Talin Suciyan, an Armenian journalist born in Turkey, just informed from Yerevan in an e-mail to an online group that “state of emergency has been declared for 20 days in Armenia.”

UDPATE: Talin has sent another e-mail clarifying that the emergency applies to the city of Yerevan only and not to the rest of Armenia.

A contributor to this blog has sent me an Amnesty International video titled, “Your Signature is More Powerful than you Think,” in the hope that people around the world will start a petition calling on the authorities to stop the use of violence againgst presidential election protesters in Armenia. The video is below; the petition I was compelled to start is here.  

I keep receiving e-mails from Armenia sent by people who have not initially supported the protests. But it seems that by now people are more concerned with how the protesters are handled and brutalized by the authorities. The subject of one e-mail, sent by a freelance journalist, reads “sos” and asks for action. The body e-mail is short and direct:

mi ban ara, saytumd gri

menk kaki mej enk [do something; write in your blog. we are in shit]

Another journalist in Armenia, Onnik Krikorian, has left a comment on one of my posts advising caution on reporting rumors on killed protesters.

…please, let’s confirm the number of fatalities first before we quote them and they get taken as fact. From what I understand, nobody died this morning. Tonight, however, is going to be very bloody indeed.

Via ArmeniaNow.com:

Eyewitnesses at the scene have told ArmeniaNow that a woman struck when a police vehicle drove into a crowd of protesters near the Yerevan Municipal Building was killed by the blow.

An American citizen in the crowd also said he saw the police vehicle move into the crowd at a low-rate of speed running over three protestors including the woman, whom he, too believed to have been killed. After the vehicle stopped and its driver removed, the crowd set fire and burned the vehicle and subsequently two others.

The Ministry of Health, however, told ArmeniaNow that there have been no fatalities resulting from today’s clashes between law enforcement and opposition protestors.

I am now told that 10 people have been killed in the protest clashes in Armenia and that the number of Armenians in front of the French Embassy is 5,000.

One thing that can’t be denied about the post-election protests in Armenia is that the polarization seems to have no limits. The comments that people – on either side – leave on YouTube videos showing the clashes are extremely angry and irrational. People are cursing each other and calling the authorities “Turks” – further demonstrating the social revolution that Armenia needs.

I am not defending one or the other but while we call on the authorities not to use brutality we should also ask the protesters to stop violently cursing people and calling those they don’t like “Turks.” It doesn’t just show the level of intolerance among Armenians but to their neighbors as well.

FUCK… as I am writing this I am being told from a friend in Texas that she was just told that 6 people have died.  🙁 Don’t know what to say. 

It is 25 minutes after noon in Armenia (March 1, 2008) and 1:00 at night in Colorado but I had to wake up and write this. Although I did read about the “cleaning up” of the protesters who had occupied the Liberty Square some of my friends from Yerevan sent me several text messages telling that Armenia’s authorities are using brutal methods to fight protesters who disagree with last week’s presidential election results . I am talking to some friends on Yahoo messenger and also writing this at the same time.

One friend is saying that the police are at this minute beating up the protesters and many have found refuge in foreign embassies, especially at the French embassy building.

A1Plus, a banned TV station, has posted a short video on the ongoing battle about 50 minutes ago:

 In an e-mail addressed to an online group, an aquintance sent from Armenia the following minutes ago: 

At about 7 am on March 1 the police and internal force dispersed the protest meeting at the Square of Freedom lasting for the tenth day which was initiated by Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters who disputed the result of the vote.

Regnum reports that at the time when the meeting was dispersed the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan was at the square who, according to the news agency, urged several thousand people at the Square not to resist to the police.

Witnesses said the police used truncheons and other special means, and the operation lasted for 10-15 minutes. Now the police and the internal forces have blocked the city center. Regnum reports that the police gathered the tents in which the protestors spent the night. Regnum reports traces of blood are seen in the square.

***

In the morning of March 1 Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s office issued a press release concerning the police action on the peaceful protestors.

“Today in the morning of 7.30 about 5 thousand policemen were deployed at the Square of Freedom who dispersed peace protestors. The police force led by the chief of Robert Kocharyan’s security tried to arrest the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Levon Ter-Petrosyan demanded to show the warrant, which they did not do. At the moment Levon Ter-Petrosyan is at the Square of Freedom surrounded by policemen. Some members of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s team are missing. Levon Ter-Petrosyan stated that they will try to continue the protest meeting at 3 pm,” runs the release.

***

Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s office reports that on March 1, at 3 pm the protest will continue which was dispersed by the police force in the morning of the same day.

The rally of protest is foreseen to continue at the Square of Freedom , which is now surrounded by the police force. If it is impossible to hold the rally at the Square of Freedom , the rally will take place in North Avenue , if not, at the Square of Republic .

We have learned that Levon Ter-Petrosyan has been taken home from the Square of Freedom . There is no information about members of LevonTer-Petrosyan’s team who have been arrested.

 The friend who woke me up says there is another protest growing up for 3:00 p.m. in Yerevan (in less than three hours).

