administrator, Author at Gagrule.net

“SQUARE”: THE REQUIREMENT TO HAVE A NEW CONSTITUTION IN ARMENIA WAS FORCED BY ALIYEV of AZERBAIJAN IN WRITING

January 27, 2024 By administrator

As much as the CP members deny that they did not receive the demand-instruction to have a new Constitution from Aliyev, our sources in the diplomatic field say that in the draft of the peace treaty, Aliyev fixed that demand in writing. He wrote that Armenia’s internal legislation should be harmonized so that the contracting parties do not have territorial claims against each other.

It should be noted that a national referendum will adopt the new Constitution, and “more than half of the participants in the referendum, but not less than a quarter of the citizens who have the right to participate in the referendums”, should vote in favor of the new Constitution, that is, as many as Nikol Pashinyan and his team voted in the previous elections. have received And CP received 688 thousand votes. In other words, at least 647 thousand people must vote in favor of the new Constitution. The solution to the issue can be the “cleaning” of the voters’ register, which is being discussed by the authorities.

It should be noted that the purpose of having a new Constitution and not of changing the existing one is to delete the reference to the Declaration of Independence from the preamble of the main law. The point is that the preamble cannot be edited with the amendment, and in case of adopting a new Constitution, you can just write a new preamble.

You can read the full article here: https://hraparak.am/post/f3e7c91de2b83a6d896e34c81c7ef7b4

LA Times officially chooses Adrin Nazarian for Council District 2

January 25, 2024 By administrator

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA — Mayor Karen Bass, LA Firefighters, and now, The Los Angeles Times. After exhaustive interviews with every candidate in the Council District 2 race, the Los Angeles Times have assertively endorsed Adrin Nazarian’s campaign. This endorsement reaffirms Nazarian’s deep understanding of the pressing issues and the bold leadership he brings to this district. The Times’ highlighted Adrin’s unmatched experience and diverse policy positions on the issues that face Los Angeles as their reasons for backing him.

“Nazarian is a thoughtful, collaborative leader who is willing to take on difficult, weedy issues,” said the LA Times in their article in support of Adrin. “In this race, Nazarian has experience and a record of leadership that makes him the best choice for voters.”

“I’m honored to have the support of such a prestigious and credible organization” said Nazarian. “I see this endorsement as a call to action. Like the Times’ outlined, our City needs experienced and community oriented leaders to usher in a new era in Los Angeles that represents the interests of the people, not special interests. I thank the Los Angeles Times for their stamp of approval, and to the residents of Council District 2, I am committed to representing you to the best of my ability, and I will not let you down.”

The Times’ is an immensely trusted entity in Los Angeles politics, and this endorsement will surely send significant waves of influence over the Council District 2 race as election day is rapidly approaching.

Former Assemblymember Nazarian served the East San Fernando Valley for a decade in the California State Assembly, where he worked successfully to pass protections for renters, patients and seniors. Former Assemblymember Nazarian is also known for creating the CalKIDS College Savings Program, the largest college savings program in the nation, ensuring every child born in California after July 2022, a path to college and career training. Former Assemblymember Nazarian and his family are residents of North Hollywood.

Ex-Armenian President Armen Sarkissian Արմեն Սարգսյան Message to journalist formerly associated with an Azerbaijan

January 23, 2024 By administrator

DR. ARMEN SARKISSIAN

@ArmSarkissian

I recently got an email asking me about my family’s holdings from a journalist formerly associated with an Azerbaijani think tank and claiming to be acting on information from his Armenian colleagues. In the interest of transparency, I am placing my response in the public domain.

Mr. Denis,

As you know, or should know, I resigned from political office almost exactly two years ago. It is puzzling that you should choose to expend valuable resources on targeting me in retirement as well as members of my family (private individuals who have never held any public roles) with questions fed by others that are in fact based on information that is wholly in the public domain. Yet, out of respect for the mission of the OCCRP, I am taking the time to write this letter to you in response.

