Author: Christine Harutyunian

                                        Wednesday, 

Armenia Bars Turkish Weapons Inspectors

        • Emil Danielyan

Turkey - Turkish officers (L) greet Armenian colleagues inspecting their army 
unit near Igdir, 28Nov2012.

Citing “unprecedented” security threats emanating from neighboring Turkey, 
Armenia on Wednesday banned Turkish officers from inspecting Armenian military 
bases and verifying Yerevan’s compliance with an international arms control 
treaty.

It announced the decision as Turkey and Azerbaijan began joint military 
exercises in the wake of deadly hostilities on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border 
which heightened tensions in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.

Signed in 1990 and revised in 1999, the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe 
(CFE) places specific limits on the deployment of troops and heavy weapons from 
the Atlantic coast to Russia's Ural mountains. Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan 
signed it after gaining independence.

Signatories to the treaty are allowed to inspect each other’s compliance with 
the arms ceilings through random visits to practically any military base. 
Military inspectors from Turkey and other NATO member states have regularly 
visited Armenia since the mid-1990s. The Armenian Defense Ministry had first 
sent a group of CFE inspectors to eastern Turkey in March 2010.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry said it informed the Organization for Security and 
Cooperation in Europe on Wednesday that Yerevan has decided to “suspend” Turkish 
inspections of its armed forces.


Azerbaijan -- A Turkish military-transport plane lands at Nakhichevan airport, - 


In a statement, the ministry attributed the move to Turkey’s “unilateral support 
to Azerbaijan” and “unprecedented threats against Armenia” voiced following the 
border clashes that broke out on July 12. It also pointed to the 
Turkish-Azerbaijani war games, saying that they “further aggravate the 
situation” in the Karabakh conflict zone.

“Any [further] military inspection conducted on the territory of Armenia by 
Turkey … would adversely impact Armenia’s security interests and may jeopardize 
the security of its population,” read the statement. It indicated that weapons 
inspectors from other OSCE member states will be allowed to continue to visit 
Armenia.

Turkey has blamed Armenia for the border clashes and vowed to boost its military 
and diplomatic support for Azerbaijan. Yerevan has responded by accusing Ankara 
of trying to destabilize the region.

The Armenian military said on Tuesday that it will be closely monitoring the 
Turkish-Azerbaijani drills which will be held in various parts of Azerbaijan for 
nearly two weeks. Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan said Armenian army units as 
well as Russian troops stationed in Armenia will use “all reconnaissance means” 
at their disposal for this purpose.


Turkey - Senior Armenian and Turkish army officers sign a protocol, 29Nov2012.

Armenia and Turkey have carried out mutual on-site arms inspections despite not 
having diplomatic relations and an open border. Neither country has accused the 
other of violating the CFE.

By contrast, the Armenian and Azerbaijani militaries have never inspected each 
other in line with a gentlemen’s agreement dating back to the 1990s. Yerevan and 
Baku have long traded accusations of exceeding arms quotas set by the Cold 
War-era treaty.




Lawmakers Want To Extend Tax Breaks, Subsidies For Armenian Border Villages

        • Marine Khachatrian

ARMENIA -- Aram Vardazaryan stands inside his home which suffered of bombing 
attacks in the village of Aygepar, Tavush region, recently damaged by shelling 
during armed clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, July 18, 2020

Pro-government lawmakers have introduced legislation that would extend and 
expand wide-ranging economic benefits enjoyed by residents of Armenian towns and 
villages close to the border with Azerbaijan.

People living in the 36 mostly rural communities affected by periodical 
Armenian-Azerbaijani border skirmishes have been exempt from property and 
agricultural land taxes since 2015. A law initiated by the former Armenian 
government also requires the state to subsidize the prices of electricity, 
natural gas and water supplied to them.

Amendments to the law drafted by parliament deputies from Prime Minister Nikol 
Pashinian’s My Step bloc would extend the tax exemptions by three more years, 
until January 2024. They also call for the government to continue paying half of 
the local residents’ utility bills.

Irrigation water used them would also be covered by the subsidies. And their 
children going to school would receive textbooks for free or at knockdown prices.

The proposed amendments would further commit the government to repairing homes 
damaged by cross-border gunfire from Azerbaijan, which has been a regular 
occurrence ever since the early 1990s.

The government has until now been legally obliged to help only the owners of 
homes completely destroyed by Azerbaijani shelling. The latter are eligible for 
new and free housing.


Armenia -- A view shows a house which locals said was damaged during a recent 
shelling by Azerbaijani forces in the village of Aygepar, Tavush Province, July 
15, 2020.

In addition, the bill stipulates that residents of the border towns and villages 
severely wounded as a result of truce violations would not only receive free 
healthcare but also financial compensation ranging from 1 million to 3 million 
drams ($2,100-$6,300). The state would pay 5 million drams to the families of 
civilians killed by enemy fire.

