Le Figaro Online vendredi 27 octobre 2017 09:00 AM GMT Turquie : Osman Kavala, condamné au silence par Delphine Minoui; [email protected] Turquie Arménie ENCART: Cet homme d'affaires turc a été arrêté le 18 octobre dernier pour des motifs inconnus et est interrogé par la police antiterroriste du président Erdogan. Mécène attentif aux multiples identités qui forment la Turquie, il oeuvrait pour faire connaître le génocide arménien dans son propre pays. Notre correspondante à Istanbul Sa grandeur d'esprit est à la hauteur du désarroi qui secoue la société civile depuis son arrestation. «Osman Kavala n'a jamais cessé de travailler en faveur de la réconciliation, du dialogue et pour le soutien de l'Etat de droit en Turquie», avance Emma Sinclair-Webb, de l'association Human Rights Watch. Mercredi 18 octobre au soir, le célèbre mécène turc aux boucles rousses et aux yeux bleus venait d'atterrir à l'aéroport Atatürk d'Istanbul quand la police est allée le cueillir dans l'avion pour l'escorter jusqu'au siège de la section antiterroriste. Placé en garde à vue, il ne sait toujours pas ce qui lui est reproché. «L'enquête reste secrète», précise son avocat. Une perquisition a également eu lieu au siège de sa fondation, Culture Anatolie (Anadolu Kültür), et son ordinateur a été confisqué. Encore sous le choc, son épouse ose croire à un «malentendu» et prêche la discrétion. «Je ne suis malheureusement pas surpris», tranche le député européen Frank Engel en référence à la vague de purges et d'arrestations qui ébranle le pays depuisle putsch raté du 15 juillet 2016. «Cette détention arbitraire illustre, dit-il, la dérive fascisante du gouvernement de Recep Tayyip Erdogan qui cherche à intimider tous ceux qui ont une orientation différente de la sienne.» D'Osman Kavala, rencontré à Istanbul le 12 avril 2015 lors des commémorations du centenaire dugénocide arménien, il garde en mémoire «un homme extrêmement ouvert et généreux» qu'il écouta défendre avec sensibilité un fait historique que les autorités turques ont toujours nié. «En fait, aucune cause ne lui échappe», poursuit-il. L'homme d'affaires hyperactif avait ouvertement soutenu, en 2013, les manifestations de Gezicontre la destruction d'un parc en faveur d'un projet immobilier. Plus récemment, au printemps 2017, il avait appelé à boycotter le référendum surle renforcement des pouvoirs duPrésident. Passionné d'art, Osman Kavala est aussi le directeur de Depo, une ex-fabrique de tabac transformée en salle d'exposition. Cette semaine, un séminaire sur l'intégration des petits réfugiés syriens dans le système éducatif turc devait y avoir lieu. Quant à la question kurde, elle ne lui a jamais échappé. «Il revenait justement de Gaziantep, dans le sud-est du pays, dans le cadre d'un projet mené en partenariat avec l'Institut Goethe, quand il a été arrêté», précise le député. Un tournant inquiétant Né à Paris en 1957, Osman Kavala incarne une Turquie ouverte sur le monde et occidentale que l'AKP (le parti islamo-conversateur au pouvoir) entend aujourd'hui façonner à son image. C'est après des études à Manchester qu'il était revenu à Istanbul à la mort de son père, en 1982, pour piloter l'entreprise familiale. Fervent défenseur du patrimoine de son pays, et de sa diversité culturelle, il avait alors cofondé la maison d'édition Iletisim et n'a, depuis, jamais cessé de soutenir la reconstruction de monuments historiques, y compris des églises arméniennes. Une curiosité d'esprit et un sens de l'altruisme qui tranchent avec l'image que donnent de lui les médias progouvernementaux: qualifié de «Soros rouge» par le quotidien Günes, en allusion au philanthrope américain d'origine hongroise (dont le nom est associé aux fameuses «révolutions de velours»), il serait, prétend le journal pro-AKP Yeni Safak, «la figure clé du financement du terrorisme». Ces derniers jours, une pléthore d'articles l'accusent, pêle-mêle, d'avoir financé Gezi, flirté avecles pro-Gülen (en référence au commanditaire présumé du putsch raté) et donné de l'argent au PKK. «Ces accusations sans fondement entrent dans la triste logique complotiste de la construction d'un ennemi public. Elles sont, aussi, un message adressé aux autres ONG», estime Frank Engel. «Son arrestation marque un tournant inquiétant dans la répression du mouvement de défense des droits de l'homme en Turquie», se désole son ami Benjamin Abtan, président d'European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (Egam).
