The Amnesty International has released a report on discrimination of Jehova’s Witnesses in the Republic of Armenia.  The report proclaims all imprisoned members – who avoid military service – of the controversial religious group “prisoners of conscience.”

According to the report, “Jehovah’s Witnesses have been active in Armenia since 1975. ” 

Although the organization is unjustly seen as a an enemy in Armenia, my own concern about the group extends to the treatment of their own children – especially their health and in particular the refusal of blood transfusion.

I have also heard allegations of a group suicide by teenage orphans in Armenia after becoming members of the controversial group.

On one hand, I have  to agree with the Amnesty International report that there is discrimination in Armenia against the organization. Within the past year, for instance, Armenian newspapers have reported few, if any, cases of persecution toward members of Jehovah’s Witnesses. And the biased tone used in describing the religious organization by much of the Armenian media suggests that persecutions would hardly be noticed and/or reported in the first place. In particular, the religious organization is continuously referred to as a “sect” with a blatant negative connotation in the Armenian language and culture. Popular daily newspapers in the Republic of Armenia often refer to Jehovah’s Witnesses as a “sect” and “totalitarian” resonating with many derogatory terms popularly used in Armenia to refer to religious minorities.  A recent Azg article (in Armenian), for one example, says that “sects shake the foundation of the state” and quotes a journalist accusing a freedom of expression activist for not having a “list” of individuals who were allegedly psychologically devastated after joining Jehovah’s Witnesses.

On the other hand, I also have serious concerns about the organization’s treatment of its own members and the tactic of recruiting minors and especially from oppressed economic backgrounds. And what is the most ironic is the organization’s call for “freedom of expression” while at the same time they consider their own critical members as agents of the evil and call those who leave the group, “liars.”

“We would like to ask you to vote for Serzh Sargsyan – the life is getting better and he is nice.”

The head of the Hanrapetakan (Republican) Hospital in Yerevan told a patient who happens to be my friend and an avid reader of this blog.  Serzh Sargsyan is Armenia’s prime minister; the candidate that most people think will become Armenia’s next president at any price: and apparently at the price of pushing government doctors to advocate for him during treatment of patients.

After my friend told the Hanrapetakan Hosptial doctor that he wasn’t seeing her to get political advise, his next appointment wasn’t as smooth as the previous ones.  The doctor was quite angry at him during the next visit.  

“Another story happened in a local periodical office,” tells my friend from Yerevan. “The head of the office
asked me whether if i was going to vote for Serzh Sargsyan and I said no, I will vote for anyone but him… The boss was ready to eat me for my comment.”

And that’s not all.  He says that he can’t even write everything he thinks to me because Internet communication is being monitored in Armenia. “I can’t express my true opinion without worrying about my future.”

And this comes from someone who has repatriated to Armenia after having left it as a child.  From someone who does more for Armenia – like most citizens – than Serzh Sargsyans or Levon Ter Petrosyans.

My friend’s letter gave me one feeling – to want to move to Armenia. Why? Because there is so much that needs to be changed there. 

Loosavor, an art blog from Armenia, posts traditional ceramic figures made by Aram Hunanyan, “the cultural ambassador of Yerevan.”

My favorite one is the third female figure (from left) holding what seems to be her husband’s head.

When the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) – a political party in Armenia – held an open-to-all pre-election vote to decide which of their leaders should run for presidency in 2008, I jokingly told my sister this was the first transparent and democratic presidential election in Armenia’s entire history. 

It is quite funny and somewhat ironic, but the nationalist ARF or Dashnak party is introducing democracy in Armenia through very creative and unique ways. 

The Armenian Observer informs of the newest ARF method to gain votes:

[T]he party now has printed out 400,000 ‘contracts’ with Vahan Hovhannisyan – the ARF candidate [decided by the open-to-all vote].

According to this contract, the presidential candidate promises to make social changes, maintain political stability, contribute to the unification of Armenians in the homeland, establish social solidarity, ensure free elections.

Everybody that reads and signs the agreement will receive a small card with the picture of Vahan Hovhannisyan and will join the movement “I am with Vahan”. […]

[…]

I have also heard rumours, that ARF are planning yet another major PR event, specifically targeting young people – Serj Tankian, the lead vocalist, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative metal band System of a Down, will hold a concert in Yerevan in support of ARF-Dashnaktsutyun candidate.

