Author: Tadevosian Garnik

GURGEN DALIBALTAYAN’S MONUMENT TO BE ERECTED IN AKHALKALAK

Noyan Tapan News Agency, Armenia
Sept 25 2006

AKHALKALAK, SEPTEMBER 25, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Works of
erecting a monument to Gurgen Dalibaltayan, a famous Armenian of
Javakhk, person having great contribution in the Karabakh war, Colonel
General of the Soviet Army started in Akhalkalak. The General’s 80th
birthday anniversary is marked this year.

According to the "A-Info" agency, the height of the monument is 8
meters: it will face Western Armenia.

"We hope that works will be completedc in time to be able to erect
the monument, bad weather may become the only circumstance laying
obstacles," monument authir Levon Mkrtchian said.

DEFENSE OF MULTIPLE ROOTS LANDS BEST-SELLING AUTHOR IN COURT
by Nicolas Cheviron

Agence France Presse — English
September 19, 2006 Tuesday 1:45 AM GMT

Multicultural and multilingual and determined to defend her right
to be so, prominent author Elif Shafak’s ruffling of establishment
feathers in Turkey has resulted in a lawsuit for "denigrating the
Turkish national identity" that begins here Thursday.

The novels of the 35-year-old Shafak, peopled with uprooted characters
who switch nationality, religion and even sex, has managed to offend
almost all sectors of Turkey’s complex establishment.

Militant secular defenders of the principles set by Mustafa Kemal
Ataturk, the founder of the republic, conservative Islamists and far
right nationalists all disapprove.

She angered the Kemalists by reproaching the republic, founded by
Ataturk from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, of rejecting
the Ottomans’ multicultural past and replacing it with what she sees
as an impoverished, if monolithic, national identity.

They also frowned at her column in the Islamist — albeit moderate
— daily Zaman and her marriage to a former commentator of the same
newspaper, which has alleged links to a powerful religious brotherhood.

Conservative Muslims were indignant when her first novel, "Pinhan"
(The Sufi), published in 1998, told the story of a hermaphrodite
Muslim mystic.

For the far right, the last straw was a passage in her latest opus,
"Baba ve Pic" (The Bastard of Istanbul), calling for a national
reflection on the near-taboo subject of the Armenian massacres of
World War I, whose "genocide" label Turkey vehemently rejects.

An association of far-right lawyers that has distinguished itself
over the past few years by instigating lawsuits against liberal
intellectuals is behind the trial scheduled to begin before an Istanbul
court on Thursday.

"The Bastard of Istanbul" is sweeping saga of four generations of
women moving between Turkey and the United States and recounting the
tale of an Armenian family that fled the massacres of 1915, leaving
behind a child who was reared as a Turk and a Muslim.

Shafak knows what she is talking about: the product of the Kemalist
establishment she criticizes, the granddaughter of a military family
and the daughter of diplomats, she has led a nomadic existence.

Born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971, she spent her youth in Spain
and Jordan and shares her time between Turkey and the United States,
where she teaches at the University of Arizona.

"I do have roots, but my roots are not in one place, neither in the
ground nor in the air," she explained in a 2005 interview in New
Perspectives Quarterly.

"Im connected to different cultures, and thats, I think, part of the
reason why I believe its possible to be multicultural, multilingual
and multifaith," she said.

After the controversial "The Sufi" came "The Mirrors of the City",
which told the tale of conversos — Jews converted to Catholicism to
flee the Spanish inquisition — who sought refuge in Istanbul.

"The Gaze" was the story of women’s quest for independence throughout
the centuries and "The Flea Palace" recounted the moral and physical
collapse of the residents of an Istanbul apartment building.

And "The Saint of Incipient Insanities", written in English in 2004,
is the story of a score of foreigners’ fruitless quest for fulfillment
in the United States.

Whether Shafak will appear at her trial on Thursday is still unclear,
however.

She became a mother for the first time on Saturday and her baby
daughter’s name reflects Shafak’s preoccupations as a writer —
Shehrazad Zelda, after, respectively, the legendary teller of the
1001 tales of the Arabian Nights, and the talented and tragic spouse
of US author F. Scott Fitzgerald.

