TEAM REPORTING PROJECT
International Journalist’s Network
Sept 27 2005
Oct 01, 2005 – Oct 10, 2005
Training
In Yerevan, Armenia. Organized by the Media Diversity Institute
(MDI). MDI says it will select eight applicants for the program,
four each from Armenia and Georgia. Their base will be Yerevan during
the program, as the journalists will travel around the country to do
their reporting. The journalists will produce their programs together
and make them available for free to stations in their home countries.
Interested radio journalists should send their CV and letter of
interest to their local MDI country coordinator. Armenian journalists
should contact Artur Papyan at [email protected],
telephone +374 (1) 53 00 67, or visit 9B Ghazar Parpetsi str., 375003,
Yerevan. Georgian journalists should contact Elena Aladashvili at
[email protected] or visit 10 Chovelidze St.,
Room No. 304, Tbilisi.

CYPRIOT ARMENIANS SUBMIT CANDIDACIES FOR BY-ELECTION
Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Sept 27 2005
Three members of the Armenian religious group have submitted their
candidacies today for the post of new representative of the Armenian
religious group to the House of Representatives that will take place
9 October 2005.
The new representative will succeed Bedros Kalaydjian, who passed
away on 1st September at the age of 71.
Vahakn Atamyan, Antranig Ashdjian and Parsegh Zartarian submitted their
candidacies to Chief Returning Officer Lazaros Savvides who said that
around 1,950 Armenians are eligible to vote in the by-election.
He also said that four voting centers will operate, two at the
Armenian elementary school “Narek” in Nicosia, one at Larnaca District
Administration and another at Limassol District Administration. The
new representative will be declared at the Interior Ministry around
1930 local time on 9 October.
In statements, Ashdjian said he submitted his candidacy, with the
main concern to preserve the national identity, language and culture
of the Armenian community.
Ashdjian further said he feels he can get the Armenians out of the
deadlock which they are now in, noting that one of the issues which
they are facing is the future of the Armenian Melkonian Institute.
The Melkonian school closed this year but Armenians have been
campaigning to prevent the land from being sold off. The government
has declared 60% of the land as national heritage, while suits are
still ongoing for the remaining 40%.
On his part, Atamyan said that if he is elected, “I will try to do
everything to find a solution to the problems which the Armenian
community is facing”.
One of his priorities, he added, would be to save the Melkonian
Institute, to end the destruction and restore the historical and
religious monuments of the community in the Turkish occupied north of
Cyprus and continue the legacy of brothers Aram and Bedros Kalaydjian
to further develop relations with Armenian political forces.
Zartarian said that the Armenian community has matured and now is
the time for an independent candidate to win the elections.
He also said that he has the ideas and abilities to work with the
Armenians to solve the problems, which they are facing.
The three religious groups, belonging to the Greek Cypriot community,
Latins, Armenians and Maronites, elect a representative each to the
House, who does not take up one of the 56 parliamentary seats.

SYSTEM OF A DOWN TURNS POLITICAL FOR HOUSE BILL
By Lisa Friedman, Washington Bureau
Los Angeles Daily News
Sept 27 2005
WASHINGTON – A San Fernando Valley-based rock band plans to rally
today in front of House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s Illinois office
in the hope of pressuring Congress to pass a politically sensitive
resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.
Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, said he and fellow
band members – all of Armenian descent – hope to “get attention for
the cause” and encourage Hastert to bring the bill to House vote.
The resolution sponsored by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, would
have Congress formally declare that the Ottoman Empire engaged in
genocide against 1.5 million Armenians after World War I. The House
International Relations Committee passed it 35-11.
The State Department opposes the resolution, arguing that its passage
would undermine U.S. relations with Turkey, which continues to deny
that a genocide took place.
Hastert and other GOP leaders have vowed to prevent a full House vote.