Author: Ani Tigranian
Charles Aznavour Receives the Raoul Wallenberg Award in Israel
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin (L) presents French-Armenian singer Charles Aznavour the Raoul Wallenberg medal at the presidential compound in Jerusalem in recognition of his family’s efforts to protect Jews and others persecuted during World War II (Photo: AFP)
TEL AVIV (Daily Mail) – French Armenian singing legend Charles Aznavour was honored in Israel on Thursday for his family’s efforts to protect Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis during World War II.
The 93-year-old known as France’s Frank Sinatra still performs and is due to give a concert in Tel Aviv on Saturday.
He received the honor from Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who spoke of his love of Aznavour’s music, saying “La Boheme” was his favorite song.
Rivlin presented him with The Raoul Wallenberg Award, named for the Swedish diplomat who helped thousands of Jews flee Nazi-controlled Hungary during World War II.
Aznavour’s family “hid a number of people who were persecuted by the Nazis, while Charles and his sister Aida were involved in rescue activities,” Rivlin’s office said in a statement.
The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, based in New York, presents the award and Aznavour chose to receive it in Israel, it said.
Aznavour, who was born in Paris, spoke of his Armenian origins on Thursday, referring to Armenian Genocide of 1915 orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire.
His parents fled to France to escape the massacres that more than 20 countries have recognized as a “genocide”, s charge strongly denied by Turkey.
“We have so many things in common, the Jews and the Armenians, in misfortune, in happiness, in work, in music, in the arts and in the ease of learning different languages and becoming important people in the countries where they have been received,” he said.
“We have so many things in common, the Jews and the Armenians, in misfortune, in happiness, in work, in music, in the arts and in the ease of learning different languages and becoming important people in the countries where they have been received,” he said.
Aznavour’s hits have included “She,” “Hier Encore” and “La Mamma.”
He is also credited in more than 60 movies, defying detractors who pointed to his unconventional looks to become one of France’s most iconic singers.
Aznavour thanked Raoul Wallenberg Foundation for the award and the Israeli President for the reception. The world famous singer also inquired when Israel will recognize the Armenian Genocide, stressing that Jews and Armenians have many similarities.
In response, Rivlin said that it’s a political issue and the issue was raised at the parliament of Israel every year when he was a Knesset member and President. He noted that he talked about the Armenian Genocide of 1915 rather clearly at the UN in 2015.
Film: Andy Serkis’s Miniature Worlds
The NewYorker
Oct 26 2017
Fire on Moldovakan Street
On October 10 at 13:30, an alert was received that a fire broke out in the building of 29/6 Moldovakan Street in Yerevan.
Rescuers evacuated 16 residents of the building, four of them with the help of a carriageway. Two people were smoked, the ambulance staff provided first aid (there was no need for hospitalization).
“BIS-1” degree of fire complexity has been declared.
Sports: Armenian weightlifter Margarita Arakelyan wins small bronze at Junior European Championships
Panorama, Armenia
Sept 30 2017
Sport 10:34 30/09/2017Armenia
Armenian weightlifter Margarita Arakelyan (+75 kg) took the forth place with a total of 153 result at the U15 and U17 European Weightlifting Championships underway in Pristina, Kosovo.
The Armenian weightlifter captured a small bronze in the clean and jerk competition, registering a 84kg result. She claimed the fourth spot in snatch with 69kg, the National Olympic Committee reported.