ANOTHER WRITER GOES ON TRIAL IN NEW BLOW TO TURKEY’S EU CREDENTIALS

Agence France Presse — English
September 19, 2006 Tuesday 1:44 AM GMT

A celebrated Turkish novelist goes on trial Thursday over her book
on the massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire, casting fresh
doubts on Turkey’s democratic credentials just weeks before the EU
releases a key report on its troubled membership bid.

Elif Shafak, 35, is the latest in a string of intellectuals to
answer charges of "denigrating the Turkish national identity" under
an infamous penal code provision that has led the European Union to
question Turkey’s commitment to freedom of speech.

The case, in which Shafak risks up to three years in jail, has ignited
further criticism because the charges stem from remarks by fictional
Armenian characters in her best-selling novel "The Bastard of Istanbul"
or "Baba ve Pic" (The Father and the Bastard) in Turkish.

Article 301 has landed many other intellectuals in court, including
Turkey’s best-known writer Orhan Pamuk.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn urged Ankara in July to amend
Article 301 "in order to guarantee freedom of expression", after an
appeals court upheld a conviction against Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink under the same provision, setting a precedent.

Dink’s six-month sentence was suspended, while the case against Pamuk
was dropped on a technicality. No one has so far gone to jail under
the article, but dozens of cases are pending.

"Article 301 is being used so heedlessly to crush people in
courtrooms," Dink said in February after he was acquitted in an
earlier case tried under the 301 clause.

"What needs to be done is repeal the article," he said.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul recently hinted the provision may be
amended as part of reforms that the government is planning to rush
through parliament before the European Commission gives its verdict on
Turkey’s progress towards membership in a crucial report on October 24.

Turkey’s accession talks are already in trouble over its rejection
to open its sea and air ports to Greek Cypriot use under a customs
union accord with the European Union.

The proceedings against Shafak were initiated after a complaint
filed by a nationalist lawyer notorious for relentlessly pursuing
before the courts intellectuals who dispute the official line on the
Armenian massacres.

Much to Turkey’s chagrin, the World War I killings have been recognized
as genocide by many countries and open debate of the issue often
drives nationalist sentiment into a frenzy.

It was unclear whether Shafak will be present in the courtroom Thursday
as she just gave birth to her first child, a girl, at the weekend.

"The Bastard of Istanbul", originally written in English, was
released here in March 2006 and quickly became a bestseller. It will
be published in the United States and Britain next year.

The novel moves between Istanbul and San Fransisco as it tells
the intertwined stories of four generations of Turkish women and
an Armenian-American family, the descendants of survivors of the
massacres.

Armenians assert that up to 1.5 million of their people were
slaughtered in what was a genocide between 1915 and 1917.

Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks
died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in
eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading the crumbling
Ottoman Empire.

Shafak, who was born in France and spent her teenage years abroad as
the daughter of a Turkish diplomat, writes both in English and Turkish.

She is also an assistant professor at Arizona University’s Near
Eastern Studies department and divides her time between Turkey and
the United States.

ATTEMPT TO RESTORE SHATTERED LITERARY BRIDGES

AZG Armenian Daily
20/09/2006

At the initiative of the Union of Armenians of Russia (UAR), Russian
writers paid a two-day visit to Armenia and met on September 18 their
Armenian colleagues at the Writers’ Union of Armenia (WUA). Time
was short and the get-together did not turn into a relaxed powwow of
friends. Russian writers informed their Armenian colleagues about the
situation, approaches and tendencies in the literary world. Armenian
and Russian writers emphasized the importance of restoring the former
literary bridges and mutual visits. Levon Ananian, chairman of the WUA,
thanked Ara Abrahamian (UAR) for organizing this meeting.

All Russian writers were somehow connected with our country for whom
the Armenian culture is not a terra incognita.