Hastert officials referred questions on the genocide bill to Majority
Leader Tom DeLay. A DeLay spokesman said the resolution is not
scheduled for a vote because Gulf Coast hurricane legislation is
Congress’ top priority.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

VLADIMIR NAUMOV TO TAKE PART IN MEETING OF CIS COUNCIL OF INTERIOR MINISTERS IN YEREVAN ON SEPTEMBER 29-30
National Legal Internet Portal, Belarus
Sept 27 2005
Issues on the fight against corruption in the CIS member-states will
be considered on September 29-30 in the Armenian capital Yerevan at
a meeting of the CIS council of interior ministers. Head of the law
enforcement bodies of this republic Vladimir Naumov will take part
in the meeting as well, BelTA was informed in the information and
public relations department of the interior ministry of Belarus.
The participants of the meeting will discuss intensification of
the cooperation between the CIS law enforcement bodies in combating
illegal migration and will analyze the course of implementation of
the plan of the CIS council of interior ministers on counteracting
terrorism for 2005. They will also consider possible creation of a
periodical of the council.
Within the framework of the sitting in Yerevan Belarus and Armenia
plan to sign a bilateral protocol on cooperation between the interior
ministry of the Republic of Belarus and the police of the Republic
of Armenia for 2006-2007.

NO ELECTION WITHOUT VIOLATION
A1+
| 13:14:14 | 27-09-2005 | Politics |
Contrary to foreign observers Electoral Systems public organization
has fixed various violations during the election held in Kentron
and Arabkir.
The observers visited 12 out of 49 polling stations of Arabkir
community and 7 out of 54 polling stations of Kentron community. In
Arabkir the observers fixed violations such as group voting, refusal
to accept complaints, propaganda attempts. Similar violations were
observed in Kentron community.
The observing group of the Electoral Systems will issue the final
report within a month upon completion of the election to the local
self-government.

“NEVER REMEMBER”
By Don Feder
FrontPage magazine.com, CA
Sept 27 2005
A committee appointed by the British government, composed of Muslims,
wants the nation to scrap its Holocaust Memorial Day, in the name of
inclusiveness and sensitivity. No word yet on whether they also want
to eliminate Passover – said to be insensitive to Egyptians.
The committee recommends replacing the observance (started in 2001
and held annually on January 27) with a Genocide (a.k.a., Victimhood)
Day, which would recognize the alleged mass murder of Muslims in
“Palestine,” Chechnya, Bosnia, and wherever else followers of the
Religion of Peace have come into conflict with the accursed infidel.
In making its case for inclusiveness, the committee somehow neglected
to mention the many victims of Muslim mayhem – Armenians, Sudanese
Christians, Kosovar Serbs (ethnically cleansed in the wake of NATO’s
war on Yugoslavia), and Hindus – to name but a few. If an Arab stubbed
his toe on the boot of a Christian knight sometime in the 11th century,
it’s a crime against humanity that must be memorialized throughout
the ages, according to the imams. On the other hand, the slaughter of
infidels is seen as the will of Allah, and worthy of a Heavenly reward.
The committee maintains that Britain’s Holocaust Memorial Day fuels
feelings of isolation and alienation among Muslim youth. And, well,
to have a special commemoration of the systematic slaughter of one
in every three Jews on earth (in an effort to annihilate an entire
people), is grossly unfair, the committee suggests.
Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary general of the Muslim Council of
Britain, cautions: “We can never have double standards in terms of
human life. Muslims feel hurt and excluded that their lives are not
equally valuable to those lives lost in the Holocaust time.”
Perhaps Sir Iqbal also believes that 9/11 memorials should pay homage
to the Muslims in the planes, as well as the infidels in the office
buildings – so that his coreligionists won’t feel that their lives
have less meaning.
To understand the obscenity of Iqbal’s equation of the Holocaust with
casualties in the aforesaid armed conflicts, consider the Muslims
favorite “genocide”: that supposedly inflicted on the Palestinians.