I don’t think I’d vote for the ARF candidate if I lived in Armenia (in fact, I might boycott the elections), but I can’t hide my support for the healthy campaign they have been doing so far for the 2008 elections.  They are clearly introducing a culture of fair and fun politics in Armenia which supports the democratization and builds general trust for elections.

Despite many dark aspects of the ARF history, I think they are making history today by creating a culture of transparency and trust through simple campaign strategies. 

And it is not all about gaining power this time, it seems ARF is delivering a Ralph-Nader-kind of message.

A swastika has been painted on Yerevan’s new Holocaust memorial a year after the old and repeatedly vandalized memorial was replaced with this new monument that commemorates the Jewish and Armenian Genocides of the 20th century. 

According to the Jerusalem Post:

Unknown vandals defaced a memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in central Yerevan last week, scrawling a swastika on the simple stone structure and splattering it with black paint.

The defaced memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in central Yerevan, Armenia. Photo: Michael Freund

Rabbi Gershon Burshtein, a Chabad emissary who serves as Chief Rabbi of the country’s tiny Jewish community, expressed shock upon discovering the vandalism while escorting visitors to the site on Wednesday.

After calling the police and local government officials to inform them of the incident, he said, “I just visited the memorial the other day and everything was fine. This is terrible, as there are excellent relations between Jews and Armenians.”

A senior adviser to Armenian President Robert Kocharian denounced the defacement as “a provocation”, and promised Rabbi Burshtein that it would be taken care of forthwith.

The monument has been defaced and toppled several times in the past few years. It is located in the city’s Aragast Park, a few blocks north of the centrally-located Republic Square, which is home to a number of government buildings.

The text inscribed in Hebrew on the stone reads, “To be or to forget: in memory of the victims of the Holocaust”.

Armenia’s Jewish population is estimated at between 300 and 500 people, most of whom live in the capital of Yerevan.

Photo from Yehudim.am:  The new Holocaust Memorial during its opening on October 27, 2006

It is interesting that the Jerusalem Post fails to mention that the Holocaust memorial doesn’t only commemorate the Jewish but also the Armenian Genocide.  The dual-commemoration was obviously done with the hope that anti-Semites in Armenia would not dare to vandalize a monument that also honors the Armenian Genocide. 

The new vandalism seen in the Jerusalem Post photo is quite minor compared to what was done to the old Holocaust memorial in Yerevan in early 2006.

While the vandalism on the former memorial was most likely organized by a group known as Armenian-Aryans (I remember reading in one of their 2002 or 2003 publications talking about the Holocaust Memorial as something immoral to exist in Armenia), the new vandalism seems to be a work of an individual anti-Semite given the “minor injuries” of the new memorial.

As I have written before, the head of the “Armenian-Aryans” was one of the speakers at the Holocaust denial conference a year ago in Iran.

The selective Radio Free Europe report on a British Embassy-sponsored event called “Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia has been brought upon fierce criticism from bloggers  after the U.S. State Department-sponsored news agency failed to mention that a group of bloggers in Armenia had protested the event by handing a soap to the Armenian organizers of “Days of Azerbaijan” as reported by sources such as PanArmenian.net and ArmeniaNow.

Giving the soap to the infamous organizers (some members of former president Ter-Petrosyan’s regime) of the event would be like giving a napkin to someone (in the United States culture) for cleaning a brown nose.  I wanted to emphasize this because one Armenian blogger has accused his colleagues of… homophobia for giving a soap (in the comments section of OneWorld Multimedia’s post).

Being one of the few bloggers that has spoken for Armenian and Azeri rehumanization, I still have to protest “Days of Azerbaijan” for my VERY PERSONAL reasons.

VERY PERSONAL, because I treat every medieval Armenian cross-stone that Azerbaijan reduced to dust two years ago as my own dead relative and I don’t want a group of idiots organizing “Days of Azerbaijan” in Armenia during the second anniversary of Djulfa cemetery’s destruction. 

And ironically, it doesn’t seem any Armenian blog commemorated the second anniversary of the loss of ancient Armenia’s largest historic artifact.  That includes me, but all I have been doing in the last 10 days is working on a project for Djulfa. 