DONETSK: RUSSIAN SHOOTS ARMENIAN BUSINESSMAN

5tv.com, Ukraine
19.09.2006 17:04

Prosecutors in Donetsk have initiated criminal proceedings in the
Monday shooting of businessman Samvel Adamian in the eastern city. Both
Adamian and his would-be assassin are currently in hospital.

The shooting occurred after 3 PM outside of the offices of
Donbasnaftoprodukt – a firm widely believed to be owned by Adamian. He
was shot in the chest as he exited his car. Guards form the building
ran out upon hearing the shots and returned fire, injuring the
attacker. Police recovered two pistols, two passports and two mobile
phones at the seen of the crime. The possibility that a second
attacker took part in the shooting is being invesitgated. Donetsk
prosecutor Oleksandr Ol’mezov said that the injured assasin is a
citizen of the Russian Federation. Adamian is a leading member of
the Armenian Diaspora in Donetsk, who has himself reportedly been
convicted of crimes in the past. Adamian has also reportedly survived
an assassination attempt in the past.

GUAM LAW-ENFORCEMENT AND SPECIAL SERVICE EXPERTS GATHER IN BAKU TO DISCUSS COMBAT AGAINST TERRORISM

AzerTag,
[September 18, 2006, 22:19:58]

In compliance with annual plan of the GUAM Working Group on combat
against terrorism, drug trafficking and other kinds of dangerous
threats of organized crimes, the first meeting of the law-enforcement
and special service experts passed in Baku to discuss combat against
terrorism, 15-16 September. The Ministry of National Security of
Azerbaijan and Euro-Atlantic Consultative Group have organized the
meeting.

In meeting, participating were high-rank representatives of the
law-enforcement and special service bodies form Georgia, Ukraine,
Azerbaijan and Moldova, as well as Euro-Atlantic Consultative Group
and representative of the US Embassy in Baku.

Participants of the action stressed necessity of preventive measures to
reveal plans and intentions of the terror organizations, their finance
channels, exchange of data and experience in combat against terrorism.

The Azerbaijani side informed on the Armenian aggression, uncontrolled
areas and their sequences, the existent threats against safety of the
transport ands energy infrastructure in region and measures undertaken
to prevent them.

In meeting, also was speaking the project manager of Euro-Atlantic
Consultative Group, general Alexander Farkas.

Participants have signed a protocol on results of the meeting.

EUROPEAN ENVOY IN NK URGES JOINT EFFORT TO FIND MISSING PERSONS

Mediamax news agency, Yerevan, in Russian
18 Sep 06

Yerevan, 18 September: The rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe for missing persons, Leo Platvoet, said in
Stepanakert [Xankandi] today that "cooperation between all parties
to the Karabakh conflict in issues concerning missing persons could
be mutually beneficial".

Platvoet said that all whom he had met in Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert
spoke out against politicizing this problem and expressed their
readiness to cooperate.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has worked out a special
mechanism to resolve such issues as determining the fate of missing
persons and hostages, finding where they are buried and identifying
human remains, Platvoet said.

"All the sides need to cooperate and refrain from politicizing
humanitarian issues for this mechanism to work," he stressed.

ARMENIA FORUM TO DISCUSS DEVELOPMENT OF COUNTRY RURAL REGIONS
by Tigran Liloyan

ITAR-TASS News Agency
September 18, 2006 Monday

The Armenia-Diaspora forum that will open in Yerevan on Monday will
discuss issues related to complex development of the country’s rural
areas, especially Armenia’s border settlements. Representatives of
Armenian communities of dozens of countries, heads of the Armenian
Church and all-Armenian organisations have arrived to attend it.

The forum that will be held for the third time "has become a kind of
constitutional structure in relations of the motherland with foreign
compatriots," Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanyan said.

According to the official, "These relations are at a qualitatively
new level corresponding to the changed challenges of the time and
increased country’s potential." This time the forum coincides with
the 15th anniversary of Armenia’s independence.

The Armenian foreign minister said that programmes of foreign donor
countries, international organisations, in particular, the World Bank,
as well as various organisations of the diaspora are also specified in
the guidelines of Armenian rural areas’ development (the US government
will provide to Armenian rural areas 250 million dollars within the
framework of the Millennium Challenge programme).

