1 - Commentary
Turkey Abuses Interpol
To Extradite Regime Opponents
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
2- Armenian American Museum to Host Telethon On February 17
3 - Bakarian: At 21, aerospace engineering student,
former refugee creates first invention
4 - Lighthouse Management head Aleen Keshishian
to executive produce Netflix series
5- Boyajian Pens Book on Julfa and New Julfa Armenians
By Gary A. Kulhanjian
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1 - Commentary
Turkey Abuses Interpol
To Extradite Regime Opponents
By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com
Turkey and several other repressive governments are increasingly
abusing their membership in the Interpol to harass and punish their
opponents. Interpol or the International Criminal Police Organization,
composed of 194 countries, focuses on fighting transnational crimes.
Although Interpol’s charter forbids the pursuit of individuals for
political, religious, military or racial reasons, several member
states continue to abuse the power of the Interpol to pursue their
opponents.
The most recent case is the Turkish government’s demand to Interpol to
have Enes Kanter, an NBA basketball player of Turkish origin, arrested
and extradited to Turkey by placing his name on Interpol’s Red Notice
list. Kanter declined to join his team, the New York Knicks, to fly to
London for an NBA game. He said that he was wrongly charged by the
Erdogan government as a ‘terrorist’ and feared that he may be
assassinated by Turkish agents in London.
Abdullah Bozkurt wrote in the Turkish Minute website, on May 19, 2017,
Kanter “barely escaped arrest while in Jakarta, [Indonesia] where he
stopped as part of a global goodwill tour. The Indonesian army and
secret service raided a school where an event was planned in order to
detain him at Turkey’s request, but he managed to leave Indonesia for
Romania. On his return trip to the US, Kanter was detained on May 20
at Henri Coandă International Airport in Bucharest because his
passport was reported to have been cancelled by the Turkish
government. The NBA star was subsequently released after the US
government and NBA officials intervened on his behalf. He remains a
staunch critic of Erdogan for his rights violations.”
In a Washington Post op-ed column, Kanter wrote: “Anyone who speaks
out against him [Erdogan] is a target. I am definitely a target. And
Erdogan wants me back in Turkey where he can silence me.” Kanter told
Newsweek that the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is “the
Hitler of our century.” According to ESPN, the Turkish government
requested Interpol last November to have more than 80 people arrested
in other countries and extradited to Turkey.
Several other Turkish dissidents have barely escaped the Turkish
government’s long reach through the Interpol. Last October, Turkey
requested that the Interpol arrest and extradite Can Dundar, the
former editor of Cumhuriyet newspaper, and Ilhan Tanir, editor of the
Ahval news website. “I have not killed anyone, run a cartel, robbed a
bank or done anything else to warrant a global manhunt,” Tanır wrote.
“The Turkish government is pursuing me for my activities as a
journalist.”
Ragip Zarakoglu, a journalist, author, publisher, and human rights
defender, was placed on Interpol’s Red Notice list to be arrested and
extradited to Turkey. He is currently in Sweden, safe from Erdogan’s
clutches.
Another Turkish journalist was less fortunate. Hamza Yalçin, who had
escaped to Sweden, was arrested at Turkey’s request to Interpol in
2017 during his visit to Spain. He was released after two months
following pressure from the governments of Sweden and Germany.
“We welcome the Spanish government’s decision, which shows respect for
international law,” Reporters Without Borders stated. “Hamza Yalçin’s
release sends the Turkish government a clear message that Interpol
should not be used for the political purpose of pursuing journalists
who have fled abroad.”
Shortly after the failed coup in July 2016, Turkey made more than
60,000 Red Notice requests to Interpol. Red Notices are only for
people accused of serious crimes, and Interpol’s constitution calls on
countries not to use the system for political ends and to act within
the spirit of international human rights standards. Turkey, China,
Russia, and the UAE, are in blatant violation of these regulations,
stated the Foreign Policy magazine.
