Author: Tigranian Ani

Georgian ombudsman urges caution in commenting on ethnic Armenian’s
killing

Prime-News, Tbilisi
11 Mar 06

Tbilisi, 11 March: Commenting on the tense situation in [the
multiethnic] Tsalka District [in southern Georgia], Georgian ombudsman
Sozar Subari has urged local law enforcers to work more actively.

Subari said at a new briefing today that on 9 March a clash between
young ethnic Armenian and Georgian residents of Tsalka had a tragic
end: One young Armenian died [of knife wounds] while four others were
injured. The ombudsman’s representatives visited Tsalka on 10 March to
study the situation. Their preliminary findings indicate that the
unfortunate incident had common criminal rather than ethnic
causes. Police arrested several suspects on the same day [9 March] and
are still looking for other suspects.

On 9 March, angry ethnic Armenians residents of Tsalka staged a
protest rally outside the Tsalka District administration building. The
rally turned into mass disturbances. Some of the protesters, about 300
men, gathered outside the Tsalka police station and demanded that the
suspects be lynched. Another group of about 200 men stormed the
administration building, shattered windows, smashed doors and burnt
documents.

The Georgian ombudsman said that lynching suspects and storming the
building was not a civilized form of justice but a crime. He said that
organizers of the storming as well as those who committed the murder
should be punished.

Sozar Subari expressed his condolences to the deceased Gevork
Gevorkyan’s family and condemned activities of the groups that tried
to use the tragic incident for inciting ethnic hatred, thus making the
sorrow of the deceased young man’s family deeper.

It is also unfortunate that some nongovernmental organizations
described the 9 March incident of hooliganism as an ethnic incident
and misled the Georgian population and the international community,
Subari said. He noted that the statements made by the NGOs were
absolutely inappropriate and could only harm the centuries-long
good-neighbourly relations between the brotherly Georgian and Armenian
peoples. The Georgian ombudsman urged everyone to refrain from making
such groundless statements and let the law-enforcement bodies finish
the investigation without any pressure. Such irresponsible statements
escalate tensions in the region and play to the hands of external
forces who want to stir up new conflicts, [Subari said].

CHURCHES THINK ‘SMALL’ IN COOPERATION
By Brian Murphy

Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
March 11, 2006 Saturday

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil –Charged with promoting Christian unity, the
World Council of Churches has taken its work seriously — each of its
meetings has grown bigger and more ambitious over the past six decades.

But now even some of the most ardent backers of the WCC’s mission
are wondering if smaller may be better.

During the WCC’s latest global assembly — bringing together 4,000
envoys from more than 350 churches — delegates challenged the group
to look hard at whether such parliament-style, mega-meetings are still
relevant at a time when Christianity is being rapidly reordered around
the world.

In the West, mainline Protestant churches face graying congregations
and declining influence. Some denominations, most notably Anglicans,
also are in danger in splintering over disputes on gay clergy and
same-sex blessings. Pentecostal and evangelical movements, meanwhile,
keep steamrolling through Africa, Latin America and elsewhere —
but accounted for less than 2 percent of participants at the WCC
gathering in February.

“The ecumenism of structures, the ecumenism of papers and documents and
speeches has reached its limits,” said Norberto Saracco, a Pentecostal
pastor and theologian from Argentina. “We cannot continue in this way.”

It was more than just grumbling from groups outside the World Council
of Churches, whose core membership includes mainline Protestants,
Anglicans and Orthodox churches. [The Roman Catholic Church is not
a member, but cooperates closely.]

The keynote address of the conference repeatedly raised the idea
that Christian churches need to find clearer ways to connect and
cooperate beyond simply sharing the stage at meetings and issuing
joint communiques.

Catholicos Aram I, the spiritual head of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
sounded at times like a CEO, saying the WCC must become more “efficient
and credible” and reverse an “in-house mood of restlessness,” with
the group’s income falling about 30 percent since 1999.