The Armenian government has chosen 20-25 from the country’s 150
remote settlements that need aid most of all, Oskanyan went on
to say. According to him, the developed programmes that will be
proposed for financing by the diaspora envisage the improvement
of infrastructure, creation of favourable conditions for sustained
development and involvement of the rural population in the process
of the projects’ implementation.

If the Armenian population comprises 3.2 million then over five
million Armenians live outside the republic. Out of this number 2.5
million Armenians live in Russia, about one million – in the United
States and 450,000 – in France.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH: UNCERTAINTY FACES BAPTIST CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR
By Felix Corley, Forum 18 News Service

Forum 18, Norway
18 September 2006

It is unclear whether the authorities will take further action
against a young Baptist conscript who refuses to swear the military
oath and bear arms on grounds of conscience, Forum 18 News Service
has found. Gagik Mirzoyan was freed from prison at the end of a
jail sentence, held by the Military Police and, after eight days,
transferred to a military unit.

"They are still pressuring him to swear the military oath and take
up weapons," Baptist pastor Garnik Abreyan told Forum 18. "He still
has three months to serve of his military service and we just don’t
know what they will do with him." Albert Voskanyan, of the Centre
for Civilian Initiatives – who has regularly visited both Gagik
Mirzoyan and jailed Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector Areg
Hovhanesyan – told Forum 18 that "the danger is real that Mirzoyan
could be imprisoned again." Deputy Foreign Minister Masis Mailyan
told Forum 18 that he does not know what the military will now do.

Baptists in the unrecognised republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in the
South Caucasus are still unsure whether the authorities will take
further action against a young Baptist conscript who refuses to swear
the military oath and bear arms. Freed from prison in Shusha on 5
September, at the end of his sentence for refusing to perform military
duties, 20-year-old Gagik Mirzoyan was held by the Military Police and,
after eight days, transferred to a military unit. "No-one is doing
anything bad to him in the unit, but they are still pressuring him to
swear the military oath and take up weapons," Baptist pastor Garnik
Abreyan told Forum 18 News Service on 17 September from Stepanakert,
the disputed enclave’s capital. "He still has three months to serve
of his military service and we just don’t know what they will do
with him."

Mirzoyan, who is from Karabakh’s Mardakert district, is a member of
a local congregation of the Council of Churches Baptists, who refuse
on principle to register congregations with the state authorities
in post-Soviet countries. He was called up in December 2004 and
immediately refused to swear the military oath and carry weapons. After
initially allowing him to serve without weapons and without swearing
the military oath, the military authorities then changed their minds.

At the district court of Hadrut in south-eastern Karabakh in July 2005,
Mirzoyan was found guilty under Article 364 part 1 of the Criminal
Code, which punishes "refusal to perform one’s military duties" with
detention of up to 3 months, service in a punishment battalion of up
to 2 years or imprisonment of up to 2 years. Mirzoyan was sentenced
to two years’ imprisonment, but this was suspended and he was then
sent back to his military unit. However, in September 2005 Hadrut
district court converted this into a one-year term of imprisonment
at the urging of military leaders. He was beaten several times while
in the hands of the army and while in prison (see F18News 22 March
2006 ) .

Nagorno-Karabakh has adopted Armenia’s Criminal Code, which also
punishes conscientious objection – see eg.

F18News 23 February 2006
=733.

Despite having served his full jail sentence for refusing to perform
military duties, Gagik Mirzoyan’s two-year term of compulsory military
service is not due to be completed until December of this year.

An official at the Defence Ministry, who declined to give his name,
told Forum 18 from Stepanakert on 18 September that he was not familiar
with Mirzoyan’s case and was not prepared to discuss it. He referred
all enquiries to the Foreign Ministry, although it has no jurisdiction
over what happens in the Karabakh armed forces.

Deputy Foreign Minister Masis Mailyan told Forum 18 on 18 September
that he has been following Mirzoyan’s case and described his release
from prison as "good news" – even though the release was at the end
of the young Baptist’s full jail sentence. Mailyan said that after
having spoken to the Defence Ministry about Mirzoyan’s case he thought
there was "no urge to punish him again". But he does not know what
the military will now do, as Mirzoyan still refuses to swear the
military oath.