The bill, which the Armenian parliament is due to debate this fall, was 
circulated in the wake of deadly fighting that broke out along the border 
between Armenia’s northern Tavush province and the Tovuz district in Azerbaijan 
on July 12. Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of shelling border 
villages during the hostilities that lasted for several days and left at least 
17 soldiers dead.

According to the provincial administration, 89 houses in three Tavush villages 
were damaged as a result of the border clashes. The Armenian government has 
pledged to fully repair those properties. The repairs reportedly began last week.




Armenia Reports Further Drop In Coronavirus Cases

        • Robert Zargarian

Armenia -- Pedestrians wear face masks in downtown Yerevan, July 10, 2020.

The Armenian health authorities reported on Wednesday another decrease in the 
number of new coronavirus cases and deaths caused by them.

The Ministry of Health said in the morning that 308 people have tested positive 
for COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, down from an average of 550-600 single-day 
infections registered in the first half of July. They brought to 37,937 the 
total number of confirmed cases in Armenia.

The ministry recorded more than 730 cases a day at one point in late June. This 
might explain a subsequent rise in coronavirus-related deaths.

Around 15 fatalities a day were reported from July 6 through the end of last 
week. Significantly fewer people infected with COVID-19 have died in recent 
days, according to the Ministry of Health.

The ministry said on Wednesday that six people infected with COVID-19 have died 
in the past day. It said the virus was the primary cause of four of those deaths.

Armenia’s official death toll from the pandemic thus rose to 723. The health 
authorities say 225 other infected people have died from other, pre-existing 
diseases.


Armenia -- A healthcare worker in protective gear tends to a COVID-19 patient at 
the Surp Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center, Yerevan, June 5, 2020.

Government data also shows that less than 17 percent of the latest coronavirus 
tests carried out across the country of 3 million came back positive.

The positive test rate hovered between 20 percent and 25 percent in previous 
days. It averaged around 30 percent throughout June and early July.

The Ministry of Health spokeswoman, Alina Nikoghosian, described the latest 
figures as further proof of a continuing fall in the country’s infection rates. 
She attributed it to an increased number of Armenians wearing mandatory face 
masks in all public spaces and following other anti-epidemic rules set by the 
government.

“We have been more vigilant during the last few months,” Nikoghosian told 
RFE/RL’s Armenian service. “I hope that this pace [of improvement] will 
continue.”

Nikoghosian emphasized the fact that for several consecutive the daily number of 
people recovering from COVID-19 has exceeded that of new infections. But she 
cautioned that so far there has been no sizable drop in the number of COVID-19 
patients that are in a severe or critical condition.

The deputy director of the Surb Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center, Armenia’s 
largest hospital treating such patients, also spoke of an improving 
epidemiological situation. “I can say for certain that the number of deaths will 
fall further in the coming weeks given the decrease in severe cases,” said 
Petros Manukian.


Armenia -- A priest wears a face mask at the Echmiadzin-based Mother See of the 
Armenian Apostolic Church, June 11, 2020.

Manukian said that around one-fifth of intensive-care beds at his hospital are 
currently vacant. As recently as on July 13, Health Minister Arsen Torosian 
noted a continuing lack of such beds at the Surb Grigor Lusavorich and other 
Armenian hospitals dealing with the coronavirus.

Opposition groups have for months decried the government’s handling of the 
coronavirus crisis, saying that Armenia has one of the highest infection rates 
in the world. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Torosian and other government 
officials have dismissed the criticism.

Ever since controversially lifting nationwide lockdown restrictions in early 
May, the government has put the emphasis of getting Armenians to practice social 
distancing, wear face masks and follow other safety rules. It says that this 
strategy is working.

Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinian told the Armenian parliament on July 14 
that the government hopes to cut the daily number of new cases to roughly 140 by 
the beginning of September. He said this would allow the government to reopen 
the country’s schools shut down by it in March.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
Copyright (c) 2020 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc.
1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

 

AL-Monitor



The Turkish government no longer sees the need to conceal torture,
especially of Kurdish women in the southeast of the country.

By Pinar Tremblay
July 8, 2020


Picture this: A woman is home alone in Diyarbakir province in Turkey's
Kurdish-majority southeast. At 5 a.m., 100 policemen from
counterterrorism and special forces units storm the apartment,
instructing the neighbors to stay inside and not communicate with
anyone. Then they sledgehammer the door and unleash two police dogs to
attack Sevil Rojbin Cetin. But that is only the beginning.

Cetin is an activist in women’s movements and a former Peoples'
Democratic Party (HDP) mayor, elected in 2014 and replaced by a
government appointee in 2016.

Cetin was interrogated for 3½ hours in her apartment while her legs
were bleeding from multiple dog bites. The apartment was turned upside
down, while she was blindfolded and beaten.

She was stripped half naked with her hands tied, while photos were
taken of her. The physical and sexual torture was coupled with verbal
abuses; a gun was held to her head. “At one point she was taken to the
balcony and the officer told her, ‘If your apartment was on the 5th
floor, you would have jumped by now and we would not have to deal with
you,” said Meral Danis Bestas, a pro-Kurdish HDP lawmaker.