My sister, Karine, is a highly distinguished cardiologist. Holding a PhD in medical studies, she is a founder of Armenia’s first and most prestigious open-heart surgery clinic that has saved countless lives since its establishment. She has worked at a number of prestigious institutions in Armenia and abroad. In the 1990s, she represented major international pharmaceutical companies. It speaks to her brilliance as an individual that she was able to practice medicine and navigate the world of business equally successfully. I mention all of this as a proud sibling.

In the 1990s, as I went from being a scientist to a public figure, I made the decision to entrust my wealth — earned from developing software and video games — to my sister. My duties, first as a diplomat and later (briefly) as Prime Minister of Armenia, demanded absolute dedication. My choice, which is not an uncommon practice for people entering public life, was vindicated when I was diagnosed in 1997 with terminal illness and went into intense therapy. It was my sister who, as executioner of my estate, looked after my family: my wife, my two young boys, and my elderly mother. Karine remained the ultimate beneficiary of the companies founded by me. These companies, involved in a range of investments — in hi-tech, IT, telecoms, infrastructure, electricity distribution, among others — were run by professional managers, and advised and audited by major international law firms and auditors. Some of them were held by companies based in the British Virgin Islands — this was a completely standard set of arrangements for managing wealth on which professional advice and expertise was received.

It is largely with the proceeds of these investments that the properties you mention were bought. They were not initially purchased at their current high values, and they were certainly not worth “tens of millions of pounds,” as you state. The purchase of some of the property was in fact financed by a bank loan. The appreciation of their value over the years suggests smart investment rather than, as you seem to imply, extravagant expenditure. In 2022, after I retired from politics, and as she was approaching her 70s, my sister gifted two properties to my sons while continuing to own the remainder.

As for myself, barring a brief pro bono stint as Armenia’s ambassador to the UK in 1999, I was a private citizen from 1997 to 2013. In those 16 years, I advised major global organizations such as EBRD, Bank of America / Merrill Lynch, BP, Alcatel, and Telefonica, to name a few. I was very well-compensated for my work and paid all taxes that were due on my income in a timely fashion.

In 2013, when I accepted the government of Armenia’s invitation to return as the country’s ambassador to the UK, I again worked without pay. In fact, I financed the refurbishment of the embassy, and equipped it with new computers and cars at my own officially registered residence of expense. The address in Chelsea, where I lived, became the ambassador and thus part of the Armenian mission — that is where we received important delegations, including heads of state, members of British parliament, and Armenian government officials. It was common knowledge and a matter of public record that the Armenian ambassador’s residence was situated in a family-owned building, saving the government substantial expenses in lease. Furthermore, in my four years as President of Armenia, I did not live in an official residence and my salary was donated to charity. I lived in my son’s house in Yerevan and paid all the expenses, which were not insubstantial, out of my own pocket. If press reports are to be believed, the upkeep of the senior leadership of Armenia costs the Armenian exchequer 90,000 US dollars a month. On this basis, it looks like I saved the Armenian taxpayer upwards of four million US dollars during my presidency and around a million US dollars while serving as ambassador.

You ask me if I have ever lived in any of the houses owned by my family, and why I chose to register Eurasia House — my non-profit organization which helped to educate hundreds of young Armenians at Cambridge and other universities — there. I find it odd to have to explain why I lived in a house owned by my sister. For more than 30 years, my sister lived in my house in Yerevan. But we never looked at it that way. Perhaps it is our culture. We are a family. Our children and siblings live with us and we live with them. Moreover, my sister is the executioner of my will (and I of hers).

Lastly, you point out in your emails to my sister and my son, Hayk, that the company he founded and manages (and in which the family initially invested) once existed in a different form. It’s not clear what you are suggesting because the company’s website clearly states that it “was originally part of a family office that has investment and operational experience in Eurasia for over 30 years in various sectors.” I hope this helps you in uncovering any history that is not already available on the company’s website.

In any case, you will appreciate that it is difficult to discern from your multiple emails exactly what you wish to allege, particularly as you appear to confirm that I had no declarable interest during my time in office.

