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| 15:50:22 | 13-05-2005 | Social |

PEOPLE OF ART AGAINST POLITICAL VANDALS

About 10 uniformed people came to the building at Tigran Mets 30 at about
12:30 p.m. today. The workers of the compulsory service of the court were
going to evict the branch of the library after Avetiq Isahakyan from the
building.

The library which has been working there for 50 years has 1200 readers which
is considered a normal index of work. In order to protect the library people
of art – actor Azat Gasparyan, President of the culture fund Arevshat
Avagyan, President of the library association, and heads of the National,
Khnko-Apre and many other libraries had come to the place of incident.

If the authorities reach their aim, the library and the readers will lose
several thousands of books. In order to transport the books special
conditions are needed and not lorries in which they will be put and taken
away. Besides, for the preservation of books too special conditions are
needed and the library does not have even a building to go to.

And the argument over the area was raised as ex-NA deputy Egia Shamshyan has
long wanted to have a private area in the mentioned street. With that aim he
signed an agreement with the `Smela’ LTD. With joint effort and the support
of the Central community head they privatized the area belonging to the
library.

By the way, it was done with the violation of law and the abusing of the
community head’s position, as the defenders of the library note. According
to them, when the documents of the area were given to the new owner, the
area was not at the disposal of the community head, so they did not have the
right to carry out the process.

`They have the right as they see that no one is punished for the closing of
libraries’, says library head Hasmik Karapetyan. The indignation of actor
Azat Gasparyan was so strong that he was almost unable to say criticizing
words. `Surprisingly I want to laugh but it is a bitter laughter’. The actor
is convinced that the books make people people, and they are not for today
but for future.

We learned from the Ministry of Justice that the process of evicting the
library has been ceased but it has been postponed fro only 10 days before
the library finds a new area and the necessary conditions for
transportation.