If “Days of Azerbaijan” included commemoration and condemnation of Djulfa’s destruction I’d be for the event.  But since one of the organizers, Ashot Bleyan, has suggested in the past that Armenian students shouldn’t learn about the Armenian Genocide, one can’t expect much from morons like him. 

Work for peace, but don’t piss on the memory of the destruction of the world’s largest artifact of Armenian heritage.  And soap was good enough; I wouldn’t mind if the bloggers had used a sledgehammer-toy to “smash” the heads of the organizers like Azerbaijani soldiers reduced to dust thousands of sacred stones in Djulfa.  Maybe that would remind us all that this month is the commemoration of a vital loss of an ancient heritage.

Amid international controversies, the male elephant in Armenia’s Yerevan Zoo has finally found a partner.  But instead arriving directly from South Asia, Hrantik’s girlfriend comes from where many Armenian guys go to for fun – Russia.

But Hrantik should feel very luck because his new wife – yes, they had an actual wedding – is a super star who has abandoned her career to make Hrantik happy. 

Russia Today informs:

December 16, 2007, 18:41

Two elephants marry in Armenia

The zoo in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, has marked the wedding of two elephants – Grand and Candy. Hundreds of guests attended the ceremony, complete with traditional Indian dances.

The bride came all the way from Moscow. She was a star of Moscow’s Animal Theatre, but abandoned her career to be with the elephant she loved.

New living quarters were built at the zoo especially for the newlyweds.

The photograph above is from a presidential rally for Levon Petrosyan – Armenia’s first president who now wants to return to power – in the Republic of Armenia,
posted by Oneworld Multimedia

The poster in Armenian reads, “Levon VII: Armenian King,” with a reference to Cilician Armenia’s last king Levon (Leo) VI who found refuge in France as his Muslim foes destroyed the last Armenian kingdom.

It is quite ironic that the romantic nationalists who support Ter-Petrosyan call the former president a monarch, not realizing that the last thing Armenia needs is another king – which would be the case if either Levon Ter-Petrosyan or Serzh Sargsyan are elected. The Ter-Petrosyan “monarchship” was clearly demonstrated in the 1996 elections when he was celebrating his “victory” before the votes were even being counted. And I can almost guarantee to you a Serzh Sargsyan “victory” for the upcoming elections.

Armenia’s politics has never upset me as much as it does today. The more time passes the worse it becomes with former morons wanting to replace current morons.

And I think Armenia needs to change it constitution so that a president can only serve two terms in a lifetime. Otherwise, we may see lots of monarchs striving for return.

Ara Ashjian, a pen pal I used to communicate with a few years back while he was still in Iraq, has left his beloved Baghdad for Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, and tells the moving story of leaving a homeland for a homeland.

Ara turned down job offers to the United States and Canada and chose his ancestral Armenia instead.

Karabakh Open has posted Ara’s interesting story, thoughts and feelings:

Welcome .. My Beloved Yerevan

After my brother and I had left my beloved Baghdad on September 6, 2007, we arrived in Damascus and then Aleppo by motorcars. Many Iraqis were leaving Iraq to escape the worsening security conditions. Their departure from Iraq was hastened after Damascus had announced that it will apply to the Iraqis who enter Syria a new regime of previously getting visas from September 10, 2007. In Aleppo we stayed at my older aunt’s house for ten days. My aunt is the only alive among her sisters after my mother and my youngest aunt had passed away last July. Finally, we took the plane to my beloved Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of Armenia, which we arrived in after midnight.

[…]My sister and her family had left Baghdad in July 2006 and emigrated to the United States. They left Iraq because of the insecure conditions prevailed in the country and after terrorists began targeting and threatening the life of Iraqi scientists, engineers, academic staff members, doctors and surgeons, among whom my brother-in-law.

First, I had to place my sick brother in the hospital to be under continuous medical care. I keep visiting him at the hospital to be reassured and watch his condition. I began working as a supervisor engineer in building roads and bridges in a site of the project placed near the Victory Park and Monument region, which symbolizes the fiftieth anniversary of declaring the Soviet Republic of Armenia (declared on December 2, 1920). The network of roads and bridges in the project I work will connect Hiratsi, Saralanj and Avetisian streets in a high place that overlooks the capital Yerevan. From this place, the fascinating scene of Ararat mountain (also called Masis by Armenians), which historically symbolizes Armenia and Armenians and is captivated by Turkey, clearly appears, especially in shining days. The two peaks of the mountain appear close to us, although they are at 55 kilometers from Yerevan.

