DIASPORA ARMENIANS IN LOS ANGELES ORGANIZED PROTEST RALLY

Tert.am
05.10.09

Thousands of Armenian-Americans from throughout California converged
on the Beverly Hilton Hotel to protest the Turkey-Armenia protocols
as Armenia President Serzh Sargsyan met with representatives of
Armenian-American organizations to defend his decision to sign the
Armenian-Turkish Protocols, reports asbarez.com.The protest was
organized by the Stop The Protocols Campaign.

Blockades and guardrails contained protesters who held signs
proclaiming, "Serzh, Don’t Betray the Armenian People," "Turkey Accept
the Genocide!" and "No to the Protocols!" Meanwhile, planes overhead
were carrying banners which stated "Stop Turkish-Armenian Protocols,"
as large moving vans drove around the hotel with billboards picturing
presidents Sargsyan and Gul with the slogan "Don’t Betray Us."

During the fourth hour of the protest, several hundred frustrated
demonstrators broke through the barricades and stormed across the
street to the hotel entrance, yelling "votch, votch," stopping traffic
on Wilshire Blvd.

Meanwhile ARF Western Region Central Committee member Hovan Tashdjian,
who had just left the meeting with the President, described a
"tense" President Sargsyan faced with "overwhelming opposition" by
representatives of Diasporan organizations, "attempting to defend
the formation of a so-called ‘historical commission’ and arguing that
the Protocols would not affect the Karabakh peace process."