In an April 2017 resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe called on Interpol “to continue improving its Red Notice
procedure in order to prevent and redress abuses even more
effectively.” Johann Bihr, the head of Reporters Without Borders’
Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, stated that “dozens of Turkish
journalists have had to flee abroad since the coup attempt in Turkey
in July 2016. But like other exile journalists all over the world,
they are now threatened by political manipulation of Interpol. The
reforms begun by Interpol must now be completed as a matter of urgency
so that it is better able to guard against abusive requests from
Turkey and other repressive states.”
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2- Armenian American Museum to Host Telethon On February 17
GLENDALE—The Armenian American Museum will host its inaugural Telethon
on Sunday, February 17, to raise awareness and funds for the historic
project. The event will be broadcasted live from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Pacific Standard Time, and streamed to across the United States and
around the world. The telethon will be aired from ARTN studios in
Glendale. The event will feature interviews with community leaders and
special guests, informative video segments on the cultural and
educational center, and unique performances by musicians and artists.
“The Telethon is going to be the must-see television event of the year
for our community and it will be an excellent opportunity to learn
about the Armenian American Museum,” said Museum Executive Chairman
Berdj Karapetian. Proceeds will benefit the Armenian American Museum
Groundbreaking Campaign. The Museum will need to raise an estimated
$12 million by early 2020 to begin construction for the historic
community project. Museum officials have organized a series of events,
fundraisers, and activities in 2019 to raise the necessary funds. The
Museum will be the first world class cultural and educational center
of its kind in America. The Museum program will feature a Permanent
Armenian Exhibition, Traveling Multicultural Exhibitions, Performing
Arts Theater, Learning Center, and more. The governance of the Museum
is entrusted to ten Armenian American cultural, philanthropic, and
religious non-profit institutions including the Armenian Catholic
Eparchy, Armenian Cultural Foundation, Armenian Evangelical Union of
North America, Armenian General Benevolent Union Western District,
Armenian Missionary Association of America, Armenian Relief Society
Western USA, Nor Or Charitable Foundation, Nor Serount Cultural
Association, Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America,
and Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
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3 - Bakarian: At 21, aerospace engineering student,
former refugee creates first invention
By Les Perreaux
The distance from Aleppo to the lab at Montreal’s Trudeau airport
where a young engineer-in-training is perfecting her first invention
is 8,580 kilometres, but Shoushi Bakarian’s trajectory might better be
measured in light speed.
Three years ago, Bakarian was sitting in Lebanon, part of a family of
four Syrian refugees facing an uncertain future with hope of making a
new start in Canada. Fast-forward those 36 months: Bakarian is in her
third year of aerospace engineering at Montreal’s Concordia
University. She has learned her fourth language, French—in addition to
English, Arabic and Armenian. She’s got two part-time jobs with
promising prospects in her field: one in the parts department at
Bombardier Aerospace and another at Stratos Aviation, a small aviation
and flight simulation firm. There, she’s co-created her first
invention in the lab she’s building. Oh, and she leads a Scout troop
where she hopes to influence her young charges. She’s 21. “I want to
reach girls and tell them they don’t have to limit themselves to
traditional jobs, like teachers. Especially for girls from my
community, they have a very limited idea of what’s out there,”
Bakarian says. “I want to become an example.”
On a recent late fall day, Bakarian tinkers with the tiny generator
fan blades of her latest accomplishment: The Ventus, a 5-volt
accessory charger for Cessna airplanes that runs off the aircraft’s
air vents and as an added bonus cools the air by compressing it. The
simple blue tube prototype seems likely to become a must-have
accessory for pilots who rely on tablets and smartphones for aviation
computation but fly aircraft that were mostly built long before the
smartphone era.
“I like clean energy, solar power, wind power, so we developed it
further to add on the charger idea,” she says. “I spent my summer
designing, drawing and testing until it worked.”