Yesterday a Kenyan-born American friend (not Barack Obama) texted me stating, “I have been following what’s going on in Armenia – what the heck is going on?”

Image: Levon Ter-Petrossian Post-Election Women’s Protest March, Yerevan © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008 

I haven’t texted my friend back because I haven’t figured out myself what the heck is going on in Armenia. The protests against the official election results continue – and although it is nice to see people challenging the establishment – those very “challengers” are the founding fathers of corruption and crook-like politics in modern Armenia that is not much different from how the current authorities work.

One thing, nonetheless, that can’t be disputed is the people’s strive for change in Armenia. It is not merely about economy and poverty, as most observers and insiders suggest, but also about the treatment that people receive from the government and the way they are told to perceive the treatment by the government-controlled media.

One thing, for sure, that has pissed many people off is the unfair mainstream media coverage of former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign. Needless to say, when Ter-Petrosyan was in power the media did the same against his opponents.

Interestingly, I got to meet the person in charge of Armenia’s public TV’s news department last year and I asked him what was his line of separation between state v. authorities in the context of his recent statement (in an interview to Menq Magazine) that “I will do nothing that would shake the foundations of the state.” Although it was obvious that he didn’t think I was an idiot, his answer was for a complete idiot in which he was trying to explain to me what “state” and “authorities” meant. This demonstrates the mindset of Armenia’s media in dealing with the audience they are talking to.

Although Armenia’s presidential election is largely seen as “generally democratic” by most observers, there have been some cases of serious violations and human rights abuses by now president-elect Serzh Sargsyan’s regime. Although Sargsyan’s main competetor (the former president Levon Ter Petrosyan) hasn’t been any better – if not worse – in treating his political rivals in the past, it is disturbing that serious human rights violations have happened during Tuesday’s election.

The ‘worst’ documented account, as told by Human Rights Watch, is the following:

Abovian, about 20 kilometers from Yerevan  
Larissa Tadevosian, a proxy for Ter-Petrosian, has told Human Rights Watch that she went to polling station 28/7 in Abovian at approximately 7:30 a.m. Three large, athletic men approached her, and two of them dragged her out of the polling station. Tadevosian struggled to free herself, but was dragged across the yard and shoved into a car. The three men drove Tadevosian to a deserted area outside the town. After taking her out of the car, one man beat her on the head and face. “They told me that I should be silent and not say anything more about the elections,” she told Human Rights Watch. “They threatened to rape me. They threatened to harm my family.” The men then left Tadevosian in the deserted area and drove away.  
 
Tadevosian was unable to return to the polling station because of her condition. She went directly to the police, who ordered a forensic medical examination. Two days after the attack, she complained of headaches, dizziness, and other medical problems.  
 
Gurgen Eghizarian, a proxy for Ter-Petrosian and a former deputy head of the National Security Service, received information that election observers at polling station 28/6 in Abovian had been kidnapped and beaten. He has stated that he went to the polling station together with Erjan Abgarian, a 68-year-old Ter-Petrosian proxy and former head of the customs service. Election commission representatives and observers there denied that they had seen anything happen to the observers, but Eghizarian demanded that the senior election commission representative sign a statement about what had happened. While at the polling station, a group of seven or eight men armed with pistols attacked Eghizarian, his son, and Abgarian, beating them on the kidneys, ribs, and back. Eghizarian told Human Rights Watch that the men also threatened him and the others saying, “Sargsian will be president, and if you go against him, you will be killed.” He suffers headaches and has a bruise on his forehead as a result of the assault.  
 
A senior official for Ter-Petrosian told Human Rights Watch that at least three other proxies were beaten in Abovian on election day.  
 
Another Ter-Petrosian proxy who wished to remain anonymous told Human Rights Watch that large, athletic men would arrive periodically at another polling station in Abovian and would take prospective voters aside “for a little chat,” apparently in order to influence their votes. These same men also spoke to election commission officials, observers, and candidates’ proxies, and threatened them should they speak out about any violations. This same proxy told Human Rights Watch that in mid-afternoon some men took him aside and threatened him and told him, “You didn’t see anything.” He claimed that these men were responsible for stealing and falsifying ballots and stuffing the ballot box at this polling station. Police stood by and did not respond. This proxy stated that he continued to fear for his safety and had sent his children to another location and was reluctant to leave his own apartment.  

A U.S.-born Armenian politician is facing criticism for the content of a letter he has sent to Turkey’s president. Here is a column by Appo Jabarian summarizing some of the reactions in Armenia:

Raffi Hovannisian Panders to Turkey

At the Cost of Political Bankruptcy

By APPO JABARIAN
Executive Publisher/Managing Editor
USA ARMENIAN LIFE Magazine

[email protected]

August 29, 2007, Armenia’s Heritage Party leader Raffi K. Hovannisian sent a letter of congratulations to the then newly elected Turkish president Abdullah Gul.

He wrote: “The deep divides between our countries, be they of contemporary character or part of the legacy of the Great Armenian Dispossession, must be overcome and resolved in truth, with integrity, and through the partnership of the two new leaders and their fellow citizens of good faith and conscience.”