Since the onset of the latest Intifada (started and maintained by
Muslims), 4,000 Palestinians have died, out of a population of more
than 1 million. Most were combatants. At the same time, almost 1,000
Israelis have lost their lives – overwhelmingly civilians, mostly
women, children, and the elderly. Palestinian society celebrates
jihad and suicide bombings. Israeli society unilaterally relinquishes
territory in its quest for peace.
For the Palestinian/Holocaust analogy to be valid, Israel would have
to be operating death camps – herding naked Muslims into gas chambers
and burning their remains in crematoria. And Jerusalem would have to
have slaughtered every third Palestinian in the world.
Instead the Palestinian population has increased dramatically –
as has their life expectancy and standard of living – since Israel
came into possession of the territory they inhabit at the end of the
Six-Days War. To put it in Shakespearean terms, genocide should be
made of sterner stuff.
Muslims can’t stand the thought of Holocaust commemorations, because,
with certain honorable exceptions, Islam’s attitudes toward the Jews
frequently mirror those of the Nazi killers.
Islamic polemicists have three responses to the destruction of
European Jewry: 1) It never happened; 2) It happened, but the numbers
are grossly exaggerated, and Zionist leaders collaborated with the
Nazis; and 3) It happened, and the Jews, those enemies of humanity,
had it coming.
Mahmoud Abbas, capo mafioso of the Palestinian Authority and renowned
moderate, is the author of a 1983 book entitled, The Other Side:
The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In
it, the first president of Palestine (if Washington has its way)
maintains that Hitler killed “only a few hundred thousand Jews,” not
six million. Moreover, the Zionist leadership “was a partner in the
slaughter of the Jews” – supposedly to create sympathy for the Jews,
thus facilitating the creation of the Jewish state.
Holocaust denial is rampant in the Muslim world.
In 1964, then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nassar (who precipitated
the Six-Days War) insisted:, “No one…takes seriously the lie about
six million Jews who were murdered.”
In 2000, a columnist for The Syria Times wrote, “The most famous myth
is that of the so-called Holocaust… We strongly believe that gas
chambers were not used for burning (sic.) Jews.”
Also in 2000, Sheikh Adel Bin Ahmad Bana’ma, a Saudi religious
authority speaking at a Jeddah mosque, charged that Jews “disseminate
everywhere the lie of the Holocaust and claim that Hitler killed six
million Jews in gas chambers…This is pure falsehood.”
A year later, Palestinian religious leader Sheikh Ibrahim Mahdi
declared, “One of the Jews’ evil deeds has come to be called the
Holocaust.” However, the Sheikh insisted, it has been irrefutably
proven that “this crime, carried out against some of the Jews, was
planned by the Jews’ leaders.”
Like other Holocaust-deniers, those of the Islamic world aren’t just
flat-Earth cranks, but virulent anti-Semites. Except for a handful
of European skinheads and Aryan Nation types holed up in Idaho, The
Protocols of The Learned Elders of Zion is still taken seriously only
among Muslims – where it’s the Harry Potter of Middle East publishing.
This Czarist forgery (which purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy to
control humanity) is ubiquitous in jihad land. Saudi Arabia’s late
King Faisal often gave copies to foreign visitors. Yasser Arafat
was a fan. Arab periodicals quote it religiously, to demonstrate
the perfidy of the Jews. In 2002, Egyptian television broadcast a
41-episode, dramatized version of The Protocols, entitled. “Horseman
Without A Horse.”
The roots of Islamic anti-Semitism run deep. Mohammed never forgave
the Jews for rejecting his message. After he came to power, Jewish
tribes in the Arabian peninsula were converted by the sword, or
massacred. The Koran is rife with the Prophet’s disdain for Jews. (He
called them descendants of apes and pigs.) Alongside this are calls
to fight the Jews, who are indicted as the enemies of Allah.
Over the centuries, this theological anti-Semitism has evolved into
a conviction that Jews are the repositories of evil in the world and
Islam’s principal enemies.