Naor Cohen, the owner of Stratos Aviation, hired Bakarian within days
of meeting her during an outreach program for women in aviation about
a year ago. Bakarian started out as an instructor on the company’s
flight simulators. One day he shared an idea he had to improve cooling
small Cessna cabins by using a Venturi tube to compress and cool the
air. He invited her to set up a lab with computers and 3-D printers
and she ran with it.
“I guess she must sleep very little,” Cohen says. “We’ve never seen
her as an employee, and more as a partner in the team. She’s free to
come whenever stuff needs to be done. Right now, she’s concentrating
mainly on the lab. We want to put that imagination and creativity to
work more.”
Bakarian arrived in Canada on Christmas Eve, 2015, with her father,
Antranik, her mother, Ani, and her now-24-year-old sister, Meghri. The
daughters had high school diplomas earned during the Syrian civil war
with rockets flying overhead and bombs bursting not far from their
Armenian school in Aleppo.
Small details come back to Bakarian as she remembers the time. “Our
school was in the firing line, so we had to study in a kindergarten in
these tiny little chairs,” she recalls. “I always make jokes about it,
but it’s not funny.” By 2015, the battle for Aleppo had settled into a
stalemate and her family was stuck. “In Grade 10, the big bombs
started, by Grade 11, we were without electricity or running water or
internet. Some people started to leave but we didn’t know how to get
out of Aleppo. We didn’t know who was on the road waiting to kidnap
us. … Once the missiles started falling, we didn’t know where they
were coming from or where they’d land.”
A turning point came when her mother needed surgery that had to be
performed in Lebanon. The medical issue combined with mounting
violence forced the family to make a move. They spent a year in
Lebanon while she recovered.
Her parents concluded the family would have limited education and work
opportunities in that country.That’s when Canada opened the doors to
Syrian refugees.
In those early Canadian winter days, the family enrolled in French
classes while all four of them set about finding work. Bakarian got
hired at McDonald’s, a job she kept as she enrolled at Concordia,
which helped her family survive while her parents found work in the
garment industry. It was a step down from her father’s previous job
managing a tools warehouse. Meghri, meanwhile, is specializing in
child studies at Concordia.
Bakarian is grateful for the sacrifices her parents made, but she made
some, too. She was almost crushed by workload as a first-year
university student who was working 30 hours a week at her fast food
job. “I was physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted,” she says.
“But now I’m making up for it. My family is okay now, and it’s
easier.”
Arpi Hamalian, an education professor emerita at Concordia University,
took the younger Bakarian women under her wing when they showed up at
an orientation in early 2016. “They were looking a little lost,” Dr.
Hamalian recalls now, but it didn’t take long for them to get on
track. “Shoushi, well both girls really, know exactly who they are and
where they are going. They are unbelievably talented, focused and
team-oriented. There aren’t many like them.”
This article appeared in The Globe and Mail on January 3, 2019.
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4 - Lighthouse Management head Aleen Keshishian
to executive produce Netflix series
Filmmaker Ryan Murphy has assembled quite the cast for his Nurse
Ratched series at Netflix, and talent manager Aleen Keshishian is
among the show’s Executive Producers, Variety reveals. Nurse Ratched
is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Ken Kesey’s 1962
novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as well as the 1975 film of
the same name.
Murphy announced that Sharon Stone, Finn Wittrock, Jon Jon Briones,
Charlie Carver, Judy Davis, Harriet Harris, Cynthia Nixon, Hunter
Parrish, Amanda Plummer, and Corey Stoll will all star in the series
alongside the previously announced star Sarah Paulson.
Netflix has given the series a two-season, 18 episode commitment to
“Ratched”. It begins in 1947 and will track Ratched as she morphs from
an average nurse into the monstrous authority figure she became in the
Ken Kesey novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and subsequent film.
Paulson will star as the infamous nurse, with Murphy attached as
executive producer.
Along with Murphy, Michael Douglas, who produced the film, will also
serve as an executive producer. Keshishian, Margaret Riley and Jacob
Epstein of Lighthouse Management & Media will also executive produce.