Aram, the moderator of the assembly, urged for more outreach to the
evangelical powerhouses and stressed that the WCC members must learn
how to engage more with youth or risk becoming spiritual dinosaurs.

“The ecumenical movement, for some, is getting old. For others,
it has already become obsolete,” he told the conference last week.

“Institutional ecumenism has been preoccupied with its own problems
and, therefore, lost touch with the issues facing the churches.”

The modern map of the Christian world has little in common with
the Euro-centric model at the WCC’s founding congress in 1948. The
Christian centers of gravity now reside in the countries where European
missionaries once brought the faith.

“Mainstream Christianity is aging and falling in number,” Aram said.

“Christianity is re-emerging with new faces and forms … that have
dramatically changed the Christian panorama.”

But it’s not clear what that means for the WCC and its tradition
of big tent meetings. The only consensus is that it cannot afford
to freeze out the Pentecostal, evangelical and related churches,
which some experts predict could account for more than a third of
the world’s 2.2 billion Christians in less than 20 years.

The handful of Pentecostal and evangelical guests at the Brazil
conference expressed a desire for closer contact with the WCC, but
gave no clues on how it could happen. There is still deep resistance
across the movements for such pan-Christian alliances.

Many pastors worry that the WCC will try to rein in their spontaneous
style of worship and their plans for expansion, which are often
bankrolled by what’s called “the Gospel of prosperity” which says
God smiles on those who help the church.

But the mainline churches seem to have little choice but to make
room. Some WCC veterans say the future could include fewer academic
speeches and large conventions. Instead, they foresee more attempts
at joint worship and social programs –especially those aimed at
young people in the West.

GRECO PUBLISHES REPORT ON ARMENIA

Armenpress
Mar 13 2006

STRASBOURG, MARCH 13, ARMENPRESS: The Council of Europe’s Group of
States against Corruption (GRECO) has published its evaluation report
on Armenia, with the agreement of the Armenian authorities.

The report concludes that in Armenia corruption is considered a major
problem. The judiciary, the police, the customs service, the tax
inspectorate, education, healthcare, licensing and privatizations
are particularly affected. Despite the adoption of a number of
anti-corruption measures, shortcomings still prevail in the existing
anti-corruption legislation and its implementation, as well as in
the organization of the justice and law enforcement systems.

The existence of serious obstacles to collecting evidence,
depriving offenders of the proceeds of corruption together with
the almost total absence of significant results in prosecuting
and indicting individuals involved in serious cases of corruption
call for substantial efforts. In this respect, problem areas include
legislation on banking secrecy, special investigative means, training
for members of the law enforcement agencies, witness protection,
assets declaration and the anti-money laundering regime.

Immunity enjoyed by judges, prosecutors, parliamentary candidates,
members of electoral commissions and even candidate mayors and
candidates for membership of the council of elders (local council)
is also a matter of concern.

As for public administration, there is an urgent need for implementing
measures that deal with situations where personal/financial interests
or activities may raise issues of conflict or partiality with regard
to public officials’ duties and responsibilities.

It is also necessary that public officials be informed and, above
all, trained on how and when to report instances of corruption,
or suspicions thereof, which they come across in their duty and,
to establish adequate protection for public officials who report
instances of corruption (whistleblowers) in good faith. The Armenian
legal system does not provide for corporate liability, so there is
a need to establish it for offences of bribery and money laundering
and to provide for effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions,
in accordance with the Council of Europe’s Criminal Law Convention
on Corruption.

ALLEGED MERCENARY DENIES CLAIMS BY KENYAN LEGISLATOR

NTV, Nairobi
13 Mar 06

[Presenter] One of the alleged Armenian soldiers for hire made a
scathing attack on Langata MP Raila Odinga this morning during a
press conference he held at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Ata Rusaksian [phonetic] who flew into the country from Dubai termed
the mercenaries allegations by Raila as false and demanded repayment
of an alleged debt amounting to 1.5m US dollars which he claims he
advanced to the Langata legislator.

