Author: Takmazian

SPIELBERG’S SHOAH FOUNDATION TO DOCUMENT OTHER ATROCITIES

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
April 24, 2007 Tuesday 7:59 PM EST

DPA x World Wars Society US Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation to document
other atrocities Los Angeles Director Steven Spielberg’s Shoah
Foundation is to expand beyond a focus on the Holocaust to document
survivor memories from more recent atrocities, USA Today reported
Tuesday.

Until now, the foundation started by Spielberg has focused on
recording the statements of Holocaust survivors and has collected
more than 52,000 interviews. The foundation will continue to record
those oral histories, but will also turn its attention to recording
eye-witness reports of genocide in Rwanda and Cambodia, as well as
stories of life under apartheid in South Africa.

"The obligation to remember is a moral responsibility that all of us
owe to all of those who have suffered violence and racism in the modern
world, whether they are Jew or Armenians or Cambodians or Rwandans
or Darfuris," said Douglas Greenberg, executive director of the Shoah
Foundation Institute at the University of Southern California.

Spielberg said the organization was dedicated to applying the mantra
"never forget" to more recent acts of genocide and oppression.

"Now we ask ourselves: How do we make this vision a priority in
communities all across the world?" Spielberg said.

Spielberg created the foundation after finishing his Oscar-winning
film Schindler’s List nearly 14 years ago, saying he was overwhelmed
by the personal stories he heard from Holocaust survivors after the
movie came out.

EMBASSY OF UKRAINE IS SORRY FOR THE FACT OF DESECRATION OF THE ARMENIAN CHAPEL IN KIEV

Arminfo
2007-04-23 12:46:00

As it became known, on Sunday morning, 22 April the walls of the
chapel recently built in Podolsk district of Kiev were smeared by
color. The chapel was set at the place of an Armenian church that
will be built in future.

As ArmInfo was informed from the Embassy of Ukraine to Armenia,
the embassy is really sorry for the incident and thinks that those
who did that should be condemned and punished. Ukrainian Embassy
is sure that the Armenian church built in Kiev will become the real
representation of the Armenian Apostolic Church for all the Armenians
living in Ukraine stemming from the best traditions of century-long
friendship between the peoples of Ukraine and Armenia.

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: ARMENIANS ENRICH DIVERSE HISTORY AND CULTURE OF CALIFORNIA

PanARMENIAN.Net
23.04.2007 19:44 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ California is home to nearly one million
Armenians. Throughout the decades, the Armenian-American community
has contributed to California agriculture, business, education,
public service, sports and the arts, Governor of California Arnold
Schwarzenegger stated at the interview to PanARMENIAN.Net. He said,
Armenians of California have retained their distinct heritage,
language and religion, greatly enriching our State’s diverse history,
industry and culture.

The largest and most influential Armenian community of the
U.S.A. resides in California. In general they are descendants of the
Armenian Genocide. Representatives of the Armenian community actively
participate in political and economic life of the state. Today one
of the most authoritative Armenian English-language newspapers –
The California Courrier and "Masis" newspaper are being published
in California. A number of Sunday schools function in the state. The
Consulate General of Armenia is located in California.

VARTAN OSKANYAN LEAVES FOR BRUSSELS

A1+
[07:59 pm] 23 April, 2007

RoA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian leaves for Brussels on April 25.

The RoA FM will make a speech in the Royal Conservatory of
Brussels. The event will be attended by the representatives of the
diplomatic corpses, the Armenian community and organizations operating
in Brussels.

On April 25 Vartan Oskanian meets with Peter Semneby, EU Special
Representative for the South Caucasus.

On April 27-29 the Armenian Foreign Minister will participate in
"Brussels Forum-2007" and the roundtable "From Baltic Sea to the
Black Sea: New Euro-Atlantic Challenge." The forum will be attended
by the Presidents of Estonia and Lithuania, the Prime Ministers of
Belgium, the Foreign Ministers of Canada, Georgia, Germany, Sweden,
Belgia and Israel, and other high-level officials.

KARABAKH CONFLICT CAN BE RESOLVED THROUGH PEACE AND DIALOGUE ONLY

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.04.2007 16:50 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ When joining the Council of Europe both Armenia
and Azerbaijan undertook to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict
peacefully. Thereupon we state that the conflict can be resolved
through peace and dialogue only, said Fiorenzo Stolfi, the Chair of
the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

The Genevan meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs gives hope
for further efforts for peaceful resolution of the conflict, according
to him.

