Unzipped

Thursday, 12 March 2009

Documented case of rape in the Armenian army

For more - Brutality of Homophobia in Armenia (presentation by Lala Aslikyan)

Wednesday, 11 March 2009

Photos of allegedly corrupt university lecturers 'greeted' Yerevan residents this morning

UPDATE (!): OK, apparently, it's pro-government Miasin youth group behind this. Call me biased, but I do not trust them. Although I like the idea behind this action, I cannot trust the organisers, as they are not independent in their actions. You may no longer pay attention to my initially put "Student rebellion?" sub-heading.

Student rebellion?

Tert.am reports that this morning photos of allegedly corrupt university officials, lecturers etc. appeared at Yerevan bus stops, metro stations, universities, other busy spots. There is brief ‘bio’ of those pictured provided there. Captions of photos read “Bribe-taker”.

Police and university officials are now busy with the ‘cleaning up’.

«Կաշառակերների» նկարները փակցված են Երևանի փողոցներում

Tert.am

Այսօր առավոտյան Երևանի կանգառներում, բուհերի պատերին և այլ մարդաշատ վայրերում փակցված էին տասնյակից ավելի հայրենի մանկավարժների լուսանկարները «Կաշառակերներ» վերնագրով։

Բացի մանկավարժների դեմքերից, պաստառները կարճ ծանոթացնում էին «մատաղ սերնդի դաստիարակների» անցած ուղու հետ։

Ամենուր «կաշառակերների» մոտ մարդկանց բազմություն է կուտակվում։ Ոստիկանությունը, իր հերթին, հասկանալով, թե ինչ է կատարվում, շրջափակել է «Երիտասարդական» մետրոյի մոտակա կանգառը և ստորգետնյա անցումը և ակտիվորեն պայքարում է «կաշառակերության» դեմ՝ պոկելով պաստառները։

Իսկ Երևանի մանկավարժական համալսարանի ղեկավարությունը արդեն վաղ առավոտյան հասցրել է հանձնարարել լվանալ պատերը ուսանողների՝ մեծ հետաքրքրությունը վայելող դասախոսների նկարներից։ Բուհի պատերն այժմ «անվտանգ են»։ «Կաշառակերներից» միայն թաց տեղ է մնացել։

*photo and video - via Tert.am

World Day Against Cyber Censorship - 12 March

It was launched by Reporters Without Borders in 2008 as the "first Online Free Expression Day" to protest the "growing tendency to crack down on bloggers and to close websites."

More info

Tuesday, 10 March 2009

Maxim Anmeghichean of ILGA-Europe questions Hillary Clinton on gay rights

Maxim Anmeghichean is Moldovan of Armenian origin. He is a Programmes Director at ILGA-Europe (Europe’s main gay rights group).

On 6 March 2009, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, participated in a meeting with young Europeans hosted by the European Parliament. Max was one of the participants.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was pretty excited by the fact that Max was wearing a T-shirt saying “I love Hillary”, so she said she simply had to take a question from him. And Max used this chance perfectly by posing a question on how the US foreign policy in the field of sexual rights and LGBT issues is going to change under a new administration.

Whatever one may think of Hillary Clinton, wearing a T-shirt saying “I love Hillary” was a very smart move by Maxim Anmeghichean, to be noticed and heard. Well done, Max, you are an inspiration for many.

Financial Times Brussels Blog called Max’s Q&A with Hillary Clinton “the best moment” of the meeting.

For details and video - see Unzipped: Gay Armenia

*photo - via Towleroad

Monday, 9 March 2009

"Armenian Women in Turkey Are Doubly Discriminated Against", Women Protests in Turkey

For all these - see Unzipped: Gay Armenia (based on Bianet coverage - here and here)

*source of photo - Bianet

“For Turkey, the number should have been a bombshell”…

Turkish author and columnist Murat Bardakci, who publicly denies that Armenian Genocide took place, published a book in Turkey documenting population records of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish sources) which are effectively “death records” for Ottoman Armenians.