[Reporter] Ata Sagaian [phonetic] says he is a businessman and has
never been soldier for hire as alleged by Langata MP Raila Odinga.

Ata who claimed to have vast business ventures in Dubai says he
arrived in the country this morning to counter Raila’s allegations.

But he also has allegations to level against the Langata legislator.

[Ata] Today what happening with me he [is] trying to close [the]
door to Kenya for me [so that] I don’t come [and] I don’t ask [for]
my own money. He try to make us state enemy, he [is] try[ing] to make
us enemy of Kenya.

[Reporter] He says his brother Ata Magaian [phonetic] also alleged
to be a mercenary is a businessman in Dubai and that they have never
been or engaged themselves in mercenary activities.

In a signed statement faxed to newsrooms Ata says the only other time
he and his brother have been in Kenya was last year when they came
to seek business investments in the hotel industry. It was then that
Ata claims they came face to face with Langata MP. [Passage omitted:
Ata speaking; words unclear]

[Reporter] Ata claims Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka approached them
to finance the ODM referendum campaigns at a sum of 3bn shillings. The
businessman also claims that Raila owes him 1.5m US dollars he advanced
to him as a loan and he has never paid it back.

The mercenaries theory emerged two days after a raid at the Standard
Group offices where Raila claims that in the midst of the hooded
police officers were foreign mercenaries.

Press Release
Catholicosate of Cilicia
Communication and Information Department
Contact: V.Rev.Fr.Krikor Chiftjian, Communications Officer
Tel: (04) 410001, 410003
Fax: (04) 419724
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:

PO Box 70 317
Antelias-Lebanon

Armenian version:

THE CHAMPION OF LOYALTY: ARCHBISHOP GHEVONT CHEBEYAN

(ON THE SAD OCCASION OF HIS DEATH)

By V. Rev. Fr. Krikor Chiftjian

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the House of Cilicia and the Brotherhood
of the Cilician See witnessed during the last couple of years the passing
away of senior generation Brotherhood members and shared with all Armenians
the pain of irrevocable losses of the Armenian Church.

Having completed 95 long years of his God-given life, the oldest Archbishop
of the Armenian Church and the oldest Brotherhood member of the
Catholicosate of Cilicia, Archbishop Ghevont Chebeyan, today follows the
untimely loss of Archbishops Sahag, Mesrob, Zareh and Vartan.

The wind blown at 4 AM in the morning by the rainy, foggy, cold weather of
March 9, 2006 brought down this leaf too from the centuries old Cilician oak
in the ordinary course of paving the way for new leaves and branches.

The name of Archbishop Ghevont was widely spread in the contemporary history
of the Cilician See both through the press and the spoken word as a synonym
of a pole on the strength and loyalty of which our Holy See depended at a
moment when many of the poles of the Cilician Brotherhood collapsed.

The shameful days of the national-ecclesiastical conflict; those days that
are now forever past us; those days the remembering of which is considered a
deadly sin needed determined and loyal brotherhood members. One of the three
Bishops left in the Bishops’ rank along with Zareh Payaslian and Khoren
Paroyan was Archbishop Ghevont. These three became the champions of the Holy
See’s prevalence.

Conscious of his role, Archbishop Ghevont found pleasure, far less than
boredom in speaking about past happenings and valuable archival information;
information that concerned the unbreakable unity of the Armenian Church and
the Cilician See’s vision of independence. In this respect, Archbishop
became a walking book rich with stories of the past

Archbishop Ghevont set foot into the Catholicosate of Cilicia following the
first few months of its relocation from Sis to Antelias. The Archbishop
entered the orphanage like building of the Catholicosate at the time as a
student of the newly established Antelias Seminary during the tenure of the
late Catholicos Sahag II Khabayian. The Archbishop had Catholicos Papken I
as his teacher. He was ordained a monk by Catholicos Bedros I Saradjian and
started his spiritual’s pilgrimage in the thorny path of the Armenian
Church.