It’s not surprising that the resurgence of widespread anti-Semitism
on the European continent, after years of quiescence, parallels the
influx of Middle East Muslims.
When Pope John Paul II paid a state visit to Syrian President Bashar
Al-Assad in 2001, he must have thought he’d stepped off the plane and
into a Nuremberg rally. In welcoming the pontiff, Assad proclaimed,
“They [the Jews] try to kill all the principles of divine faiths
with the same mentality of betraying Jesus Christ and torturing Him,
and in the same way that they tried to commit treachery against the
Prophet Mohammed.”
One who took the Prophet’s call to its logical conclusion was Hajj Amin
al-Husseini, grand mufti of Jerusalem before World War II. The mufti
spent the war years in Berlin as an honored guest of Adolf Hitler.
Working from his office in the capital of the Third Reich, al-Husseini
devoted himself to a Nazi victory, recruiting spies to serve in
the Middle East and raising a Bosnian Muslim division of the Waffen
SS. Described at Nuremberg as one of Eichmann’s best friends, the mufti
even visited Auschwitz and urged those who ran the gas chambers to
“work more diligently.”
In a radio broadcast from Berlin on November 2, 1943, Hitler’s partner
in genocide condemned the Jews in language that echoed Mein Kampf :
“The overwhelming egotism which lies in the character of Jews,
their unworthy belief that they are God’s chosen nation and their
assertion that all was created for them and that other people are
animals” is the reason “[t]hey cannot mix with any other nation but
live as parasites among the nations, suck out their blood, embezzle
their property, corrupt their morals…The divine anger and curse
that the Holy Koran mentions with reference to the Jews is because
of this unique character of the Jews.”
After the war, the mufti met a young Yassar Arafat in Cairo, and the
torch was passed to the next generation of Islamo-fascists. (Arafat
often referred to the Nazi henchman as “our hero al-Husseini.”)
In his book, The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, Rabbi David Dalin discloses,
“Arafat continued the mufti’s Nazi legacy by recruiting Nazis
and neo-Nazis for Fatah and the PLO. In 1969, for example, the PLO
recruited two former Nazi instructors, Erich Altern, a leader of the
Gestapo’s Jewish affairs section, and Willy Berner, an SS officer
in the Mauthausen extermination camp. Another former Nazi, Johann
Schuller, was found supplying arms to Fatah.”
There are unavoidable parallels between Nazis and Islamists. Both
adhere to totalitarian ideologies (though one is disguised as a
religion); each group trains its adherents to kill without compunction
and to show mercy to neither the young nor old; both nurse historical
grudges and long for a settling of accounts; and each see Jews as
the principal obstacle to the achievement of its utopian vision.
Of course, British Muslims are offended by Holocaust Memorials. While
Nazism was a European phenomenon, post-World War II Hitler wannabes
are found almost exclusively in the Arab and Muslim world. After the
fall of Berlin, the center of anti-Semitic agitation shifted to Cairo,
Damascus, Tehran, Riyadh, and Ramallah.
If the Blair government is really in an appeasement mode, it
could balance Holocaust Memorial Day – and lessen the awful sense
of alienation among Muslim youth – with a Hajj Amin al-Husseini
Appreciation Day.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

YEREVAN SHOULD DISCUSS ASALA TERROR:
Turkish Daily News
Sept 27 2005
Turkish press yesterday
The controversial Armenian conference on the alleged massacre of
Armenians in the last century during the rule of the Ottoman Empire
ended on Sunday at Bilgi University. Views on the issue were freely
discussed, Hurriyet reported.
The paper noted that two Hurriyet readers asked the following question:
“What about our 32 diplomats, victims of the Armenian Secret Army for
the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), and the innocent Turks massacred
by Armenians? Will Yerevan hold a conference for our martyrs?”
ASALA is an Armenian group that was established with the stated
intention of compelling the Turkish government to publicly acknowledge
its alleged responsibility for the deaths of, according to ASALA,
1.5 million Armenians in 1915, and also for the Turkish government
to pay reparations and cede territory to Armenia.