Referenda and presidential election in Nagorno Karabakh ‘pose obstacle
in the settlement process’, he said. Such moves will never be accepted
by the Council of Europe, he added, APA reports.

THREE CHRISTIANS MURDERED IN TURKISH CITY
By Vincent Boland in Ankara

FT
April 18 2007 18:44

Three people, including a German citizen, were killed in a savage
attack on a Turkish publishing company with ties to the country’s
Christian community, in the latest in a series of bloody assaults on
its tiny religious minorities.

Separately, in a development that could inflame Turkey’s simmering
ethnic tensions still further, four police officers were acquitted of
any wrongdoing in the shooting deaths of a 12-year-old Kurdish boy
and his father in 2004. The incident caused anguish in the country
and attracted the attention of international human rights activists.

Both developments highlight the precarious nature of religious and
other minority freedoms in Turkey, which is 99 per cent Muslim and
prone to chauvinistic nationalism. They follow the murder in January
of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, and coincide
with continuing unrest and separatist feeling in the Kurdish provinces
in the east and southeast.

The attack on the Zirve publishing house, which reportedly was involved
in distributing bibles, occurred in Malatya, a city of about 1m in
eastern Turkey. The three victims were found with their hands and feet
bound and with their throats cut in an assault that bore hallmarks
of the attacks carried out by Islamist extremists. The German embassy
in Ankara said one of the victims was a German citizen.

Four people were being questioned about the incident late on Wednesday,
and Turkish television reported that a link was being investigated
to an organisation called Turkish Hezbollah, which seeks to establish
an Islamist state in Kurdish Turkey.

Any motive for the attack, the worst on a Christian target for many
years, was not clear. But Malatya has an unusual history that would
give the incident some context. It used to be home to a large community
of Armenian Christians. Most of them fled or were massacred as the
Ottoman empire collapsed during the first world war.

Since then its population has become a mix of Turks and ethnic Kurds.

Both communities identify their separate and often warring nationalisms
with Islam. Malatya is the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish
man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981, and of Mr Dink.

The four police officers were acquitted of all charges relating to
the murders of Ahmet Kaymaz and his son Ugur in Kiziltepe, a Kurdish
village close to Turkey’s border with Syria. The case was seen as a
test of Turkey’s willingness to hold its security forces to account in
the decades-old war between the Turkish state and Kurdish separatism.

A judge at the trial found on Wednesday that the officers acted
in self-defence. Murat Yapmaz, an uncle of the dead boy, said in a
telephone interview that the family felt it had not got justice.

"We will never accept this decision. It is very bad for Turkey,"
he said.

THREE SLAYINGS JAR TURKISH CHRISTIANS
By Laura King

Seattle Times, WA
Los Angeles Times
Nurhan Karaduman / Ihlas News Agency/AP
April 19 2007

Turkish police officers detain a suspect Wednesday after a fatal
attack at a Christian publishing house in Malatya, Turkey.

ISTANBUL, Turkey – In a gruesome attack that sent shockwaves through
Turkey’s tiny Christian community, assailants Wednesday slit the
throats of three men at a publishing house that distributes Bibles
and other Christian literature.

Five youths were detained at the scene in the conservative eastern
city of Malatya, Turkish authorities said. One news report said the
alleged attackers carried notes indicating their motive was right-wing
nationalism.

Turkey’s sometimes hostile stance toward its religious and ethnic
minorities has been a persistent source of concern to Western
governments as the country presses ahead with its campaign for entry
into the European Union.

While the government officially preaches tolerance, it historically
has failed to rein in virulent ultranationalist groups. Authorities
were accused of ignoring repeated death threats against Hrant Dink,
an ethnic Armenian newspaper editor who was gunned down outside his
offices in Istanbul in January. Prosecutors later said a teenager
confessed to the shooting.

At the Zirve publishing house in Malatya’s city center, police
discovered the three victims bound hand and foot, tied to chairs
with their throats cut. Two already were dead; the third died at
the hospital.

All were believed to have been workers at the publishing house. One
of the dead men had German citizenship, the German Embassy confirmed.

Christians make up less than 1 percent of the population of 70 million
in this officially secular but overwhelmingly Muslim country.

However, they are regarded with deep suspicion, particularly if they
are seen to be involved in proselytizing.

Malatya has long been considered a stronghold of Turkish nationalism,
laced with anti-Christian sentiment. Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to
assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, was from the city.