Deacon, Priest, Vartabed, Supreme Varatabed and Dean of the Seminary;
Archbishop Ghevont climbed with dedicated service, always loyal to the Holy
See and conscious of his spiritual calling.

The posts of primates took him to various geographical corners
differentiated by different social circumstances. The Archbishop traveled
from the post of the Primate of Cyprus to the Prelacy of Aleppo and then to
the post of the Primate of New Julfa (Isfahan) always with the same humility
and commitment.

Fastidiousness was a healthy character trait for Archbishop Ghevont. He was
not only fastidious about the church services but also in his everyday life.
He not only personally prepared for Holy Mass through prayer and fast, but
also prepared guidelines on papers in order to prevent the occurrence of
ritual mistakes and the disturbance of the service’s atmosphere as a
consequence. It is the same fastidiousness that led him to publish, in his
old age, a book entitled “Ritual Knowledge” as a guideline for all clergy
and all those related to the church life.

The same fastidiousness also reflected on the Archbishop’s daily life. His
love for rules and regulations, his punctuality, cleanliness despite his old
age, all-curing joyfulness and most of all his loyalty to the Holy See and
its spiritual Head were more than educational for us, the young members of
the brotherhood.

His deep respect towards His Holiness Aram I, born on the same year of his
consecration as a bishop (1947), is life’s biggest lesson for each
individual enlisted in a Brotherhood both in the Armenian Church and
generally. Is it possible to forget Archbishop Ghevont’s warm wishes and
feelings of gratitude expressed for the Catholicoses of the House of Cilicia
during the most pleasant moments of the Brotherhood life; those which he
considered his right to express as the Brotherhood’s senior member?

For the late Archbishop loyalty became a principle that accompanied him to
his deathbed; loyalty towards the principles of the Armenian Church and the
Catholicosate of Cilicia. Retired in Antelias since the 1970s, the
Archbishop contributed to the Holy See’s mission as much as his age and
strength permitted him to. Through his professorship in the Seminary and
combining his years of experience to his rich ritual knowledge, Archbishop
Ghevont became an authority with the gauze of humility and naivety.

This authority, however, flowed more from his conscious and self-sacrificing
loyalty towards the Holy See than from his knowledge of rituals. His name,
ridiculed by the press and otherwise due to his loyalty, formed the wreath
of glory around his aged head with the same loyalty, turning him into the
Cilician See’s Champion of Loyalty for all times to come.

A sweet, childish smile was seen on his face when he remembered the words of
the song dedicated to his name during the days of the conflict: “Archbishop
Ghevont, your cross a guardian; you will become oh father, the protector of
Cilicia.” Having turned loyalty into a principle, Archbishop Ghevont
remained committed to it till his old age, till his deathbed. After being
transferred to the hospital or a sanatorium because of ill health, he always
wanted to return home to the Catholicosate, in order to be surrounded by his
family, the Brotherhood members.

The sense of belonging kept him on the land of Antelias for seven continuous
decades. And now, the “Zarehian Tomb” built under the shadow of the Mother
Cathedral, will welcome his corpse as well, to join him to the unforgettable
memory of his spiritual brothers, Catholicoses Zareh and Khoren.

May the remains of the Champion of Loyalty and his kind soul rest in peace.

##

View the Archbishop’s photo taken early this year, during the Brotherhood
Meeting in Antelias: tm#3

Extreme Unction and Funeral photos of the late Archbishop:
Pictures21.htm

tos/Pictures22.htm

*****

The Armenian Catholicosate of Cilicia is one of the two Catholicosates of
the Armenian Orthodox Church. For detailed information about the history and
mission of the Cilician Catholicosate, you may refer to the web page of the
Catholicosate, The Cilician Catholicosate, the
administrative center of the church is located in Antelias, Lebanon.

RA FM DEPARTED FOR LITHUANIA ON FORMAL VISIT

Pan Armenian
17.10.2005 21:21 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Today Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
departed for Lithuania on a formal call, RA MFA press center
reported. During the visit Vartan Oskanian is scheduled to meet with
President Valdas Adamkus and Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis. October
19 the RA FM will leave Vilnius for Brussels to join delegation headed
by RA President Robert Kocharian in a visit to the European structures.

Jordan Times, Jordan
Oct 16 2005

Revisiting Turkey’s EU membership

By Walid M. Sadi

Revisiting the issue of Turkey’s membership in the EU is tempting and
challenging to any interested party. One wonders what options Turkey
has in the face of the stiff conditions placed on it in order to
become eligible for full membership in the European club.

Ankara can, of course, tell Europe that it is no longer interested in
entering the exclusive European club as long if it is not really
wanted and its admission does not hinge on more reasonable
conditions. Why would the Turks seek to become members of a grouping
where they feel they are not welcomed with open arms? After all, they
are a people proud of their heritage, history, tradition and culture.
A proud people never imposes itself on anybody, but expects to be
invited. Yet this would be the easy way out.

Turkish national interests can be served, and served well, once it is
a full-fledged EU member. Turkey’s entry into the union would also
serve the interests of the entire Middle East. What country can
explain the pains, sufferings and woes of the Middle East region
better than Turkey?

Turkey can be the bridge between the Middle East and the Brussels,
where decision with far-reaching consequences are taken.

Considering this, the Middle Eastern countries should rally in
support of Turkey’s membership, because they stand to gain
politically, economically and culturally. But as important as all
these considerations and implications are for Turkey and the Middle
East region, Turkey’s membership must not come at any price. It would
be only fair that Turkey were not only imposed conditions but set its
own as well.

On Cyprus, Turkey must be prepared to accept the situation as long as
the interests of the Turkish minority on the island are protected.
Regarding the European conditions on democracy and human rights
issues, Turkey stands to gain by fulfilling them. On the Kurdish
minority issue, it cannot but comply with international standards on
minority rights, provided the territorial unity of the country is
preserved and protected. Concerning the Armenian issue, wherever the
truth lies on who is responsible for their massacre almost a century
ago, it cannot be the responsibility of the modern state of Turkey,
that was founded by the Mustafa Ataturk who rebelled against the old
Turkish regime that was allegedly responsible.

As for remaking the Turkish people into something other than what
they are, Turkey can and should be adamant and unyielding. Europe is
already a multicultural world, with millions of its citizens
belonging to various religions, cultures and way of life. These
people were invited into Europe and allowed to settle within its
borders.

It is now projected that by the year 2050, Muslim Europeans may
constitute about one fourth of the entire European populations if not
more. The kind of Europe that Turkey may enter by 2014 would no
longer be an exclusive club of nations belonging to a homogenous
culture or way of life. Europe stands to benefit from Turkey’s
membership for this reason as well.

PanArmenian.net

US Helsinki Commission Urges Turkey to Withdraw Charges of Pamuk

15.10.2005 19:36 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The US Helsinki Commission has sent a letter to Turkish
Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him to withdraw charges against Turkish
writer Orhan Pamuk, reported the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA). Pamuk is accused of «publicly insulting the national identity of
Turks» in his statements over the Armenian Genocide. If Orhan Pamuk is
convicted, this will increase apprehensions of those, who are skeptical
about Turkey assuring commitment to liberty and democracy, Commission
Chairman, Senator Sam Brownback emphasized. The US Helsinki Commission is a
state structure, which follows fulfillment of the Helsinki Final Act of
1975. The Commission includes 9 members of the Senate and the House and a
member of each of the State, Defense and Trade Departments

ARMENIAN STATE BUDGET-2006 WILL EXCEED $1 BILLION

Regnum, Russia
Oct 13 2005

Armenian state budget-2006 will exceed $1 billion, that is the
first time in the history of the independent country, said Armenian
Prime-Minister Andranik Margaryan. As it has been in the last three
years, this is a social budget.

As a REGNUM correspondent informs, during the discussion of the
budget draft, the government proposed to the parliament to approve
the budget as follows: revenues – 382 billion dram, expenses –
451 billion dram, deficit – 69.9 billion dram. According to Finance
Minister Vardan Khachatryan, this year’s deficit is only 3%, that
meets the requirements of the EU. Also, in 2006 wages and pensions
will be raised.

The prime minister informed that 38% of all the expenses will be put
on social needs. The revenues will be 52.7 billion drachms higher
then in 2005, the deficit decrease has raised from 30% to 47% thanks
to using internal recourses.

Turkey and Armenia

Targeting the Peacemakers

The recent conviction of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink for
“debasing Turkish identity,” reveals the flaws inherent in the Turkish
judicial system. Reactionary judges, argues the German Green Party’s Cem
Özdemir, bar the way to essential processes of reform on the road to
entry into the European Union.

Spiegel Online (Germany)
October 13, 2005

By Cem Özdemir

For a section of the Armenian diaspora and more than a few narrow-minded
critics of Turkey in Europe, he is “contradiction personified.” In fact,
he should not even exist. Hrant Dink is an Armenian in Turkey, actively
supporting the Turkish democratic movement and sensing an opportunity
for reconciliation with his own history. But Dink, and others like him,
are caught between a rock and a hard place.

The editor-in-chief of Agos, the Armenian-Turkish weekly newspaper, is
not short of adversaries. At the forefront are the Turkish
Ultra-Nationalists, who would like to see him silenced sooner rather
than later. Their allies in Turkey’s judiciary underlined these
sentiments again recently. On Oct. 7, an Istanbul court sentenced Dink
to six months in jail for a “crime of ideas.” The sentence was suspended
on the grounds that he had no previous convictions.

Dink’s case highlights the flaws in the new Turkish penal code. It gives
reactionary judges and prosecutors ample scope to position themselves
consciously as the protectors of true “Turkishness” and to thwart
Ankara’s efforts to bring about reform. Indeed, elements of the judicial
apparatus are quite blatantly set against the European Union aspirations
of the AKP government and the Turkish civil rights movement. By putting
intellectual figureheads like Dink or the German Publishers’ Association
Peace Prize Winner Orhan Pamuk in the dock, the judiciary is sending
unequivocal signals to Ankara and Brussels. The timing of the charges is
anything but coincidental. Reactionary forces in the justice system are
thus adding timely weight to opposition of Turkish entry into the EU,
whether those opponents are in Turkey itself or in the European Union.

“We know very well what happened,” Dink said. If the conference on the
historical question of Armenia had been cancelled yet again, shortly
before the slated start of EU accession talks on Oct. 3, Turkish
opponents of entry to the EU would likely have had a major victory on
their hands.
Derailment was ultimately only avoided thanks to an unlikely alliance
between liberal civil rights campaigners and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s Islamic-Conservative government.

This was not exactly what the ultra-nationalists had in mind.

Yet even as the protesters gathered in numbers outside the conference
center to exercise their democratic right to free speech, they at the
same time wanted to deny those talking inside the same right. Turkey is
going to have to get used to this sort of schizophrenia, which is
symptomatic of the pain that comes with reform, as felt by reactionary
sections of the population and the state.

Dink’s courageous efforts as one of the organizers were a major catalyst
in making the conference actually happen. Even the most ardent skeptics
with regard to the killings were swayed enough to reconsider when
challenged by the compelling Dink. Many in the crowd of scientists,
intellectuals, politicians and journalists were moved to tears as he
spoke of an Armenian woman from the Turkish town of Sivas. It was the
story of a woman who had lived in Paris and whose greatest wish was to
be buried in the place where she and her ancestors had lived for centuries.

The telephone calls that followed Dink’s television appearances have
become legendary. Some Turkish people come forward to reveal Armenian
roots which they have hitherto kept hidden. Others report traces of
Armenian life in their local areas and ask for assistance in preserving
this cultural legacy. On one occasion, a whole village turned up in the
newspaper offices: descendents of Turkish Armenians who had fled for
safety to their Alevite neighbors in the Tunceli region (Dersim) in
1915, when persecution was at its worst.

Dink’s prime concern is the future of Armenian and Christian minorities
in a cosmopolitan, secular Turkey as part of Europe. He is intent on
looking forward, not wanting the past to stand in the way of the future.
Facing up to the past should, in his eyes, find its way onto the agenda
as part of a natural process of increasing freedom of opinion and
democracy. Turkish acceptance of the claims that genocide was inflicted
on the Armenian people is being touted by some as a precondition of
Turkish membership in the EU. Dink feels this is playing too readily
into the hands of the reactionaries, who are determined to see an end to
Turkey’s EU ambitions. Nonetheless, he sees reconciliation with Armenia
as a high priority, hence his campaigning for the opening of the border
between Turkey and Armenia.

His strategy is as unorthodox as it is effective. He does not allow
himself to get entangled in cynical discussions about whether the number
of Armenians murdered was 600,000 or 1.5 million. Instead, he confronts
the Turkish people with a history of which they either were ignorant, or
had only learned about through distorted channels of propaganda. His
arguments are persuasive, bringing to light what Turkey has irrevocably
lost in their destruction and denial of Armenian life. “If the Armenians
were alive today, Van (once a predominantly Armenian city in the East of
Turkey) would be the Paris of the East,” he says. Dink surprises his
people with unexpected ideas. He has proposed, for example, a memorial
to the slaughtered Armenians in Turkey. A memorial for the Turks who
fell at the hands of Armenian freedom fighters already exists.

He has also paid a price for his nonconformist views. Just a few years
ago, Dink was denied a passport by the Turkish state. He was considered
“unreliable” and was not permitted to leave the country. In spite of his
great endeavors to promote constructive debate and reconciliation
between the Armenians and the Turks, he still has to face criticism from
the Armenian diaspora. They accuse him of betraying the Armenian cause,
denounce him as a lackey in the pocket of the Turks. This is the same
man who has been brought before the Turkish courts with the very real
prospect of a prison sentence.

In the offending newspaper article, Dink is said to have insulted
“Turkishness,” as the judge put it. In fact, his column was aimed at the
Armenian diaspora. Dink’s appeal left no room for misinterpretation: The
Armenian diaspora should surrender their hostility to the Turks,
hitherto a defining element of Armenian identity. Even independent
assessors brought in by the courts could not find any disparaging
references to Turkey in his comments.

Dink’s main concern is neither the heated controversy about the past,
nor the instrumentalization of historical events. When asked by a
journalist whether genocide had taken place, he replied: “For us
Armenians, there is no discussion on that issue. We know very well what
happened.” Although he maintains that one should concentrate on looking
forward, whilst learning from the past, his reaction to his court
sentence reveals deep disappointment in his home country, Turkey. He
intends to take all legal measures available to prove his innocence. If
the sentence is not revoked, he plans to leave the country.

This should not be seen as a threat — that is not Dink’s nature.
Nevertheless, the Turkish government does need to take note of what his
statement signifies. The new penal code, which only came into effect on
June 1, 2005, is already in need of another overhaul. The law needs to
be implemented in such a way that it cannot be used as a weapon against
free speech. Nor should it be possible for judges or prosecutors to
exploit it in ways that would impede reform in Turkey. A prime minister
who was, himself, imprisoned for reciting a religious poem ought to be
well aware of that.

Cem Özdemir, 39, is a German of Turkish origin and a member of the
European Parliament in Strasbourg, where he also serves as the foreign
policy spokesman for the Green Party.

PHOTO CAPTION – DPA: Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan prevented the
worst from happening, but protesters stil turned out to try to disrupt a
recent conference on Armenia.

PHOTO CAPTION – AFP: Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink: “We know
what happened.”

PHOTO CAPTION – AFP: The Turkish massacre in Armenia claimed the lives
of between 600,000 and 1.5 million people when it took place between
1915-17.

PHOTO CAPTION – AP: Turkish author Orhan Pamuk: Intellectual reformers
are being subjected to intimidation.

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