[…] 

The project is funded, as well as several other projects to reconstruct Armenia and NKR (Artsakh), by Lincy Armenian American Foundation. I

[…] 

Before leaving Iraq a friend of mine, who lives in the United States, found, without asking him to do so, a job offer for me to work as a construction engineer in the United States. Ahead of that a friend settled in Canada promised to aid my immigration to Canada. However, I apologized to accept both offers as I have the great wish to live and work in my beloved Yerevan to make true the dream I have since childhood.

Among the difficulties I faced in work at the beginning was the different method used in putting engineering designs and its language. It depends, sometimes, on the Russian language commonly used in Armenia, for being one of the republics of the former Soviet Union. The Russian is widely used by engineers and workers belonging to the old generation. I begun learning some Russian words used in work and other spheres of life and to acclimatize with the work and its mountainous environment, which varies from the working environment in Baghdad. Perhaps I am the first Iraqi construction engineer, in the recent years, who enter such a domain. It also needs mastering the Armenian language (with its eastern dialect used in Armenia, other republics of the former Soviet Union and Iran) to be able to write reports on the progress and amounts of the work. The engineering supervision here is less strict than that we were familiar to in Iraq because of what I was told it is continuing of the system existed in the Soviet era.

[…]

Some workers and engineers confuse that I am from Iran for similar vocalization of the words (Iraq) and (Iran) in the Armenian language (also in English). To prevent such confuse, I say I am originally from Baghdad, Iraq. Workers often ask me about Iraq, its situation and ethnicities, including Kurds and Yezidis, 55-60 thousand in Armenia, who consider Iraq as their historical homeland. Many Yezidis are meat merchants in Armenia. The overseer of the workers, had passed three years in Adan, Yemen, in the eightieth of the last century. He always remembers with yearning those days and tells me the customs and traditions of Yemen s good-hearted people and comes near to me whenever I hear Iraqi songs on my cellular phone!!

[…]

I attended a meeting of Iraqi Armenians in Armenia in which nearly 120 Iraqi Armenians settled in Armenia were present. The meeting was aimed at setting up a union or league which would represent and follow the affairs of Iraqi Armenians in Armenia in front of the government and the public, international and humanitarian organizations working in Armenia. An Iraqi atmosphere prevailed the meeting in which the attendance exchanged ideas and thoughts on setting up this union and its aims. The meeting unanimously adopted setting up this union which needs to put its rule, gain official approval and elect its board of directors.

I always yearn to my beloved Baghdad, and follow the news of Iraq on Iraqi and Arab satellite channels, as if I am still in Iraq and didn t leave it. I feel pain for Iraq s tragic situation and for sectarian and ethnic artificial conflicts between one people created by the occupier to perpetuate the occupation, and are used by some Iraqi political forces to achieve own interests. I listen continuously to the songs of Iraqi singer Haitham Yousif and remember my beloved Baghdad, my life there and my deceased mother whom I see here in the faces of women at her age and feel sadness. My mother, how much I miss and need you, even if you were sick and I d take care of you, while I begin my new life in my beloved Yerevan to receive from you power and advice. Why do not you come to me in my dreams so I can talk to you, tell you how much I love and miss you and kiss your cheeks and hands? However, I feel your breath close to me while you watch me to be reassured on my new life here. My beloved and precious mother, I ask God to have mercy on you.

Ara S. Ashjian
An Iraqi Armenian settled in
Yerevan, Armenia
For Karabakh-Open

The satire news that I made up about Armenian parliament passing an act on human trafficking – with the hope to have the parliamentarians introduce similar act – was noticed by everyone but the Armenian parliament itself.

OSCE was not the only organization that posted the news. Apparently, the news item – picked up from Huliq.com – was included in Stop Violence Against Women, in the October 2007 e-Bulletin of Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Gender Information Network of South Caucasus, and others.

I apologize to the above organizations for the false hope that Armenia is doing something to combat human trafficking.  And apparently Armenian lawmakers don’t browse much Internet.