Nearly a Million Genocide Victims, Covered in a Cloak of Amnesia (The New York Times)

A devastating document is met with silence in Turkey (International Herald Tribune, the global edition of The New York Times)

By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: March 8, 2009

ISTANBUL — For Turkey, the number should have been a bombshell.

According to a long-hidden document that belonged to the interior minister of the Ottoman Empire, 972,000 Ottoman Armenians disappeared from official population records from 1915 through 1916.

In Turkey, any discussion of what happened to the Ottoman Armenians can bring a storm of public outrage. But since its publication in a book in January, the number — and its Ottoman source — has gone virtually unmentioned. Newspapers hardly wrote about it. Television shows have not discussed it.

“Nothing,” said Murat Bardakci, the Turkish author and columnist who compiled the book.

The silence can mean only one thing, he said: “My numbers are too high for ordinary people. Maybe people aren’t ready to talk about it yet.”

For generations, most Turks knew nothing of the details of the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1918, when more than a million Armenians were killed as the Ottoman Turk government purged the population. Turkey locked the ugliest parts of its past out of sight, Soviet-style, keeping any mention of the events out of schoolbooks and official narratives in an aggressive campaign of forgetting.

But in the past 10 years, as civil society has flourished here, some parts of Turkish society are now openly questioning the state’s version of events. […]

With his book, “The Remaining Documents of Talat Pasha,” Mr. Bardakci (pronounced bard-AK-chuh) has become, rather unwillingly, part of this ferment. The book is a collection of documents and records that once belonged to Mehmed Talat, known as Talat Pasha, the primary architect of the Armenian deportations.

The documents, given to Mr. Bardakci by Mr. Talat’s widow, Hayriye, before she died in 1983, include lists of population figures. Before 1915, 1,256,000 Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire, according to the documents. The number plunged to 284,157 two years later, Mr. Bardakci said. […]

Hilmar Kaiser, a historian and expert on the Armenian genocide, said the records published in the book were conclusive proof from the Ottoman authority itself that it had pursued a calculated policy to eliminate the Armenians. "You have suddenly on one page confirmation of the numbers," he said. "It was like someone hit you over the head with a club."

Kaiser said the before-and-after figures amounted to "a death record."

"There is no other way of viewing this document," he said. "You can't just hide a million people."

[…] But some of the keenest observers of Turkish society said the silence was a sign of just how taboo the topic still is. "The importance of the book is obvious from the fact that no paper except Milliyet has written a single line about it," wrote Murat Belge, a Turkish academic, in a January column in the liberal daily newspaper Taraf.

Still, it is a measure of Turkey's democratic maturity that the book was published here at all. Bardakci said he had held the documents for so long - 27 years - because he was waiting for Turkey to reach the point when their publication would not cause a frenzy. […]

"I could never have published this book 10 years ago," Bardakci said. "I would have been called a traitor."

He added, "The mentality has changed."

*/emphasis mine/

Sunday, 8 March 2009

International Women’s Day in Armenia: small women’s march, riot police van, 'private burial' of “Red Apple”, business as usual

For details:

Onnik Krikorian's original reporting - Burying the Red Apple

My reflections: Unzipped: Gay Armenia

*photos - by Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2009 (+ The Caucasian Knot - Oneworld Multimedia Facebook Group)

Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopedia

Description (via Amazon): The photographs, drawings and texts published here are part of a collection of 3.600 tattoos collected over thirty three years in St Petersburg's notorious Kresty prison by attendant Danzig Baldayev. He acknowledges the tattoos as his entrance into a secret world, where he became something as an ethnographer, setting down the ways of a closed society. The tattoos are artful, distasteful, sexually explicit and sometimes simply strange, reflecting as they do the lives and mores of convicts. There are skulls with swastikas, naked women, a smiling Al Capone, assorted demons, medieval knights in armor, daggers and blood, benign images of Christ, mosques and minarets, sweet-faced mothers and babies, tanks and a horned Lenin. Once the criminal language and tattoos were the code of a restricted world, then the world of the criminal became open and their language was diffused into society, but the tattoos remain the secret part.

My pictures from the London gallery exhibition Russian Criminal Tattoos (plus TO's review) - Unzipped Gay Armenia.