One of the five youths in custody suffered serious head injuries when
he jumped from a third-story window as police arrived. They were
summoned by visitors who were worried when they received no answer
to their knocks.

Police said the other four young men, who were found standing over
the blood-soaked victims, were being questioned, but authorities
declined to comment.

One Turkish television station, Channel D, said in a report from
Malatya that each youth had carried an identical note declaring:
"We did this for our country. … They are attacking our religion."

The Zirve publishing house, whose name means "Summit," previously had
been the target of ultranationalist protests and threats. Turkish
television showed footage of a demonstration in Malatya in 2005,
in which marchers chanted slogans denouncing Christian evangelism.

"There has been a mood against Christian missionaries for a long time,
despite the tradition of tolerance in the old Ottoman Empire," said
Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish columnist and analyst. "Turkey is becoming
an insecure place for minorities in general."

"AT THE FOOT OF ARARAT MOUNTAIN: WONDERS OF ANTIQUE ARMENIA" EXHIBITION OPENS IN FRANCE

Noyan Tapan
Armenians Today
Apr 18 2007

ARLES, APRIL 18, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Ambassador of Armenia
to France Eduard Nalbandian, Bouches-du-Rhone Governor Jean-Noel
Guerini, Provence Alpes Cote de Azur Regional Council Chairman
Michael Vozel and Arles Mayor Herve Schiavetti opened on April 13
the exhibition entitled "At the Foot of Ararat Mountain: Wonders
of Antique Armenia" at the Antique Arles and Provence Museum. Noyan
Tapan was informed about it by the RA Foreign Ministry’s Press and
Information Department.

The exhibition consists of four parts where about 150 exhibits brought
from Armenia present the Armenian people’s cultural roots (from the 7th
century B.C. to the 10th century), Urartu (10th-6th B.C.), post-Urartu
(6-4th B.C.) and pre-Christian periods. The exhibits are brought from
the History Museum of Armenia, Erebuni and Sardarapat Museums as well
as from the Culture House of Goris and Aharonian collection (Paris).

The exhibition is organized within the framework of the Year of
Armenia in France and will last till July 29, 2007.

During the exhibition days Anna Mayilian’s and Armenian song masters’
concert will take place in Arles on May 24, duduk (Armenian national
pipe) player Arayik Bartikian’s concert will take place on July
26. Robert Gedikian’s "Travelling towards Armenia" film will also be
shown on July 26.

Groups of making jewelry and pottery goods will also be organized
for children at the Antique Arles and Provence Museum during May
and June. French schoolchildren will attempt to copy here models of
Armenian decoration art. The museum will also organize hearing on
the theme "Noah’s Ark Landed There, on Ararat" on June 3.

TURKEY IS NOT GOING TO CONDUCT MILITARY ACTIONS IN IRAQ, TURKISH DIPLOMAT SAYS

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.04.2007 17:14 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkey is not going to conduct any military
operations on the Iraqi territory having the aim to crush hotbed
of Kurdish separatists, Turkey’s Ambassador to Azerbaijan Hussein
Avni Karcioglu stated. He said the recent military actions near the
Turkish-Iraqi border aim at fortification of state borders.

"Every country has the right to protect its state borders. For this
purpose in different countries of the world various measures are being
fulfilled near state borders, including maneuvers with involvement
of heavy equipment. Recent actions of Turkish armed forces near the
Iraqi border are nothing else than simple maneuvers," the Turkish
Ambassador stated, "Novosti Azerbaijan" reports.

19 NGOs AND 4 INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS ACCREDITED FOR CARRYING OUT MONITORING MISSION AT RA NA ELECTIONS

Noyan Tapan
Apr 17 2007

YEREVAN, APRIL 17, NOYAN TAPAN. As of April 17, 19 local NGOs
and 4 international organizations were accredited at RA Central
Electoral Commission for carrying out monitoring mission at the May
12 parliamentary elections. Noyan Tapan correspondent was informed
about it by Commission Spokesperson Tsovinar Khachatrian.

To recap, according to the Electoral Code, the NGOs, the regulations
of which include issues of democracy and human rights and who do not
support the candidates or the parties, have the right to carry out
monitoring mission.

The international organizations can carry out monitoring mission only
in case of invitation of RA President, National Assembly, government
or Central Electoral Commission. Among the invited international
organizations, the Council of CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, CIS
Executive Committee, PACE, OSCE ODIHR have been accredited at CEC
for the present.