Your emails have come just as my new book The Small States Club, published only weeks ago, is receiving international attention and provoking extensive discussion. My book looks at the sources of success of such small states as Estonia, Ireland, Singapore, Botswana, Qatar, Switzerland, and the UAE, among others. The book’s last chapter examines the reasons why Armenia has not been able to join this group in the past three decades: namely, absence of a clear vision and fundamental freedoms, misgovernance, corruption, and the pretension of upholding the values of democracy. Is the timing of all this a coincidence? I generally do not believe much in coincidences, but I am willing to accept that it might be.

I hope that the above clarifies matters. If, however, you have any further questions for me (or related to members of my family), please get in touch with my family’s lawyer.

In the interest of transparency and because I have nothing to hide, I am placing this letter in the public domain via my channels of communication.

Yours,

Armen Sarkissian

A London Couple’s Lavish Lifestyle Rode on the Azerbaijan Laundromat

January 22, 2024 By administrator

Jonathan Browning, Bloomberg News,

(Bloomberg) — When U.K. authorities began investigating wealth belonging to a politically-connected Azerbaijani family, their suspicions were triggered by a raft of “brass plate” companies that funneled more than double the amount of the couple’s stated income.

Almost 14 million pounds ($19.3 million) was routed into British bank accounts controlled by Suleyman Javadov, the son of a former deputy energy minister, and his wife. Among the 21 companies that moved their wealth was Rovers Production and Tourism Ltd., which chartered a private jet to fly female models to the Spanish party island of Ibiza. Another firm’s accounts were managed by an individual who appeared to be a dentist living in Belgium.

A full legal filing from the National Crime Agency released by the London court on July 7 gives the most detailed glimpse yet of how dirty money was allegedly funneled through the U.K. using a scheme known as the Azerbaijani Laundromat, which enabled the flow of about $3 billion in cash. It also laid out the role of Danske Bank A/S’s Estonia branch and that of Latvia’s ABLV Bank AS in transferring money to the U.K. The documents were released after the Javadov family agreed to hand over 4 million pounds to end an investigation by the NCA.

The shell companies “played no other role than to disguise and hide origins of money coming to them,” NCA lawyer Jonathan Hall told the court.

At the hearing, Hall said the NCA initially sought to seize 6.4 million pounds, but chose to settle with Suleyman Javadov and his wife Izzat Khanim Javadova, a cousin of Azerbaijan’s president, on the eve of the proceedings. The Javadovs made no admission of wrongdoing and their lawyers said in a statement that the couple “have legitimate business dealings and trusted that their money transfers were dealt with by the banks in accordance with the law.”

The couple accepted that the money was transferred through “pass-through” accounts which were part of what prosecutors have described as a laundromat, but denied knowing the money itself was laundered, said James Lewis, their lawyer.

In opting to settle the case, the NCA unwittingly highlighted some of the issues policing the U.K.’s “dirty money problem,” said Susan Hawley, who runs British transparency group Spotlight on Corruption. Even when pursuing civil rather than criminal procedures, with the resulting lower burden of proof, it suggest “that law enforcement bodies are struggling to bring home cases.”

The documents from the crime agency, which were prepared late last year before the court hearing, were released following an application by London’s Evening Standard newspaper, which unmasked the couple following a lengthy court battle.

Baltic Link

They show how the funds ended up in U.K. bank accounts, including at Banco Santander SA and private bank Coutts & Co., via hundreds of transactions from Danske Bank’s Estonia branch or ABLV Bank, once Latvia’s third-largest bank before it was shut down over money laundering concerns.

Danske Bank, Denmark’s biggest lender, is still being investigated in the U.S. and Europe for failing to screen billions of euros flowing into Europe via its Estonian branch. Investors are bracing for fines, which Bloomberg Intelligence estimates may be as high as $1 billion in the U.S. alone.

Danske Bank declined to comment, citing ongoing investigations. Coutts also declined to comment. A Santander spokesperson said the bank couldn’t comment on individual cases but said it takes its “responsibility to counter money laundering, corruption and tax evasion extremely seriously.” The bank will “report any suspect activity to law enforcement agencies and regulators,” he said.