Evan Romansky, who created and wrote the project, will co-executive
produce.
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5- Boyajian Pens Book on Julfa and New Julfa Armenians
By Gary A. Kulhanjian
Michael Boyajian has penned another noteworthy book, continuing a
renaissance of Armenian subjects by illuminating on historiography and
common-sense analysis. Boyajian was born in Queens, New York and
raised in Long Island.
He now lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. The author says he
can’t stop writing and his productivity is the proof. Seventeen books
are to his credit and seven pertain to Armenian history and culture.
Boyajian is a retired attorney and human rights judge.
The book was an outgrowth of Boyajian’s love for history, exuberant
interests in artifacts, antiques, old photos, relics, and of course
books. Like others, he was inspired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art
in New York with the magnificent collection and exhibit about the
Armenian people. Overall, the subject matter enforced and enhanced his
own research.
In the book, he elaborates about the trials and ordeals of the
Armenians against their enemies. Furthermore, he writes about the
strong hegemony of Shah Abbas of Persia forcing the Armenians into his
empire by mass migration to what became New Julfa.
They accepted the exodus fleeing from the Turks. The Shah Abbas
defeated the Ottoman overlords but was unable to withstand the
Sultan’s gigantic army. Thus, the Shah gained respect from the
Armenians, and they proved to be a valuable aggregate of his empire as
successful merchants and tradesmen. The Armenians placated the Shah
with gifts and celebrations. Promulgating their survival, the
Armenians held high status and were at the pinnacle of Persian society
being a Christian minority. For the Armenians, the Shah Abbas built a
“New Julfa” which became extremely prosperous. In sum, these Armenians
supported the Armenian diaspora outside their inhabitance.
The capital of Persia was Isfahan and across from its location was the
city of “New Julfa.” Sea travel accelerated the success of the
Armenians after seventeenth century. The author reiterates the
successes of the Armenians in trade and globalization.
He mentions the success of Armenian diplomats dispersed by the Shah
Abbas. The success of the Virginia Colony of Jamestown was also
because of a silk expert from Persia known to the British as Martin
the Armenian. The Armenian accomplishments were not centralized but in
Boyajian’s own words became “…global networking of interlocking trade
circuits…” which extended from northern Europe to Asia. Silk and other
useful products were dispersed by the Armenians.
The scope of the book covers important themes. An overview of the
compact study explains the destruction and depopulation of Julfa, the
exodus to New Julfa and prosperity, oppression and second exodus,
sanctuary, and those remaining. The author provides a bibliography for
further research.
Boyajian knows he is writing for the general audience of readers. His
purpose is to educate the masses whether they are Armenians or
non-Armenians craving knowledge they have never known about. The style
is part of his modus-operandi in writing books on a variety of
subjects and to accelerate his writing. Another important aspect of
his style is that he relates contemporary events to the past with
other civilizations. The interjections are quite informative and
revealing in parts of his analyses.
The author does not always follow a linear chronology as traditional
historians follow in their writing; he writes creatively to make the
reader cognizant of various viewpoints. The reader is challenged by
events not even foreseen in historical chronology. The reading becomes
more fascinating, stimulating, and unique.
The author includes a section about contemporary Julfans who have
left Persia (Iran). He
touches briefly upon their reasons for emigrating. Concluding with
testimony and responses of three Armenians who live in the United
States, two of them live in California which has the largest
concentration of the diaspora. Their views add another dimension to
the book. In Boyajian’s own words, “… the Armenians continue to endure
and the diaspora grows as does prosperity and now many are going back
home to the motherland …with great exuberance for being home and great
pride in being Armenian.” Many Armenians from different nations
including the United States are also traveling to Armenia with great
interest.
Gary A. Kulhanjian is a social historian and educator. He is a former
member of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education serving
three governors. He holds three degrees in history, social science and
humanities. Kulhanjian lives in California with his family.
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