Armenian terrorists killed Turkish diplomats in the 1970s. The
first victim in the series of terrorist attacks was Mehmet Baydar,
then Turkish consul general in Los Angeles, and his deputy Bahadýr
Demir. This individual action turned into organized Armenian terror
in 1975 and peaked in 1979. A total of 32 Turkish diplomats and four
foreign nationals were assassinated in these attacks, while 15 Turks
and 66 foreign nationals were wounded.
Here is an excerpt of a letter written to Hurriyet by Professor Cengiz
Kuday and businessman Cengiz Solakoðlu. The two Hurriyet readers said
they were pleased that the Armenian conference was held.
“We looked at what was discussed at the conference, yet this question
occupied our minds. Armenians always keep the events of 90 years ago
on the agenda; however, our 32 diplomat victims of ASALA and Turks
massacred by the Armenians are forgotten,” they said in the letter.
Milliyet reported that the second day of the twice-canceled conference
was quieter than the first. Participants easily entered the conference
hall since the protestors arrived late. Sessions were usually quiet,
but Hrant Dink’s story about an elderly Armenian woman in Sivas evoked
some tears.
In the meantime, Professor Ýlhan Cuhadaroðlu quit the conference
after accusing the participants of being one-sided.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal
claimed that the conference was held to accustom the public to
Armenian theses.
Cumhuriyet quoted Baykal as saying that the court decision to ban
the conference was incorrect.
An Istanbul court had suspended the Armenian conference but the
organizers decided to hold it at Bilgi University instead of the
state-run Boðazici University.
“The end of a taboo,” headlined Yeni Þafak, commenting that Turkey
managed to confront its past and show the world that it has broken
one more taboo.
Professor Baskýn Oran said the Armenian question was the last unbroken
taboo in Turkey and added that the conference was an indicator of
the last taboo being broken.
–Boundary_(ID_sa/vexJnGY8ZEsx073aM2A)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

POLITICAL ANALYSIS: SURVEY OF ANALYSTS ON ARMENIAN ISSUES
By M. Alkhazashvili
The Messenger, Georgia
Sept 27 2005
The non-profit group Armenian Assembly of America recently conducted
a survey in which 24 American and Western European experts, former
statesmen and analysts took part. An analysis of the survey shows
that in the opinion of these specialists, the situation in the frozen
Azeri-Armenian conflict may undergo a tidal shift to the benefit of
Azerbaijan in the coming years.
Since 2004, the Armenian Assembly’s Office of Research & Information
has conducted an annual survey in an effort to gauge analysts’
opinions of how Armenian issues are perceived in the United States
and Western Europe.According to the paper AZG Armenian Daily, the
survey was conducted by Tim Manook at St. Andrews University, UK,
and supervised by Emil Sanamyan at the Armenian Assembly.
When asked “which state of the near east would have positive or
negative influence on Armenia?” the answers were, as reported by
Akhali Taoba: 45 percent Azerbaijan, 16 percent Turkey, 11 percent
Russia and 9 percent Georgia.
Forty two percent of those questioned stated that if war takes place
in the next decade Armenia would win, though 29 percent stated that
conflict would result in a stalemate. The remainder did not answer.
But the situation changes after 2015. Thirty-three percent of
respondents believe that Azerbaijan will gain a military victory
over Armenia if war breaks at that time and only four percent predict
victory for Armenia in such a case.
As for the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, 62 percent of specialists
polled think that a change in the status quo of the region is not to
be expected in the near future.
Analysts pessimistically evaluate the prospects of U.S. relations
with Russia and Iran. At the same time they expect that U.S.
influence in the Caucasus region will increase.
As for Turkey’s integration into the European Union, the respondents
stated that this is unlikely to happen before 2020-2025 because,
according to their prognosis, Ankara will not recognize the Ottoman
Turks’ massacre of Armenians and will seek to deepen its relations
with Washington instead.
