February 20 is celebrated as Artsakh Revival Day. On tis day in 1988, the Council of People’s Deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region passed a decision on unification with Armenia.
This historic decision marked the beginning of a new stage of the national-liberation struggle of the Armenians of Artsakh – the Karabakh Movement. It was a truly democratic movement, a struggle for civil rights, national identity, economic equality and dignified life.
From the very beginning, the Karabakh Movement was peaceful and embodied the aspiration of the people of Artsakh to exercise its inalienable right to self-determination by using the legal mechanisms in place.
The response of Baku to the legitimate demand of the Armenians of Artsakh was its refusal of political dialogue and bloody crimes against the Armenian population of the Azerbaijani SSR.
In an attempt to intimidate the people of Artsakh by force, the Azerbaijani authorities launched ethnic cleansing in Sumgait, Baku, and other Armenian-populated cities of Azerbaijan, as well as in the settlements of Northern Artsakh, which subsequently grew into large-scale military aggression against the civilian population of Artsakh.
PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish lawmaker of Armenian descent Garo Paylan has visited St. Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir, according to a Facebook post he published on Saturday, February 12.
"I visited St. Giragos Church in Diyarbakir to observe the work on site," he wrote.
The ancient Armenian church in southeastern Turkey being restored. The Church, built in the 16th century in the Alipasa neighborhood of Sur district, Diyarbakir province, has an area of 3,769 square meters.
Owned by the Diyarbakır Surp Giragos Armenian Church Foundation, the church, whose upper structure was completely destroyed, is also known as the Paddy Church as it was used as a paddy factory for a long time.
An inscription, now in the Diyarbakir Archeology Museum, says the Christian place of worship was last repaired in 1840.
Inside Higher Education By Jack Grove Feb. 4, 2022 [Incidents raise concerns about academic freedom and political interference.] The firing of three elected deans from Boğaziçi University, a research university in Turkey, could signal a renewed attack on institutional autonomy and freedom of speech in Turkey’s universities, scholars have warned. The dismissal of Özlem Berk Albachten, Metin Ercan and Yasemin Bayyurt by Turkey’s Higher Education Council (YOK) follows a tumultuous year at the leading Istanbul university, which has been riven by student protests since a loyalist to the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was installed as rector in January 2021. Since the appointment from outside Boğaziçi of Melih Bulu, a member of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party who was accused of plagiarizing his Ph.D., more than 600 student protesters have been arrested, and some of them face jail sentences of more than 30 years. It is believed that the deans were made redundant because of their support for academics who criticized the appointment of Bulu—who was later dismissed. Scholars have held a daily vigil to protest against his successor, Naci Inci, another Erdoğan supporter. Their dismissal follows a sustained attack on academic freedom within Turkish universities in the wake of the attempted coup in 2016. In the years since that putsch, more than 6,000 academics have been sacked, and about 3,000 schools and universities have been closed over alleged links to the movement led by exiled preacher Fethullah Gülen. Several émigré Turkish scholars told Times Higher Education, however, that the most recent sackings at Boğaziçi were particularly troubling because they signaled that even mild political dissent would not be tolerated within universities. “This latest event makes many educators like me hesitate to return and work in Turkey,” explained Boğaziçi graduate Elif Balin, now an assistant professor at San Francisco State University. “This constant attack on institutional independence, academic freedom, job security and the right to peaceful protest, along with filling administrative and academic positions with nonelected and partisan members, makes many people—especially young people in Turkey—question the quality of their education and diminishes their hope for the future.” “It is utterly heartbreaking and depressing to see my alma mater being attacked, dismantled and slowly torn into pieces,” said Devrim Umut Aslan, a lecturer at Lund University in Sweden. Staff and students at Boğaziçi have protested against the latest dismissals, which Taner Bilgiç, a member of the executive board, described as seeming “more like a punishment given out to a university that has been standing up for its academic freedom and institutional autonomy for the past year.” Zeynep Gambetti, associate professor in political science at Boğaziçi, said the removal of three deans who had fought to ensure that scholarly excellence trumped party loyalty would give the new president a “free hand in filling the university with below-par academics and in dismissing or crowding out critical faculty members.” “Boğaziçi is sure to lose its stature as a center of excellence and will become, like other universities in Turkey, an institution where fear and self-censorship are rampant,” he said. “Things are looking very grim at the moment,” added Olcay Atik, a chemistry undergraduate, who is facing disciplinary action for protesting. “With the removal of the three deans our academicians voted in, we are expecting a huge number of students to be wrongfully punished with little to no evidence … as deans get to make the final decisions.” However, Gürkan Kumbaroğlu, vice rector at Boğaziçi, contested the version of events put forward by the deans, stating that the university was “committed wholeheartedly to academic freedom and will always be in the vanguard of its defense.” “However, academic freedom is not coterminous with pursuing a clandestine political agenda” and “with any freedom, there comes responsibility,” he told Times Higher Education. The three deans did “not hold their positions by virtue of a popular democratic mandate,” contended Kumbaroğlu, who said that “by law, they are appointed to their post on the basis of a contract with the university by [Turkey’s Higher Education Council],” which decided that “they had committed serious infractions resulting in clear breaches of their professional and academic obligations.” The academics declined to take part in an investigation and did not submit representations in their defense, he added. “They have, therefore, not been removed due to a putative assault on academic freedoms; indeed, we contend there is no evidence for this,” said Kumbaroğlu. “They have been dismissed due to serious failures on their part in fulfilling their duties—it is unfortunate and inaccurate, therefore, that they wish to frame this as a political grievance.”