The Javadovs received some 1.6 million pounds in six transfers from Seychelles-based Rovers Production via ABLV over a six-year period through to January 2018, the NCA said. In 2014, the firm flew a group of men and five young female models to Ibiza, the NCA said. Javadova, who worked as a DJ under the name Mikaela Jav on the Spanish island over several summer seasons, started performing gigs in 2014, according to an online database.

Rovers Production wasn’t found on the Seychelles company register and couldn’t be reached. The Javadovs had no idea who controlled the company and were not involved in the charter flight, said Sonia Ahmad, one of their lawyers.

Another firm, the now-defunct U.K.-based Crosspark Lines LLP, sent 48 transfers from Estonia to the Javadov family. The name of the person submitting the accounts was given as Ali Moulaye, “a name connected to a dentist living in Belgium,” the NCA said.

The couple’s lawyer said the Javadovs had no knowledge or connection with Crosspark and “could not be expected to know the route of funds arriving into their U.K. accounts.”

Attempts to reach Moulaye weren’t successful. When interviewed by Buzzfeed in 2018 about his role with other British shell companies, he told the news organization that he signed “many things, many times” for his friends in Latvia.

Interviewed by the NCA, Suleyman Javadov was unable to explain the role of some of the 21 companies involved in sending the funds. He told investigators “I’m just disgust with all this,” according to the NCA court documents.

The agency said it expected the Javadovs would argue that the money was moved via an informal transfer system used frequently in the Muslim world known as hawala. The network is mainly used for legitimate purposes, but the NCA said it can also be exploited by those “who may wish to seek to layer and integrate criminal funds into an (otherwise) legitimate banking system.”

After the court settlement, the NCA said it would continue to pursue others who might have used the money laundering operation.

“Anyone who used the Azerbaijan laundromat should not rest easy, as your assets in the U.K. are potentially recoverable,” said Andy Lewis, the head of asset denial at the agency.

Armenians won’t accept the loss of Artsakh.

January 19, 2024 By administrator

BY SUSAN KORAH,

The 100,000 Armenians who fled en masse after Azerbaijan seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh — the enclave known to Armenians as Artsakh — last September are now facing a bitter winter as homeless refugees in Armenia.

They and their Church leaders are urgently seeking Canada’s and the international community’s help in reclaiming their homeland and retrieving their Christian history and heritage in Artsakh, which they fear is being deliberately destroyed by Azerbaijan.

Grieving the loss of their beloved homeland and haunted by fears of an erasure of their 1,700-year-old history as a Christian nation in Artsakh, their collective anguish can only be described by the Welsh word “hiraeth” (a mixture of yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, and an intense longing for a lost homeland.)

“It’s now over three months since I lost my home,” Siranush Sargsyan, from Stepanakert, Artsakh’s capital, told The Catholic Register. “At the beginning (of the exodus), most people were relieved to be still alive. But now we are going through another stage. We can’t accept the reality that we can’t go back home.”

Sargsyan is an Armenian journalist who has documented through her own experience the persecution and ethnic cleansing of her people by Azerbaijan. Like the thousands who fled Artsakh, she now lives as a refugee in Armenia.

Archbishop Papken Tcharian, Prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Canada, and Archbishop Anoushavan Tanielian, Prelate of the Eastern U.S., appealed to political leaders and the worldwide Christian community for help.

“I appeal to fellow Christian churches to raise their voice and support Armenia, the first nation to adopt Christianity in the year 301 AD as a state religion,” said Tcharian. “Otherwise, the confiscated churches, monasteries and khachkars (Armenian crosses) of Artsakh will be desecrated by Azerbaijan, and the authorities of Baku will distort the history of Armenian Christian Artsakh. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ ”

Tanielian exhorted the international community to take a lesson from past genocides, including that of Armenians in 1915, and from the ongoing persecution of Christians elsewhere, to stop the aggressors’ actions before it’s too late.