*source of pictures - Amazon

Picture of the Day

*source of the picture - Queerty

Leave a message... for God

Who needs churches if you have 'God's Hotline' :)

This is my favourite part: ...the voicemail message says: "This is the voice of God, I am not able to speak to you at the moment, but please leave a message."

BBC reports: An art exhibition opening in the Netherlands will allow people to call a telephone number designated for God - but they will have to leave a message.

Dubbed God's Hotline, it aims to focus attention on changes to the ways Dutch people perceive religion.

Dutch artist Johan van der Dong chose a mobile phone number to show that God was available anywhere and anytime, Radio Netherlands reported.

Critics say the project mocks those with religious beliefs.

Forming part of an art installation in the town of Groningen, the voicemail message says: "This is the voice of God, I am not able to speak to you at the moment, but please leave a message."

Secret messages

Although the hotline is officially launched on Saturday, the phone number has been active for the past week, with 1,000 messages left on the answerphone.

But the messages are to remain confidential and will not form part of the art project.

Van der Dong told Radio Netherlands: "I'm not a pastor, I'm an artist and I won't listen to the messages.

"It's a secret between the Lord and the people who are calling."

Exhibition spokeswoman Susanna Groot said there was no intention to offend anyone.

"In earlier times you would go to a church to say a prayer and now [this is an] opportunity to just make a phone call and say your prayer in a modern way."

Instead, the aim is to provoke debate about the priorities of modern life.

The phone line will remain open for the next six months.

Friday, 6 March 2009

Armenian human rights activist Lilit Poghosyan is chosen as the face for the EU anti-discrimination poster

*This poster has been produced as part of the EU-wide “For Diversity. Against Discrimination” information campaign.

For details - Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Thursday, 5 March 2009

Armenia PM Tigran Sargsyan: Quotes of The Day

Excellent quotes. But... What we need now is to see these quotes transformed into reality.

RFE/RL: Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian bemoaned Armenia’s culture of political intolerance on Thursday, warning that failure to “radically change this atmosphere” could lead to fresh politically motivated assassinations in the country. [...]

“It is the government and the authorities that are primarily responsible for the formation of an atmosphere of solidarity and cooperation for the simple reason that we have serious state levers to form that atmosphere,” he told ministers. “We must be tolerant. We must not burn bridges of cooperation,” added the prime minister.

Sarkisian did not specify just how the Armenian authorities should go about ending their year-long standoff with the country’s main opposition alliance led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian. He recalled that he himself was a “representative of the radical opposition” during Ter-Petrosian’s presidency.

“I consider myself guilty of many things and I ask our political opponents to forgive our mistakes, my personal mistakes,” he said without elaboration. [...]

Six years missing from newly appointed Yerevan mayor Gagik Beglaryan bio

Formal bio of newly appointed and soon to be ‘elected’ (on 31 May) Yerevan mayor Gagik Beglaryan (nicknamed Chorni (Black) Gago) does not contain info for around 6 years:

In 1985-1986 served in the Army.
In 1993 was elected member of the parliament.

So what was he doing in 1987-1992???

His brief bio on the ruling Republican party website says that “Since 1987 worked in different branches of economy.” (???)

Women's Month in Armenia - 2009

It is soon Women's Day in Armenia and this year women are asking for more than flowers and chocolate, they are asking for equal rights, equal opportunities and a life without violence.

The Women's Resource Center in cooperation with other NGOs is launching the activites for the Month dedicated to women's issues in Armenia.

For details - see Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Turkey: Statistics of The Day

A survey conducted by a Turkish parliamentary research commission has discovered that 6% of high school children carry a gun to class.

Among those asked, 15% said they carry a weapon of some sort, including knives or razor blades. Many of them said they carried weapons to make them feel safe.

The survey questioned 26,000 children across the country. The commission was set up after a spate of violent attacks in Turkish schools hit the headlines.