Mailyan insisted that Karabakh needs to be able to defend itself
because of the unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan, but said he
believes young men who cannot serve in the armed forces on grounds
of conscience should be offered alternative, non-military service.

"We strive to meet European standards, and I’m personally in favour
of introducing an alternative service," he told Forum 18. However,
he noted that no concrete draft law on alternative service has yet
reached the local parliament.

Pastor Abreyan told Forum 18 that he and fellow Baptists had been able
to meet Mirzoyan on 16 September, at his unit in Nagorno-Karabakh’s
south-eastern Martuni district. "Gagik is being well treated at the
moment, can move freely around the base and has not been made to wear
a uniform," Abreyan reported.

Also imprisoned in Shusha Prison, just south of Stepanakert, for
refusing military service on grounds of religious conscience is a
Jehovah’s Witness from Stepanakert, Areg Hovhanesyan. He was sentenced
in February 2005 to four years’ imprisonment for refusing military
service on grounds of religious conscience (see F18News 22 February
2005 ) .

Concerned over both Mirzoyan and Hovhanesyan is Albert Voskanyan, head
of the Centre for Civilian Initiatives, a local human rights group,
who has regularly visited both in Shusha Prison. "The danger is real
that Mirzoyan could be imprisoned again," Voskanyan told Forum 18 on
15 September.

Voskanyan had written on 21 August to the president of the unrecognised
republic, Arkady Gukasyan, explaining that Mirzoyan had rejected
the military oath because of his belief as a Baptist that the Bible
forbids the swearing of oaths and had expressed his willingness to
serve in the armed forces without swearing the oath.

"The following, complex situation has emerged, almost an impasse,"
Voskanyan told Gukasyan. "The sentenced man, having served the
punishment given to him, will again be called up to military service,
will again refuse to swear the oath although he is ready to serve the
remainder of the term he is due to serve, and will again be sentenced,
this time as a recidivist."

Voskanyan called on Gukasyan to have Mirzoyan treated "leniently".

Pastor Abreyan told Forum 18 that Mirzoyan is the only Baptist in
Nagorno-Karabakh facing such problems. He also reported that Baptist
congregations are not obstructed in meeting for worship. "No-one is
restricting us – we can hold meetings, pray and worship."

A printer-friendly map of the disputed
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh is available at
las/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=azerba
with in the map titled ‘Azerbaijan’.

Les Echos , France
14 septembre 2006

L’Année de l’Arménie en France

Cinq cents manifestations mettant en valeur le patrimoine mais aussi
«la vitalité de la scène artistique contemporaine» arménienne, seront
organisées à Paris et en province dans le cadre de l’Année de
l’Arménie en France, du 21 septembre prochain au 14 juillet 2007.
Symboliquement, «Arménie mon amie» s’ouvrira le jour de la fête
nationale arménienne et s’achèvera celui de la fête nationale
française. Parmi les temps forts, le patrimoine sera à l’honneur,
avec l’exposition «Armenia sacra» au musée du Louvre, consacrée à
l’art chrétien des Arméniens, depuis leur conversion au début du IVe
siècle jusqu’au XIXe. Autre exposition, «Les douze capitales
d’Arménie», à la Conciergerie à Paris, sera articulée autour des
douze villes qui ont jalonné 3.000 ans d’histoire de l’Arménie. Une
exposition au musée Jean-Moulin à Paris rendra hommage à Missak
Manouchian, chef du groupe FTP (francs-tireurs partisans) de
l’«affiche rouge», exécuté en février 1944 par les nazis avec 22
autres résistants. D’autres expositions seront présentées à Marseille
(«Arménie, la magie de l’écrit»), Lyon («Ors et trésors d’Arménie»),
Faymoreau, en Vendée («Trésors d’Arménie») ou Strasbourg («30 livres
précieux de la bibliothèque nationale d’Erevan»).