Turkish Press: Turkish immigrant party gets ready for German election
Anadolu Agency (AA) Turkey Friday Turkish immigrant party gets ready for German election BERLIN As Germany's federal elections draw closer, a new party -- recently formed by ethnic-Turkish citizens -- is hoping to make a breakthrough into national politics. The Alliance of German Democrats (AD-D) won 14,000 votes in May's regional election in the northern state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Although it has little chance of getting close to Germany's five percent electoral threshold in Sunday's federal contest, they still view it as an opportunity to give a strong message to the traditional parties. "We are not professional politicians, but ordinary citizens who are frustrated with growing anti-Turkish sentiment in Germany in recent years," AD-D's co-founder and secretary general Halil Ertem tells Anadolu Agency. "In the federal elections on Sunday, we are hoping to significantly increase our support. But our real work will start on Monday. Our primary goal will be to win seats at the European Parliament elections in 2019," he says. According to Ertem, AD-D has a good chance of winning several seats at the European Parliament elections, as there will be no threshold and nearly 180,000 votes would be enough for a candidate to be elected. Among the three million people with Turkish roots in Germany, half of them have German citizenship. Approximately 800,000 ethnic-Turkish citizens are eligible to vote, according to estimates. Erdogan posters Although Turkish immigrants were less interested in German elections in previous years, recent political tensions between Berlin and Ankara has increased their interest in the federal elections. Ertem says their party received greater attention among Turkish immigrants in recent days, after it decided to use posters of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in its election campaign. Erdogan, an outspoken critic of Germany's illiberal integration policies, has also been a very popular figure among a majority of Turkish immigrants. The Turkish president last week criticized Germany's mainstream parties for adopting anti-Turkish rhetoric, and has called on his countryman to back parties who were not hostile to Turkey. "We love President Erdogan and we respect him," Ertem says, but also underlined that their party AD-D had no ties with any political party in Turkey and remained open to all Turkish immigrants, who shared their principles. "We have had no discussions with any Turkish official, and received no support from Turkey, neither during the foundation of our party last year, nor during our planning work for our campaign ahead of the federal elections," he stresses. Against mainstream parties AD-D was founded in August 2016, a few weeks after the German parliament's controversial motion which described the deaths of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 as "genocide". Ertem said the one-sided motion, which neglected suffering on the Turkish side, caused uproar among the members of the Turkish community. "None of the 11 ethnic-Turkish lawmakers from the mainstream parties opposed this motion. Just for the sake of their political career, they couldn't dare to contradict their party line," he said. Ertem argued that mainstream parties have so far failed to address the real concerns of the immigrant population, and did not take serious measures against growing racism and discrimination against German citizens with an immigrant background. He accused them of adopting anti-Turkey, anti-Erdogan rhetoric. "After all that, we have said enough is enough and decided to found our party, the Alliance of German Democrats," he said. AD-D is not the first party founded by immigrants in Germany. In 2010, a group of migrants led by ethnic-Turkish citizens, founded the Alliance for Innovation and Justice (BIG). However, the party could not get more than 18,000 votes in federal elections in 2013. BIG decided to boycott the federal elections this year, in order to protest mainstream parties, which it accused of becoming anti-Turkish and drifting into populism. Rise of the far-right Germany has witnessed growing racism in recent years, triggered by the propaganda of far-right parties which have effectively used the Internet to disseminate extremist views and fake news on the refugee crisis. The rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was polled at around 10 percent in recent polls, has been a widespread concern. In 2013, AfD failed to pass the five percent threshold and could not enter the Bundestag, the German parliament. Since the refugee crisis in 2015, the party adopted an explicit anti-immigrant as well as anti-Islamic rhetoric and significantly increased its support. In a recent poll released by the GMS institute on Thursday, AfD came in at 10 percent. The poll put Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic bloc at 37 percent, while the Social Democratic Party (SPD) polled at 22 percent. Germany, a country of 81.8 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country's nearly 4.7 million Muslims, three million are of Turkish origin. Many of them migrated to Germany in the 1960s.
Անկախ Հայաստանի կենացը՝ Բաքվում. Աշոտյանն ու Թանդիլյանը լուսանկար են հրապարակել
- 21.09.2017
- Հայաստան
- arm
70
Եվրանեսթ ԽՎ-ում ՀՀ ԱԺ պատվիրակության ղեկավար, ՀՀ ԱԺ արտաքին հարաբերությունների մշտական հանձնաժողովի նախագահ Արմեն Աշոտյանը և պատվիրակության անդամ Մանե Թանդիլյանը արդեն Բաքվում են: Սա է վկայում նրանց կողմից հրապարակված լուսանկարը:
Ուշագրավը նա է, որ հայ պատգամավորները Բաքու են ժամանել Հայաստանի Հանրապետության Անկախության 26-ամյակի օրը և հեռվից, ավելին՝ թշնամու հողում առիթը բաց չեն թողել խմելու հայրենիքի կենացը:
Հիշեցնենք, սեպտեմբերի 22-ին հայ պատգամավորները կմասնակցեն Եվրանեսթ ԽՎ-ի սոցիալական, կրթության, մշակույթի և քաղաքացիական հասարակության հարցերի հանձնաժողովի կողմից կազմակերպված համաժողովին՝ նվիրված Արևելյան գործընկերության երկրներում կանանց առողջության և գենդերային հավասարության բարելավման խնդիրներում խորհրդարանական ներգրավվածության հարցերին:
Giro Manoyan says Armenian President’s statement on Zurich Protocols was right
Categories
Politics
Region
Director of the International Secretariat of the ARF Bureau positively assesses Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s statement at the UN General Assembly according to which Armenia will declare the Zurich Protocols on the Armenian-Turkish relations null and void.
Manoyan said though late this statement was right.