18:23, 4 February, 2022
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 4, ARMENPRESS. The 24th Winter Olympics kicked off in Beijing. ARMENPRESS reports the official ceremony started with a historical reference, presenting the countries that hosted the previous 23 Winter Olympic Games. Next, the delegations started entering the stadium. The flag of the Armenian delegation was carried by skier Mikayel Mikayelyan and figure skater Tina Karapetyan.
The Olympic Games were officially opened by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Armenia is represented at the Winter Olympics by skier Mikael Mikaelyan, Katya Galstyan, Angelina Muradyan, as well as figure skaters Tina Karapetyan and her skating partner Simon Sénécal. The head of the Armenian delegation is Armen Grigoryan from the National Olympic Committee.
Earlier it became known that the results of the tests of the President of the Ski Federation of Armenia Gagik Sargsyan, mountain skier Harutyun Harutyunyan and coach Arsen Nersisyan were positive, they did not go to Beijing.
11:54, 25 January, 2022
YEREVAN, JANUARY 25, ARMENPRESS. Transparency International has released its Corruption Perception Index 2021 where Armenia is ranked 58th among 180 countries.
According to the report, Armenia’s CPI score in 2021 remained unchanged compared to 2020 (49 scores). Armenia’s result is higher from the CPI global average which is equivalent to 43.
In 2020 Armenia was ranked 60th in the CPI.
Among the 19 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Armenia is the 2nd.
Like in 2020, this year as well the CIP score of the other member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) remain low from Armenia’s CPI score. Particularly, the CPI score of Belarus is 41, that of Russia is 29, Kyrgyzstan – 27 and Kazakhstan (37).
The report says that 25 countries, including Armenia, improved their CPI score. It also says that Armenia is among the countries which registered significant progress in the last decade.
20:30, 26 January, 2022
YEREVAN, 26 JANUARY, ARMENPRESS. The US Embassy in Kyiv has called on US citizens to consider leaving Ukraine "now", ARMENPRESS reports, says the statement of the diplomatic mission.
"The security situation in Ukraine remains unpredictable in the face of the growing threat of military action by Russia… The US Embassy urges its citizens in Ukraine to consider leaving the country now, using commercial or other private transportation means," the embassy said in a statement.
Earlier, the US State Department said that since January 24, it has allowed some of the diplomatic staff in Ukraine to leave voluntarily, obliging all family members to leave the country.
17:30,
YEREVAN, JANUARY 28, ARMENPRESS. 60,618,612 Iranians have received the first dose and 53,917,006 people have received the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine so far, IRNA reports citing the ministry of health of Iran.
Moreover, 16,175,768 people have also received the booster shot.
Some 23 more Iranians have died from the coronavirus disease over the past 24 hours, bringing the total deaths to 132,356.
16,757 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Iran in the past day.
The ministry said that 6,095,414 patients out of a total of 6,310,452 infected people have recovered or been discharged from hospitals.
Minorities and refugees in Turkey continued to suffer from rights violations, hate speech, and attacks throughout last year, according to the 2021 report of the Stockholm Center for Freedom—which is an advocacy organization.
As per this report, Armenian cultural heritage in Turkey faced destruction in the year past.
Accordingly, an “Armenian church dating to 1603 in the western province of Kütahya that was on the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s preservation list was demolished in January after it was acquired by a private party.”
As per this report, in March “an old Armenian cemetery was destroyed during construction in Ankara’s Ulus district as part of gentrification project, and human remains were found at the site.”
Also, an “old Armenian cemetery in Turkey’s eastern province of Van was destroyed by bulldozers in August and bones were scattered across the field, sparking outrage among the Armenian community and opposition politicians.”
In addition, an “Armenian Protestant church in Diyarbakır province was leased to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for a period of 10 years to serve as a public library.”
Furthermore, the “Surp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian church in central Turkey’s Akşehir district will serve as the ‘World’s Masters of Humor Art House’ as part of a project to found a ‘humor village’ in the hometown of famous 13th century Turkish satirist Nasreddin Hoca.”
And, separately, a “far-right independent member of the Turkish Parliament threatened Turkish-Armenian lawmaker Garo Paylan with facing the same fate as his ancestors amid debates over the recognition of the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire as genocide by the US administration.”