“The best and most effective step the international community and Canada can take, without any delay, is to put into practice the same measures that they usually apply to despots: freezing all the assets of the corrupt government of Azerbaijan; establishing sanctions over their resources, and implementing all resolutions by international bodies,” he said.

He called on Canada to take a leading role in helping to restore the rights of the people of Artsakh.

“The Canadian government is well-positioned to play an important role in this regard,” he said. “It provided a substantial amount of money via the Red Cross in the first days after the forced evacuation — better to say ‘ethnic cleansing’ or even ‘genocidal attempt’ — of the population of Artsakh.”

He praised Canada’s role in stopping the sale of arms in 2022 to Azerbaijan’s allies that are “bent on erasing the Christian presence in the land of Mount Ararat.” (The mountain where Noah’s Ark is believed to have come to rest).

The sense of loss washed over Sargsyan and her countrymen with particular intensity on Jan. 6 when Armenians — most of whom belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, an Orthodox Christian denomination — celebrated Christmas.

“Today is Armenian Christmas, and it’s very important to celebrate it at home with family and friends,” she told The Register. “But now we don’t have a home — a homeland, yes, but not a home.”

Christmas, even under bombardment, is preferable to one without a home, she continued.

“Last year, we celebrated Christmas under siege,” she said. “And we thought it was the most difficult ever, but this year is even worse.”

The destruction of their tangible Christian heritage, and the fear of erasure of their 1,700-year history in Artsakh caused by Azerbaijan’s revisionist policies, is another source of excruciating pain, she emphasized.

“One year ago, Christmas was under siege in Artsakh, but at least in the homeland. Now our churches in Artsakh stand silent, devoid of prayers and liturgy,” Sargsyan said.

“We have not only lost our homeland, our homes, memories, but also the cultural heritage of our millennial history,” she continued, adding that dozens of churches, as well as tens of thousands of khachkars and tombstones have been razed to the ground.

She misses the beauty of the landscape, the rhythm of life in the village where she grew up and the iconic Amaras monastery, one of the oldest Christian monasteries in the world.

“I grew up near the Amaras monastery built in the fourth century where Mesro Mashtots, the monk, opened the first Armenian school and developed the Armenian alphabet,” she said. “It’s in the Amaras valley and surrounded by mulberry orchards and vineyards, where we worked and eagerly waited for the autumn harvest. It was a family tradition, which we have also lost. All our memories and traditions have been destroyed.”

Although warmly received by her compatriots in Armenia, she, like other refugees, is grappling with financial problems and physical hardship since arriving with little more than the clothes on their backs.

“If we were lucky, we could bring some documents but not much else. The government (of Armenia) and some international organizations provide some help, but it’s nowhere near enough for our basic needs,” she said.

The onset of winter, the lack of winter clothing and fuel for heating homes, not to mention inflated rental prices due to the influx of Russian refugees escaping the war with Ukraine, are multiplying the burdens of a traumatized community, she added.

Hrant Dink is commemorated at the place where he was shot

January 19, 2024 By administrator

Hrant Dink, the founder and editor-in-chief of our newspaper, is commemorated at the place where he was shot on the 17th anniversary of his murder. There are also commemoration events in different cities and countries.

The commemoration will take place on January 19 at 15.00 in front of the old Agos office, as every year.

You can watch the commemoration meeting from 14.00 on the following link:

Hrant’s Friends, who organized the commemoration, included the following statements in the call text:

“The shooter of the Hrant Dink murder was 17 years old when he shot Hrant Dink 17 years ago. Today he walks freely among us. Those who said to shoot that day are still on duty. A shameful performance was staged under the name of trial. Hrant Dink Murder remains a huge stain in the history of this country.

We object, we rebel, we demand justice.

“We are at the place where they shot him, in front of 23.5 Memory Place (former Agos office), at 15.00 on Friday, January 19, at 15.00, on Friday, January 19, to express our rebellion more and louder, side by side, and to commemorate Hrant Dink on the 17th anniversary of his murder.”

