PRESS RELEASE
The National Citizens’ Initiative
75 Yerznkian Street
Yerevan 375033, Armenia
Tel.: (+374 – 10) 27.16.00, 27.00.03
Fax: (+374 – 10) 52.48.46
E-mail: [email protected]
Website:
June 15, 2005
RAFFI HOVANNISIAN AWARDED FRIDTJOF NANSEN GOLD MEDAL
Yerevan–The National Citizens’ Initiative (NCI) was the site today of
an official ceremony to confer upon its founder Raffi K. Hovannisian
the Memorial Gold Medal of historic humanitarian and Nobel peace
laureate Fridtjof Nansen. NCI members, Heritage party supporters,
journalists, and university students from across Armenia took part
in the event.
“For his long-standing commitment to civil rights, national and
universal values, and affirmation and condemnation of the Armenian
Genocide,” Hovannisian received the award from Suren Movsisian,
executive director of the Nansen Foundation. Asserting that it
is impossible to talk about Fridtjof Nansen and Raffi Hovannisian
without emotion and high responsibility, Movsisian concluded:
“The name that this beautiful medal carries and the man upon whom
we bestow this award of distinction keep us warm and secure in the
realization that human kind and demeanor are not solely black and
white. The presence of such men allows us not to be alarmed over the
loss of human conscience and the lack of contemporary heroism.”
Thereupon, beneath the standing applause of those gathered, the
Nansen Foundation official pinned the medal of honor upon Raffi
Hovannisian. In his reply of gratitude, Hovannisian offered his
highest assessment of the productive life and bright legacy of the
great humanitarian and friend of Armenia.
Hovannisian accepted the award as a guiding benchmark and “advance
payment” on the service yet to be rendered in the national quest for
historical and contemporary justice, both foreign and domestic. “I
am proud from now on to bear the memorial medal of a man who has
bequeathed to the generations an entire value system based on liberty,
dignity, mutual respect, and humanitarian duty,” he said.
The day’s meeting continued with a roundtable discussion among the
newly-elected chairman of the Heritage party, youth activists, and
university student representatives. Hovannisian responded to the
various questions of students and journalists alike which touched
on Heritage’s recent empowerment and future plans, Armenian foreign
policy, corruption challenges, youth priorities, Mountainous Karabagh
and Turkish-Armenian relations, and the nation’s socioeconomic plight
and ways to improve it.
The 50 student participants expressed their displeasure and outrage
in connection with the last-minute withdrawal from an agreement to
hold the award ceremony in a university conference hall with a more
representative audience. In fact, today’s meeting was originally
scheduled to take place at the Yerevan State Economics Institute until
its officials, following the suit of other “public” universities in
the capital, informed NCI about its cancellation.
Evaluating these breaches as but one link in the chain of successive
violations of democratic standards and human rights in Armenia, the
students voiced their combined opinion that it is imperative to unite
against such caprice, servility, and effective violence against the
rights of free speech and assembly.
Parallel with the student interventions, NCI coordinator Hovsep
Khurshudian, Heritage board member Vardan Khachatrian, youth organizer
Edgar Hakobian, and Arthur Galstian of Yerevan State University
characterized the “robbery” of an important part of the life of a
patriotic man and public figure–in the form of long postponements
and undue process in his quest to receive Armenian citizenship–as
a flagrant departure from human and civil rights. Those assembled
voted unanimously to initiate a republic-wide youth campaign to
collect from fellow citizens their signatures in solidarity with
Raffi Hovannisian’s right to Armenian nationality as of his first
application and the Republic’s founding.
The National Citizens’ Initiative is a public non-profit association
founded in December 2001 by Raffi K. Hovannisian, his colleagues,
and fellow citizens with the purpose of realizing the rule of law
and overall improvements in the state of the state, society, and
public institutions. The National Citizens’ Initiative is guided
by a Coordinating Council, which includes individual citizens and
representatives of various public, scientific, and educational
establishments. Five commissions on Law and State Administration,
Socioeconomic Issues, Foreign Policy, Spiritual and Cultural
Challenges, and the Youth constitute the vehicles for the Initiative’s
work and outreach.
For further information, please call (37410) 27-16-00 or 27-00-03;
fax (37410) 52-48-46; e-mail [email protected]; or visit