However, some of the analysts predicted that the U.S. itself would
recognize the Armenian genocide within the next five years. A
significant step toward such a recognition occurred on September
15, when the U.S. House of Representatives’ International Relations
committee approved a resolution to recognize the events as genocide by
a vote of 40-7. The government of Turkey has maintained that the events
in question were not caused by a state intention to eliminate Armenians
and that fewer people were killed then claimed by the Armenian side.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

KOCHARIAN LOYALIST WINS KEY ELECTION IN YEREVAN
By Shakeh Avoyan
Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep.
Sept 27 2005
A businessman close to President Robert Kocharian was declared on
Monday the winner of Sunday’s local election in Yerevan’s central
administrative district, but his opposition challenger refused to
conceder defeat, alleging serious fraud.
Preliminary official results of the vote showed Gagik Beglarian,
the incumbent prefect of the Kentron district, winning 86 percent of
the vote. Ruzan Khachatrian, the opposition candidate representing
the Artarutyun (Justice), alliance had only 12 percent, according to
the local election commission.
`The election in Kentron proceeded peacefully and there were no
serious incidents,’ its chairman, Yeghishe Terterian, told RFE/RL.
The election was monitored by representatives of the Council of Europe.
They said they visited 50 polling stations and witnessed no serious
irregularities. Still, their preliminary statement stopped short of
calling the vote free and fair.
Khachatrian, for her part, accused the authorities of rigging the
ballot by inflating voter lists and allowing Beglarian supporters to
vote more than once. `My proxies and commission members insist that
there were people who went to polling stations and voted for four or
even five times,’ she told RFE/RL. `They couldn’t do anything because
they were not allowed to check passports and write down their numbers.’
The opposition candidate earlier accused Beglarian of attempting
to bribe her proxies and the few election officials representing
Artarutyun. The prefect’s campaign chief denied the claims.
The vote in Kentron, Armenia’s biggest and wealthiest community,
was the most politicized of local elections that are being held
across the country. Artarutyun has not fielded any candidates
in other constituencies, highlighting the lack of opposition
interest in the polls. Its leaders avoided direct participation in
Khachatrian’s campaign and are now preparing for another showdown
with the government during the upcoming referendum on Kocharian’s
constitutional amendments.
Khachatrian claimed that the authorities tested in Kentron `new
mechanisms for electoral fraud which will be used during the
referendum.’ `It’s now harder to resort to ballot box stuffing,
but there are other pitfalls in this electoral code,’ she said,
adding that multiple voting will be the main vote rigging technique
at the referendum.
Sunday also saw an election in Yerevan’s second largest district,
Arabkir. Its acting prefect, Hovannes Shahinian, held off a challenge
from another pro-establishment candidate and won 70 percent of the
vote. Less than one third of Arabkir’s 87,960 eligible voters cast
their ballots. The voter turnout in Kentron was 43 percent, according
to official figures.

THE PROBLEMS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC MONITORING, SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTREPRENEURSHIP DISCUSSED
National Assembly of RA, Armenia
Sept 27 2005
On September 26, NA Speaker Artur Baghdasaryan received Consuelo Vidal,
UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia.
During the meeting the issues of deepening the cooperation of NA and
UN were discussed in the atmosphere of mutual understanding. Both
sides expressed readiness for the fulfillment of joint programs.
NA Speaker Artur Baghdasaryan highlighted the fulfillment of the
regional programs in Armenia with the emphasis of the development
of the marzes, the organization of the consultative assistance for
the development of the small and medium entrepreneurship and the
fulfillment of the aid projects to the poor families. During the
meeting an agreement was reached to continue the dialog on the public
monitoring and fulfillment of the corruption fighting projects. The
peoples’ awareness about their rights and the organization of the
consultative service, as well as the UN assistance to the electoral
processes: in training the electoral committee members, proxies and
local observers were highlighted.
During the meeting other issues were also discussed.