EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT SPEECHES: KARABAKH, DARFUR, DECRIMINALIZATION OF SLANDER

Panorama.am
22:12 08/10/2007

The Armenian delegation was not able to make the number of
presentations as was planned at the five-day executive session of the
European Parliament, instead giving just four speeches. Delegation
leader Davit Harutyunyan and delegation members Avet Adonts, Raffi
Hovhannisian, and Armen Rustamyan gave speeches about different
themes. Speaking about each speech, Harutyunyan said that Rustamyan,
from the Dashnaktsutyun NA bloc, spoke about the report given by
Azeri Gultakin Hajina concerning the activities of the international
migration organization. "Hajina strayed from the subject at hand,
talking about refugees and giving false figures, such as one million
refugees, 20% occupation of their country, etc.," Harutyunyan said.

According to Harutyunyan, Rustamyan returned to the subject of
permanent migration flow, as well as Madame Hajina’s statements about
Karabakh. Raffi Hovhannisian commented on how Hajina tried to distort
the pronunciation of the name Nakhichevan, saying it "Nakhchyan."

The next speech was given by Hovhannisian, who talked about the crisis
in Darfur, calling it equivalent to genocide.

Davit Harutyunyan spoke about the subject of decriminalization of
slander, talking about advances made in Armenia as compared with
the situation in neighboring countries. "The reality in Azerbaijan
is that slander has become a tool in which to quash free speech,"
the speaker said.

The other delegation member, Avet Adonts, spoke about the activities
in the realm of human rights. "There was talk about human rights
violations on the territory of European Parliament member countries,
and the parliament doesn’t turn its attention to these violations,"
Harutyunyan said, telling how the population of Karabakh is deprived
of the right of a peaceful and safe life. "The parliament doesn’t
listen to these people. This is a violation of their rights," Adonts
said during his speech.

We remind that at the end of August Azerbaijan prevented a visit to
their country to examine the state of historical monuments on Azeri
territory, not allowing Edward O’Hara, from the European Parliament,
to visit Azerbaijan as scheduled. We note that this is not the only
time a scheduled visit to Azerbaijan has been delayed. That visit was
scheduled to take place first in 2006, in May, then in autumn of that
year, and finally in spring of 2007.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress