Another victim of the Armenian Genocide

Today in Turkey, Hrant Dink was shot dead by an unknown assassin.

Hrant was well known for his outspoken views on the Armenian Genocide and was constantly being harassed by the Turkish Government for his “insulting Turkishness.”

Though I never had a chance to meet Hrant, my parents knew him as he was an admirer of my grandfather Shahan Natalie.

All I can say is that though my efforts have been more on nation building and not Armenian Genocide recognition, these kinds of senseless killings motivate one to look closer to and work towards ascertaining the recognition we deserve so such senseless violent acts will no longer happen.

This assassination will bring much needed exposure to the United States to show who Turkey really is, where it looks like the Genocide will finally be recognized by the government. This killing will probably be the deciding factor some who were undecided on to vote or against Genocide recognition.

Once the Genocide is recognized by the United States Government, it will be time to pursue restitution. My family who was once the ruling royal family in Armenia has many prime real estate holding that were stolen from us in down-town Istanbul as well as other parts of present day Turkey. You can be sure that we will reclaim those lands and buildings and send a message to those who think that killing us will scare or stop us from ascertaining what is rightfully due us.

The punk and those like him or her who killed Hrant or think killing us will change things is only shooting themselves in the foot, as we will not give pursuing our claims and in the end the only one to loose will be YOU!!!

Hrant, you will be remembered for all you did for our people and we will all be thinking of you when Turkey finally and officially recognizes the Genocide of our people.

Turkish-Armenian editor shot dead in Istanbul

Fri Jan 19, 2007 2:59 PM GMT

Reuters
By Paul de Bendern and Ercan Ersoy

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A high-profile Turkish-Armenian editor, convicted of insulting Turkey's identity, was shot dead outside his newspaper office in Istanbul on Friday.

Hrant Dink, a writer and journalist and a frequent target of nationalist anger, was shot by an unknown assailant as he left his newspaper Agos around 1 p.m. British time in central Istanbul, the paper said.

"Hrant was a perfect target for those who want to obstruct Turkey's democratisation and its path towards the European Union," Agos writer Aydin Engin told Reuters.

Broadcaster NTV said Dink been shot three times in the neck and police were now looking for a 18 or 19-year-old man.

CNN Turk television said two men had been detained in connection with the shooting.

The attack is bound to raise political tensions in would-be EU member Turkey, where politicians of all parties have been courting the nationalist vote ahead of presidential elections in May and parliamentary polls due by November.

Protesters at the scene chanted "the murderer government will pay" and "shoulder-to-shoulder against fascism".

Television footage showed his body lying in the street covered by a white sheet, with hundreds of bystanders gathering behind a police cordon.

"This bullet was fired against Turkey ... an image has been created about Turkey that its Armenian citizens have no safety," said CNN Turk editor Taha Akyol.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry said in a statement it "forcefully condemned" the "loathsome attack".

Last year Turkey's appeals court upheld a six-month suspended jail sentence against Dink, a Turkish-born Armenian, for referring in an article to an Armenian nationalist idea of ethnic purity without Turkish blood.

The court said the comments went against an article of Turkey's revised penal code which lets prosecutors pursue cases against writers and scholars for "insulting Turkish identity".

The ruling was sharply criticised by the EU.

INSULTING TURKISHNESS

Dink was one of dozens of writers who have been charged under laws against insulting Turkishness, particularly over the alleged genocide of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during World War One.

Turkey denies allegations that 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic genocide. It says both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks were killed in a partisan conflict that raged on Ottoman territory.

But the government has promised to revise the much criticised article of the penal code amid EU pressure.

Dink was editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian newspaper and one of the most prominent Armenian voices in Turkey.

"I will not leave this country. If I go I would feel I was leaving alone the people struggling for democracy in this country. It would be a betrayal of them. I could never do this," Dink said in an interview with Reuters last July.

Tensions have been growing ahead of presidential elections amid a rise in nationalism.

Turkey's powerful secularist establishment fears the ruling AK Party, which controls parliament and has roots in political Islam, will elect Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as president.

Secularists, including powerful army generals and judges, fear Erdogan -- a former Islamist -- would try to erode Turkey's strict division between state and religion if elected president.

Erdogan denies he or his party have an Islamist agenda.

Armenian-Turkish journalist shot dead

Staff and agencies
Friday January 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

An Armenian-Turkish journalist who was tried repeatedly in Turkey for speaking out about the mass killing of Armenians at the start of the 20th century was shot dead today outside his office, police said.

Hrant Dink, a 53-year-old Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, was shot three times by an unknown gunman by the entrance of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos, according to TV reports.

"Dink was shot in front of the office and he is dead," an employee of the weekly paper was quoted as telling the AFP news agency.

Mr Dink had received threats from Turkish nationalists who viewed him as a traitor for describing as genocide the killing of Armenians between 1915 and 1917. The issue is bitterly disputed between Turkey and neighbouring Armenia, which have no diplomatic relations.

As editor of Agos, Mr Dink was one of Turkey's most prominent Armenian voices.

In October 2005, he was given a six-month suspended jail sentence for writing a newspaper article that addressed the mass killing of Ottoman Armenians.

The European Union had raised the issue of Mr Dink's treatment as a possible barrier to Turkey's EU entry.

Armenia wants Turkey and other nations to officially label as genocide the killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says the dead were victims of the first world war.

Hand-To-Hand on Artsakh T.V.

I finally have a semi-decent connection, thus I’ve uploaded the Artsakh T.V. program Homeland-Diaspora, which aired on January 9, 2007 and reports on our project Hand-To-Hand. It’s in 2 parts since YouTube is limited to 10 minute videos.

Part 1:


Part 2:

Notorious Pimp Changes Name

www.hetq.am

[January 15, 2007]

As we have reported earlier, Amalya Mnatsakayan (Nano) and Marieta Musayelyan – both notorious pimps – took new groups of women to the United Arab Emirates in November 2006 (See also: When They Get Out of Jail, the Pimps Go Back to Work).

Amalya Mnatsakanyan is wanted by Interpol and had been arrested by UAE police on March 10, 2004 and deported. According to UAE law, Amalya Mnatsakanyan could no longer gain entry to the country. Her retina scan was stored in the computer database of the UAE Migration Service under persona non grata.

So how did Amalya Mnatsakanyan return to Dubai?

Her partners in Dubai bribed workers at the UAE Migration Service, who then deleted her retina scan from the computer database. She falsely registered a marriage in Yerevan and changed her last name to Matulyan. She then left for Dubai from Moscow, under the name Marieta Matulyan.

The two pimps continue to subject Armenian women to sexual exploitation in Dubai. Three women managed to escape from their clutches there – Armine from Hoktemberyan, Arpine from Etchmiatsin, and Dinulik, a refugee living in Yerevan. The mother of one of these women had handed her over to Nano for a sum of 800 dollars, even though she knew the fate that awaited her daughter. One of the women had sent us a note through one of our sources in Dubai, seeking help. In her letter, A wrote, “We, the slaves, hostages and servants who work under Nano and Marieta in Dubai, request and beseech all law enforcement bodies as well as persecutors' offices, security organs, newspaper editorial boards, officials in the fight against trafficking and other organizations, to save us from these two cruel executioners and to rescue us from this swamp so that we, who have been tricked, can come back home.”

The author of the letter also wrote about how she had been tricked and taken to Dubai and about the suffering that she had been subjected to at the hands of the two women and the Arabs serving them.

Here are the pictures of the women – Amalya Matulyan and Marieta Musayelyan.

P.S. Since Hetq has been banned by the UAE government (See: Hetq.am Banned in the Emirates) we have had to send this article and pictures to the police in Dubai by email.
Respect for their country's law must obligate the UAE police to arrest and convict the women, sentencing them to either imprisonment or deportation.

P.P.S. In the first days of January the women who escaped from the pimps turned to the Police Department of Dubai and reported that their passports had been taken by the pimps. On January 4, the Dubai police has arrested Amalia Matulyan and Marieta Musa y elyan.
In UAE they will either stand trial or will be deported to Armenia. But in Armenia these pimps who ha ve been convicted several times before will most likely be set free.
Edik Baghdasaryan

NKR presidential election

by Kristine Khanumian

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan,
10 Jan 2007 p 3

A presidential election will be held in the NKR [Nagornyy Karabakh republic] in the summer. Who are the potential candidates for president? Despite his numerous statements, incumbent President Arkadi Ghukasian [Arkadiy Gukasyan] continues to remain the No 1 candidate.

The second candidate may be the parliament speaker, Ashot Ghulian [Ashot Gulyan]. It has been repeatedly mentioned over the past two years that in order to retain power, the authorities will do everything possible not only to nominate Ghulian's candidacy but to ensure his victory as well. Ghulian, who is considered to be a politician "put forward" by Ghukasian, started his political carrier after taking over the post of NKR foreign minister from Naira Melkumian [Naira Melkumyan]. However, before the parliamentary election in 2005, he became education, culture and sport minister.

This replacement could seem nonsense at first sight, but things are not that simple. Before that, Armen Sarkisian [Armen Sarkisyan], member of the Dashnak party [the Revolutionary Federation - Dashnaktsutyun, RFD] held the post of education, culture and sport minister. However, as a result of disagreements between the authorities and the Karabakh wing of the ARFD, Sarkisian was dismissed from the post and replaced with Ghulian. Ghulian's appointment to the post had its own goal: after local government elections (as a result of which opposition representatives gained victory), the authorities wanted to take "revenge" and unite their forces. The army and the police apparently were behind the authorities but a powerful system like education had been neglected.

After Ghulian's appointment to the post of education, culture and sport minister, DPA-fication (Democratic Party of Artsakh [Karabakh], established at the initiative of the incumbent regime) started in the Nagornyy Karabakh republic. The result was that the army, the police and the education system ensured the victory of the Democratic Party of Artsakh in the election. Ghulian was elected member of parliament under the proportional representation system and assumed the post of speaker of parliament. People also say that Ghulian is supported by top officials and businessmen who are natives of Askaran [town in
Nagornyy Karabakh].

The head of the National Security Service, Bako Saakian, is considered to be the No 3 candidate to come to power in the NKR. Many people in Karabakh have heard about him but few have seen the results of his activity. People say that when Saakian was foreign minister for a short period of time, he implemented serious reforms in the system. However, he was not given an opportunity to work for long. Saakian took part in almost all state events but preferred to remain in the "shadow". People say that his supporter is in Yerevan.

It cannot be ruled out that Ghulian and Saakian will put forward their candidacies in order to get as many opposition votes as possible in favour of the authorities.

Potential candidate No 4 is Deputy Foreign Minister Masis Mailian [Masis Mailyan]. He is known as an official who has outlived many ministers and has not been in the foreground that much until recently. He has become active only recently as a result of which his rating has very much gone up.

Candidate No 5 is the leader of the RFD - Movement-88 parliamentary group and former education, culture and sport minister, Armen Sarkisian. Certainly, he is not considered to be as strong as the rest of the candidates, but let us not forget that he is a member of the RFD and this may have a serious impact on the results of the election - certainly, if he puts himself forward.

“Free” Education in Armenia is not Free

The other night my wife and I went to dinner at the house of some people in Yerevan we have known for a couple of years. These are common people just getting by and have a son who is in his senior year of high school.

The mother was telling me of the difficulties they are having in with the school and how the director of the school has bluntly said to all the parents how much money they will have to pay so their children will graduate. She said this year will cost her about $500 (which she is not sure where she will get) so her son will graduate and receive his Adistat, which is an official record of his grades. This is a document that is required for her son’s entrance into the university.

I asked her about her other son who is 11 years old and how he is learning. She said that some times he gets frustrated with his lessons, as the books that are now being used have made simple subjects much more complicated. She said for instance math is no longer 1 plus 1 equals 2, but 1 plus 26 divided by 3 minus 9 plus 1 equals 2. Her son’s math teacher said that the government has intentionally complicated learning to discourage children from learning and according to the teacher today’s government is creating an illiterate/retarded (debil) population that they can control. The math teacher has on his own resorted to teaching from books that were around before independence, which can still be found at used bookstores. One other thing that is a financial hardship and frustration is the notebooks the school requires the students to buy. The teachers admit that they are not needed or used, but the ministry of education orders the teachers to tell the students to buy them as someone in power is printing and profiting from their sale.

We need people in the educational sector to review the books being used today. In addition to this, the ministry of educations “business” practices need to be put into check as demanding money for education that the government is required to provide to its population for free is certainly not acceptable.

Acts of Civil Obedience – Putting an end to Corruption in Armenian

The Armenian and Artsakh governments are infested with corrupt officials that the majority of the active Armenian nation at one time or another has fed these people, making it profitable to remain in power.

By people paying bribes to ascertain services or buy their way out of trouble, or in the case of the Diaspora, blindly supporting benevolent projects in Armenia without demanding accountability, have made it profitable for those in power to fight for the seat they occupy.

Instead of a revolution to overthrow the Armenian and Artsakh governments and replacing them with persons who we can’t guarantee will not be worse than those presently running the country, it would be more effective to start a civil obedience campaign to stop feeding into corruption.

If the Armenian population and Diaspora stopped cold turkey paying bribes or blindly supporting benevolent projects, the majority of those who live from the income of bribes or misappropriation of funds intended for benevolent projects would have to resign their posts and/or implement a viable system so their salaries could be increased to a living wage and not require supplementation.