*source: BBC

Tuesday, 3 March 2009

Armenian Dram Memorial

Sharp rise in USD exchange rate in Armenia

*photo - by Artur Papyan

Armenian women burying the "Red Apple" on 8 March

Celebrating International Women's Day in Armenia

Start Time: 07 March 2009 at 3pm
End Time: 07 April 2009 at 5pm
Starting point: Women's Resource Center, 34 Zarubyan Street, Yerevan, Armenia

The Women's Resource Center of Armenia with the cooperation of Utopiana, WOW and other NGOs, intends to mark the 8th of March, by performing a funeral rite and burying the “Red Apple” (to verify women’s virginity for marriage) one of the cultural traditions still popular in most of Armenia which the Center considers demeaning for women and a violation of their human rights and dignity.

Here is what Lara Aharonian of the Women's Resource Center has to say to clarify misconceptions associated with this initiative:

"By burying the red apple, we are not telling anyone to not be a virgin, because we believe that everyone has the right to choose their personal life and sexuality, as a basic human right.

On the contrary we want to express that every woman has the right to choose for herself and not be forced in the name of tradition. [...]"

For more details - Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Monday, 2 March 2009

A1+ film devoted to 10 victims of 1 March 08

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Armenia: Opposition leader outlaws “revolution”

Thousands rally in Yerevan to mark the anniversary of 1 March 08

Reuters: At least 10 000 anti-government protesters in Armenia on Sunday demanded early elections. (photo - Nazik Armenakian / Reuters) Other estimates - 10 000 to 20 000, or more.

One year ago, these days… Brutal force crushed hopes of many in Armenia who wanted changes in their country. It was a movement comprised of people of varying political/social views/backgrounds who were sick of the current state of affairs in Armenia.

Regardless of my critical opinion of some in the movement, I did support it, as I believed this was the only right choice for me considering the circumstances and alternatives. One year on, I have no regrets for my choice. I could not have done otherwise. There were simply no other channels for people to exercise their rights and hopes for democracy and human rights to arrive in Armenia.

For me, the matter of ultimate responsibility for 1 March tragedy is apparent. I do not need court cases or commissions for that. It’s Armenian authorities who bear the ultimate responsibility for all good and bad happenings in the country. It’s them who issued the orders…

Today, remembering events of 1 March 08, I’d like to express my sincere condolences to families and friends of those killed.

Despite unprecedented tragic consequences, restrictions of civil liberties, political prisoners, the movement had resulted in some important positive developments. It was an awakening for the society in hibernation for more than a decade. Number of genuine, albeit small, civil groups and initiatives were developed, particularly among youth, aimed at democratisation of our society.

For me, one of the main positive outcomes of the movement was the fact that Armenian government, authorities, started paying more attention to public opinion. To the various degree, of course, but they can no longer completely ignore it. Like they used to do pre-movement…

Still, one of the ultimate aims of the movement – free elections, key feature of democracy, seems something of a dream than a reality any time soon. Initial signs of the upcoming Yerevan mayoral (municipality) elections do not look particularly promising.

It is not surprising, therefore, that key slogans of thousands protesters who defied the ban by the authorities to mark the 1st anniversary of 1 March 08 in Yerevan were: "Free Political Prisoners", "For Early Elections", “Punish 1 March Perpetrators”, and… “No To Tax Terror”.

Previously announced opposition hiatus was partly ‘justified’ by the Karabakh conflict. The point was that Karabakh deal is imminent, and 'we do not want damaging our country’s interests and make it even more vulnerable to external pressures'. The ‘hope’ was that the authorities would sign up to the unfavourable settlement plan which would stir popular anger and... All ‘hopes’ now on socioeconomic/financial crisis, as was evident from the opposition leader, Armenia’s first president Ter-Petrosyan speech, which was remarkable by a change in rhetoric, a kind of U-turn.

There is nothing wrong with the opposition using current problems to their advantage. It may not seem ethical, but it is within the rules of game. Any opposition party would do so, whether in Armenia or abroad.

However, there is a feeling among some opposition supporters (past or present) that its leaders are lacking a clear vision on ways forward.

One more remark. While (from the opposition side) there was no ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’ divide in relation to those killed, police chief of Armenia was speaking the other day of “we also had 2 dead”, as if you could divide those who were killed on 1 March into ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’.