“I don’t think there will be a positive progress over the Protocols. And this is not due to Armenia, but due to the fact that Turkey has numerous internal and external problems and there is no issue in its agenda to establish relations with Armenia. It is not ruled out that Turkey will make fraudulent things, such as it can ratify one of the Protocols, but I think this will not be accepted by Armenia. For them the main task is to exert pressure on Armenia over the Artsakh issue. We hope no positive change in terms of the Protocols will happen so that the President will do what he said on the eve of next spring. I am convinced that he also doesn’t believe in the positive progress, so Armenia will take back its signature. We are waiting for that day”, he said.
No Armenia citizens among the Barcelona victims
Public Radio of Armenia
Aug 18 2017
14:50, 18 Aug 2017
According to preliminary data, there are no citizens of Armenia among the victims and the injured in the Barcelona terrorist attack, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs referring to the Armenian Embassy in Spain.
A van has ploughed into pedestrians in Barcelona’s famous Las Ramblas tourist area at 14:50 GMT. Spanish police have described it as a terror attack.
Leaked Document: Azerbaijani Forces Suffered 1,851 Casualties in 2016 April War
The Armenian Weekly
NOTE: At the time of this article’s publication, the Armenian Weekly could not authenticate the letter in question, as was stated in the article. We have since received information indicating the letter is likely a fabrication. Washington-based writer Emil Sanamyan, whose writing focuses on the Caucasus and neighboring states, told the Armenian Weekly that the letter was likely a response to a fabricated document published by Azerbaijani sources recently. According to him, there are clear indications that the “leaked” document is not authentic, including the misspelling of the word “General” in Azerbaijani.
Aug 17 2017
NOTE: At the time of this article’s publication, the Armenian Weekly could not authenticate the letter in question, as was stated in the article. We have since received information indicating the letter is likely a fabrication. Washington-based writer Emil Sanamyan, whose writing focuses on the Caucasus and neighboring states, told the Armenian Weekly that the letter was likely a response to a fabricated document published by Azerbaijani sources recently. According to him, there are clear indications that the “leaked” document is not authentic, including the misspelling of the word “General” in Azerbaijani.
***
YEREVAN (A.W.)—An image of an ostensibly leaked letter on Azerbaijani Defense Ministry letterhead indicating that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces suffered 558 deaths and 1,293 wounded during the April 2-6, 2016 April War with Armenian troops has been published online.
The letter was made public on Aug. 17 by Armenian political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan on the website Russian-Armenian bilingual website voskanapat.info. It is unclear how Melik-Shahnazaryan came to have access to the document.
The image of the letter was made public on Aug. 17 by Armenian political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan on the website Russian-Armenian bilingual website voskanapat.info. It is unclear how Melik-Shahnazaryan came to have access to the document.
The letter, addressed to Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov and apparently penned by Chief of General Staff of Azerbaijani Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense Najmaddin Sadigov on April 28, 2016, indicates that 205 out of the killed soldiers were servicemen of the Special Forces of the Defense Ministry, 98 of whom were killed during military operations in Talish-Aghdara (Martakert), in the northeast of Artsakh; 32 in Fuzuli-Jabrayil, in the south; and 75 during military operations in areas in between.
In the letter, Sadikhov makes several suggestions to “eliminate the negative criticisms of the Azerbaijani society toward the armed forces” and to keep the morale and psychological spirit of the army staff high, including not transferring all the bodies of the deceased soldiers at once, and carrying out funerals of some of the soldiers at night.
Below is the English translation of the letter, as published by Yerevan-based Armenpress. The Armenian Weekly has no other information regarding the authenticity of the letter.
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To the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Colonel-General Z. Hasanov
Dear Mr. Minister,
I report to you that the total losses of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces’ staff in the period from April 2 to 6 of 2016 were 558 killed and 1293 wounded soldiers. Fifty-eight of the wounded soldiers are in critical condition. Fifty-two out of 558 killed soldiers cannot be identified.
Two hundred and five out of the killed soldiers are servicemen of the special-purpose forces of the defense ministry. Ninety-eight of them have been killed during military operations in Talish-Aghdara (Martakert), 32 in Fuzuli-Jabrayil, and 75 have been killed during the military operations conducted at central directions.
In order to eliminate the negative criticisms of the Azerbaijani society toward the armed forces, the further fall of the morale and psychological spirit of the army staff and the panic of the staff, I propose:
- Not to conduct the transfer of the bodies of killed soldiers of the Azerbaijani armed forces at the same time (about 60 per week);
- To carry out the funerals of some of the killed soldiers during the night hours under supervision in agreement with their parents;
- To allocate 5000 manats (approx.. $2,950 USD) from the Defense Ministry’s fund to families of the victims.
Chief of General Staff of Azerbaijani Armed Forces and Deputy Minister of Defense Najmaddin Sadigov
[Signed]