Of course this is not a fix-all to our problems. In the beginning it will be very difficult for the natives who are use to buying their rights and would initially be denied their needs by not paying bribes, but eventually if everyone bought into being obedient and not paying for their rights, things would level out and the real civil servants would occupy government posts and serve the people.

I am also in favor of not punishing those who take bribes, but to punish those who give bribes. Once the common citizen sees that it is not profitable paying bribes and in fact is a criminal offence, it should become common place not paying under the table and following the law. And of course I’m most in favor of punishing those that clearly are trying to buy their way out of a criminal offence they have committed, like drunk driving, violent crimes or defrauding the government.

The question for me now remains on how to implement a civil obedience movement in Armenia? It should also be asked why the “opposition” does not implement such a movement now, since theoretically it does not take financial means to make it happen, nor do they have to be the government in power. In fact there is no reason why the Diaspora can’t be involved in implementing such a movement. How about we print and distribute a one page flyer to the entire population?

ARMS DISCOVERED IN LUSARAT IS ONLY CAUSE FOR CONTINUING ZHIRAYR SEFILIAN'S PERSECUTIONS, MEMBERS OF CONSOLIDATION OF ARMENIAN VOLUNTEERS ARE CONVINCED

Noyan Tapan
Jan 11 2007

YEREVAN, JANUARY 11, NOYAN TAPAN. Vahan Aroyan arrested on December 28 2006 in the village of Lusarat is not connected at all with the Consolidation of Armenian Volunteers public initiative and has never taken part in the organization's meetings. Armen Aghayan, temporary coordinator of the Consolidation of Armenian Volunteers, made such statement at the January 11 press conference.

In his words, employees of the National Security were well-aware that "Vano is a great lover of arms and he accumulated the arms and ammunitions found on December 28 in the years of war." In A.Aghayan's words, the whole village, as well as law enforcement bodies knew about arms kept at V.Aroyan. "National Security Service officials knew that Vano and Zhirayr Sefilian were friends and used this circumstance for confirming absurd accusations ascribed to Zhirayr by means of Vano's arms," A.Aghayan said.

He also emphasized that though Aroyan, his arms and his being acquainted with Z.Sefilian were used by the Security Service against Sefilian, the Consolidation of Armenian Volunteers almost excludes that Aroyan is a Security Service agent and deliberately contributes to prolonging Sefilian's arrest. "Vano's arms mean nothing and are only a cause for continuing the persecutions," A.Aghayan concluded.

KARABAKH LEADER REPORTEDLY TO RUN FOR THIRD TENURE

Haykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan,
10 Jan 2007 p 1

"Arkasha and the mess he made"

Trustworthy sources have said that NKR [Nagornyy Karabakh republic] President Arkadiy Gukasian has decided to run for president for a third time. Although the NKR constitution adopted on 10 December [2006] gives him such a legitimate opportunity, in this case the point is that Gukasian himself stated many times that he was not going to run for president for a third time as this contradicted the NKR's interests.

However, it has become clear today that the incumbent president of Karabakh does not understand very well the interests of the country he rules and is not so much of an honest man. One should confess that the incumbent NKR president and his retinue understand the discomfort of the current situation very well. For this reason, some people across the Armenian diaspora are twittering that the NKR's interests require Gukasian to stay on the post of NKR president for a third term.

Vahe Karapetian, a rich Armenian living in the USA, started this campaign when he said during the 2006 telethon that he will do everything possible for Gukasian to remain on the post of NKR president. The president of the Pan-Armenian Congress, Ara Abraamian, went on with the campaign by saying that in conditions where the Karabakh conflict has not been settled, it is simply necessary for Gukasian to remain on the post of president. Andranik Migranian, Russian political expert close to Abraamian, recently said on Karabakh Public TV that they should ask Gukasian to take the post of president for a third time as his departure may negatively affect the Karabakh [peace] talks.

According to our source, such statements were made at the desire of the NKR authorities and personally Gukasian. Nobody asked Gukasian to state that he was not going to put forward his candidacy for a third time. At present, it turns out that he regrets making such a statement. This is the best option, and the worst is that Gukasian deliberately made such a statement for the NKR constitution to be adopted without any fuss.

Anyway, it is also clear that Gukasian could not have made the decision to run for president on his own. Undoubtedly, [Armenian] Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisian, who has gained a devoted partner in the shape of Gukasian, has played a big part in this. The activeness of the Russian Abraamian-Migranian pair makes us think that some Russian circles also played a big part in this decision [being made].

Here, very much important is the process in which owing to the efforts of known forces, the Karabakh resolution issue has turned from progressive fighting into clan fighting and Armenia and Karabakh will get the image of mafia - mojahedin states.