ARMENIAN BLOGGERS PROTEST AGAINST ‘AZERBAIJANI DAYS’ HOLDING IN YEREVAN

2007-12-17 17:36:00

ArmInfo. Armenian bloggers protest against ‘Azerbaijani Days’ holding in
Yerevan.

Armenian bloggers expressed their protest today at the opening
ceremony of the Azerbaijani Days. When the head of the Caucasus
Peace-making Initiatives Centre, one of the initiators of the event,
Georgiy Vanyan was making a speech, four young men came up to him
and gave him soap. Vanyan did not react and the bloggers left the
hall. Journalists tried to clarify why the bloggers acted in such a
way. First they did not want to answer the question, but then one of
them, Tigran Kocharyan, said that Armenian bloggers think that ‘this is
the wrong and untimely event, taking into account absence of tolerance
towards Armenians in Azerbaijan’. ‘We think this is just a way to earn
money, which will bring nothing kind to Armenia or Azerbaijan. This
is a way to beg something at the expense of the people’s dignity’, –
the bloggers said. ‘We don’t want to insult them, as Azerbaijanis are
not guilty for arriving here, and we don’t want to help the organizers
of the event to gain scores. For this reason we abstain from insulting
them. We simply gave them soap as a gift to use it in a right way’.

When commenting on the incident the head of the ‘Mkhitar Sebastatsi’
educational centre Ashot Bleyan said of the necessity of paying more
attention at the frozen conflicts and wished the year 2008 to become
a year of normalizing relations with Azerbaijan. He also said that the
given event is an education but a political one. ‘There is no politics
here. The point is to learn each other better. And this is regarding
not only Azerbaijan, but also Georgia, Turkey and Iran. Community
should be tolerant, and all the layers of the society should take
part in it’, – Bleyan said and added that if any educational centre
of Azerbaijan initiates the similar event, he will go to Azerbaijan
with pleasure.