and designs of Chinese tableware,
especially those with lovely flowers. The details are very precise.
In terms of quality, however, French products are relatively finer and
more sophisticated. But, of course, Chinese antiques are excellent.”
Should top tableware be used for dining or for display only?
“In France, every family used to keep a very expensive set of tableware
at home. You put it on display and only used it once or twice in a
lifetime – perhaps when your grandfather came to visit or at your
wedding. It was so expensive you worried about breaking it.
This was silly, but it was the French way. Now things are changing.
People would rather spend the money on a plasma TV or a trip abroad.
They still want beautiful tableware, but it has to be inexpensive.
That’s why the prices of many tableware brands have gone down.”
How does the look of tableware play a part in a dining experience?
“Aesthetics are integral to dining and wining. When you have friends
over for dinner, you want to make sure you have a good time. You serve
them with good food on beautiful plates. It’s not just the meal that
matters, but also the decoration of everything on the table.”
So nice plates make the food taste nicer?
“You can put fois gras on the floor and eat it. Or you can put it
on a nice plate. It should taste the same. But the sentiment will be
very different.”

Govt. to assign 100,000 to family of every Russian air crash victim
By Galina Solodovnikova
ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 7, 2006 Sunday 10:07 AM EST
The government plans to assign 100,000 rubles to the family of every
Russian citizen killed in the Sochi air crash, Transport Minister
and investigation commission head Igor Levitin told a Sunday press
conference.
In addition, the families will receive 20,000 rubles from the Armavia
Armenian airline, he said.
“Sochi authorities have decided to pay 500,000 rubles to each local
family of the air crash victims and to bear the funeral expenses,”
he said.
“The governmental investigation commission will now move to Moscow
and visit the crash scene whenever necessary,” Levitin said.

The Washington Post
May 7, 2006 Sunday
Final Edition
Unfurling New Glory: America’s International Anthem
You say, “O say,” they say, “O zog!” “O! sagt” “O dites.” Let’s call
the whole thing a land of immigrants.
After Latino pop stars recently recorded “The Star-Spangled Banner”
in Spanish as “Nuestro Himno,” President Bush said the song should be
sung in English. But for generations the anthem has been rendered in
the voices of assorted Old Countries. Here are eight published
versions. All together now, with feeling!
English: O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Armenian: Usek gurnak took ter desnel vagh aikoon
Mutunshaghin ain turoshn mer woghtchoonads
Yiddish: O zog! konstu zen in likht fun sof nakht,
Vos mir hobn bagrist in demer-shayn mit freyd?
Samoan: Aue! se’i e vaai, le malama o ataata mai
Na sisi a’e ma le mimita, i le sesega mai o le vaveao
Polish: Ach! czy widac tam, patrzaj w swit bracie moj,
Dumny znak nasz co lsnil wczora gdy gasly zorza?
German: O! sagt, koennt ihr seh’n, In des Morgenroths Strahl,
Was so stolz wir im scheidenden Abendroth gruessten?
French: O dites, voyez-vous, Dans la lumière du jour
Le drapeau qu’on saluait, À la tombée de la nuit?
Spanish: Amanece, lo veis, a la luz de la aurora,
Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer?
— David Montgomery
–Boundary_(ID_fyTu9+6W7nyReu1amvhc6g) —