Soon after the content of the letter was revealed, the highly insulting term “Great Armenian Dispossession” used in lieu of the words “The Armenian Genocide” sent political shockwaves in Armenia and the Diaspora. Heritage Party officials hoped the issue would disappear with the flow of time. But the exact opposite happened.

On February 13, Armen Tsaturyan of “Hayots Ashkhar” (The Armenian World) wrote a scathing commentary against Hovannisian. He stated: “If we set aside all the political major and minor likability and non-likability issues and are guided by cool logic, we can not define Raffi Hovannisian’s action except with one word: ‘Treason.'”

Tsaturyan reported that Hovannisian pandered to Turkey as follows: “It is to be hoped that, during your tenure and that of the next Armenian president to be elected in several months’ time, Turkish-Armenian relations will enter a wholly new phase of reflection, exploration, discovery, and ultimate normalization.”

“It turns out that the son of historian Richard Hovannisian, a notable heir to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, needs further ‘studies’ on the issue of the Armenian Genocide. With his outlandish proposal to co-initiate ‘studies,’ he is furthering the Turkish obvious goal to establish a joint commission of historians. And that is the shortest route to subjecting the facts of the Armenian genocide to suspicion,” concluded Tsaturyan.

On February 16, according to Noyan Tapan news agency, in an open letter to the Heritage Party, the chairman of the Armenian community of Slovakia Ashot Grigorian blasted Hovannisian: “No doubt, Raffi Hovannisian should have been well aware of the political value of the term ‘genocide,’ whose importance is hard to overestimate today. Turkey is ready to pay dearly if the Armenians agree to replace the term ‘genocide’ with any other word. … In his letter, Hovannisian replaced voluntarily the term ‘genocide’ with another term more acceptable to Turks, thus ruining the work we have done for years and decades. This calls into question today the result of the huge and hard work on passing the resolution on the genocide in the National Assembly of Slovakia. The resolutions passed by the parliaments of about twenty countries have also been deprived of meaning.”

An Armenian activist underlined: “As the saying goes, one should not change horses in mid-stream, Armenians have invested decades of effort to get the words Armenian Genocide recognized. There is no reason to abandon that and start using another word. In fact, the smart thing to do would have been to use all sorts of words like ‘forced deportation’, ‘mass killings’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘dispossession’, but use these words in addition to ‘genocide’, NOT in its place. Also, why is Raffi congratulating Gul? He is neither the President nor the Foreign Minister of Armenia!”

One wonders, what’s going on in the Hovannisian households in Los Angeles and Yerevan?

In early 2006, the grandfather Prof. Richard Hovannisian of UCLA, reportedly told RFE/RL that “in some respects Armenia is now an even less democratic state than Turkey, its historical foe regularly castigated by the West for its poor human and civil rights record.”

On July 30, 2007, on the eve of the passage by U.S. House Foreign Relations Committee of the Armenian Genocide resolution 106, Raffi’s son and the elder Hovannisian’s grandson Garin wrote in the Washington Times: “… Bad congressional resolutions might well begin to sound like good Philip Larkin: ‘Sexual intercourse began /In nineteen sixty-three. …/ Between the end of the Chatterley ban /And the Beatles’ first LP.'” This was not the first time that the second junior Hovannisian has ridiculed and poked fun at his martyred Armenian ancestor’s Cause.

And now, his father, Raffi, all too willingly attempts to jeopardize the Armenian Cause in return of personal political gains.

In 1992, the Raffi Hovannisian the Armenians knew and respected was the steadfast Foreign Minister of Armenia who clearly uttered the words Armenian Genocide in Turkey. He was fired by the then president of Armenia, Mr. Levon Ter Petrossyan ironically for having been honest. Then, Raffi remained in Armenia and pursued the objective to become the next president of Armenia. His efforts were blocked. When that didn’t materialize, his father, Prof. Hovannisian slapped Armenia in the face by preferring Turkey as a “better Democracy” than Armenia. What a change for the worse! Then Raffi’s son Garin “punished” Armenia. So if Turkey is a better democracy than Armenia, how come he is not relocating to what is now called Turkey and pursue his political ambitions there by presenting his candidacy for the presidency of Turkey?

By having pandered to Turkey, Hovannisian overdrew on what was left of his political capital in Armenia-Artsakh and around the world. He effectively antagonized literally millions of Armenians. Every year millions of survivors and their descendants flock to the Armenian Genocide monuments in Yerevan and elsewhere. Hundreds of thousands mobilize in marches condemning Turkey’s continued denial of the Genocide and the wholesale forced occupation of the Armenian lands.

Hovannisian has de facto attempted to torpedo the justice pursued by the clear majority of Armenians. But in fact he torpedoed his own political career

The overwhelming majority of Armenians in the homeland and the Diaspora would prefer to see their beloved republics of Armenia and Artsakh transform their soviet-era corrupt bureaucracies into healthy, fully functioning government bodies. But that desire, along with the urge to seek personal political gain, does not give the Hovannisians or anyone else a green light to make erroneous statements, unfairly belittling, and even worse undermine their fledgling new republics and provide damaging ammunition to the enemy.