Cetin’s Attorney Gulistan Ates, who took photos of her injuries after
the ordeal and shared them with the press, was called to the police
station and an investigation has been launched against him.

The 2019 US State Department human rights report emphasized that
violations affect Turkey's Kurdish citizens disproportionally. Kurdish
women or women who refuse to be model citizens in the eyes of the
Turkish state are increasingly becoming targets of arbitrary arrests,
strip searches, sexual violence in detention, insults and threats of
rape.

Remziye Tosun, HDP lawmaker who has been targeted for wearing white
scarves in the parliament, told Al-Monitor, “During the siege of Sur
[in 2016], I stayed at home with my young children. Then they
[security forces] took us outside; I had my two daughters with me —
one was 18 months and the other nine years old. The security forces
were determined to send my children to social services despite my
pleas to call my family. But they sent my 9-year-old to an orphanage;
my nursing child was allowed to stay in prison with me.”

Tosun said that since 2015 state forces have increased gradually the
intensity of torture and abuse of women. “We have gone back in time —
back to the days of Esat Oktay Yildiran. That is the mentality of the
AKP [Justice and Development Party] right now; torture has come back
with a vengeance.” (Yildiran was a military officer who was notorious
for his gruesome torture techniques at the Diyarbakir prison in the
1980s.)

Tosun’s house in Sur was demolished, and she was imprisoned for 15
months with her youngest child. Despite all that has happened, she
keeps her kind and compassionate spirit. “The thing that hurt the most
was not the physical hardship but the humiliation. One day we were
cleaning the newly built prison in Elazig, but we had little access to
cleaning products. We saw a group of female guards staring at us, so
one of the inmates asked why the guards laughed nervously among
themselves. One replied, 'Look they speak, they are human.' This I
cannot forget, but I understand.”

Tosun said that she has forgiven those guards, adding, “The prejudice
against the Kurds, the sayings about the Kurds having tails and not
being civilized is still happening because of the official education
system. And that mindset helps justify cruel treatment and
discrimination.”

The Kurds in Turkey are perceived as pseudo-citizens, and therefore as
potential terrorists. The Kurds are accepted to some degree, and as
long as they assimilate diligently they are viewed as prospective
Turks.

Ayse Acar Basaran, HDP lawmaker and spokeswoman for the HDP’s Women’s
Council, told Al Monitor, “Since July 2015, we have had over 16,000
members of our party detained by the security forces. About 4,000 are
in prison.”

Basaran noted that all women’s organizations have been shut down since
the July 15, 2016, coup attempt. Violence against women has spiked
even further as men are given a blank check and women are left more
vulnerable in their homes and on the streets. “When the government
ended the peace process and intensified its aggressive security
policies women became the biggest victims. Now they are arresting
members of the two remaining women’s associations — Rosa Women's
Association and TJA-Free Women’s Movement. The charges against the
members include attending International Women's Day on March 8,
promoting peace, searching for missing women and seeking justice for
female victims of domestic violence. Women — particularly those in the
Kurdish women’s movement — pose a direct challenge to the AKP’s wish
to monopolize power, because they are so organized,” she added.

Eren Keskin, vice-president of Turkey’s Human Rights Association and a
prominent attorney, told Al-Monitor that torture of women both “in
detention and while being taken into detention is becoming routine.
Torture is clearly defined as illegal in both the Turkish Constitution
and several international treaties that Turkey has signed.”

In the 1980s, torture was hidden and frequently denied by government
officials. Today, senior bureaucrats welcome and even encourage it.
For example, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said in April, “I told
[the security forces] when you catch them [terrorists] tear them
apart.” Soylu also said that photos of the bodies would be made
public. Some of those commenting on these images on social media
suggest further gruesome acts on the alleged terrorists. In what seems
to have become the normalization of torture and violence, the display
of the mutated body parts of Kurdish women have become an event to
celebrate.

Sebnem Korur Fincanci, president of the Human Rights Foundation of
Turkey, announced that according to the foundation's records one in
every 500 people in Turkey has been tortured.

HDP lawmakers are now asking who is responsible for torturing Cetin
for 3½ hours, and who gave the order for this torture. The images of
the torture did not cause an uproar among social media users. So far,
no police investigation has been launched about any torture claims.
The problem of impunity of government officials in Turkey has reached
levels never seen before. Instead, we can expect more investigations
for human rights lawyers, HDP lawmakers and journalists who dare to
report cases of torture or abuse.

There are several loopholes in the law to protect torturers. Although
torture is to receive severe punishment, the prosecution can easily
turn the case into “an act of brutality,” which would not even cost
the officer his job. These acts are becoming routine because they are
condoned by the government and justified under the argument of
“combatting terrorism” — with little to no room left to ask how
torturing these women helps combat terror.

Turkey is regressing fast to the days when police officers marched
chanting, “Damn human rights” — starting in 1992 at a funeral of four
officers.