Other events

Hrant Dink will be commemorated with different events throughout the week.

The title of the talk that will take place on Thursday, January 18 at 19.00 at Nostalji Kitap Cafe in Pangaltı is “Hrant Dink and the Struggle for Justice in Turkey”. The moderator of the conversation, in which Masis Kürkçügil was the speaker, is Sesil Artuç. Address: Teyyareci Fehmi Street, Şişli.

On Thursday, January 18, Agos Armenian pages editor Pakrat Estukyan will meet with the students of Surp Haç Tıbrevank School and share passages from Hrant Dink’s life.

Anatolian Music Cultures Association and METU Alumni Association are also holding a commemoration program for Hrant Dink on Friday, January 19 at 20:00 at METU Alumni Association Vişnelik Facilities. Akis Music Group will take the stage in the program titled “Sonic Witnesses of Migration – Gomidas Folk Songs/Ah Cilicia”. The guests of the event, where L. Doğan Tılıç was the speaker, are İsmail Hakkı Demircioğlu and Sabri Ejder Öziç.

A commemoration event is held at the Gorky Theater in Berlin on January 19, as every year. At the event, Can Dündar, former editor-in-chief of Cumhuriyet newspaper, will read a selection of Hrant Dink’s texts together with Saro Emirze and Sesede Terzyan, accompanied by the music of François Regis, in memory of Hrant Dink. The address of the event, which will start at 19.30 local time, is Am Festungsgraben 2, 10117 Berlin.

Continuing its work in Germany, AKEBI (Activist Action Union Against Racism, Nationalism and Discrimination) is organizing an event in Berlin on January 19 at 19.00 local time. At the event, where lawyer Hülya Deveci and Bülent Aydın from Hrant’s Friends Initiative will speak via live connection, Stepan Gantralyan, Selim Kırılmaz and Efe Bahadır, as well as the Mozaik Berlin choir, will stage their musical performances. The event was organized by Akebi e. V. Böckhstr. at 24, 10967 Berlin.

The commemoration event, which will be jointly organized by the German-Armenian Society of the Turkey Germany Cultural Forum in Cologne, Stimmen Der Solidaritat and Tüday, will start on the evening of January 19 at 19:00 local time. The address of the event where the artist Yaşar Kurt will give a musical concert as follows: Hohenzollernbrücke, 50679 Köln Am Armenischen Genozid-Mahnmal

The commemoration event in Nuremberg, Germany, on January 19 will be moderated by Eylem Çamuroğlu Çığ from Bayrueth University. Vartan Estukyan from Agos and writer Kemal Yalçın will take part in the panel as speakers. The European Assembly of Exiles (ASM) is among the organizers of the event, which will start at 18.00 local time. The address of the event is Kulturladen Villa Leon Philipp-Koerber-Weg 1

Dialogues Without Borders Initiative is holding a commemoration event on Saturday, January 20. Registration is required to participate in the event that will be broadcast on YouTube. Özgür Sevgi Göral, Rober Koptaş and Adnan Çelik are the speakers at the event moderated by Başak Ertür. Artist Suna Alan will also contribute with his musical performance.

Azerbaijan puts Aliyev voting posters on Artsakh Nagorno Karabakh’s presidency building,

January 16, 2024 By administrator

Azerbaijan puts voting posters on Nagorno Karabakh’s presidency building, preparing for next month’s snap elections. From a population of over 100,000 inhabitants, about 20 individuals remain in the territory after its capture last September.

Out of the thousands of buildings in Stepanakert, Azerbaijan decided to open an election precinct right in the residence of the President of the Republic of Artsakh. Nothing is done by chance, and every detail is calculated and used to cause more pain and humiliate dignity.

Opinion: Israel Must Protect Armenian Christians From Attacks in Jerusalem EX Armenian President

January 16, 2024 By administrator

The former President of @ArmSarkissian Armenia: In Jerusalem’s Old City, home to the world’s oldest Armenian diaspora community, violence has broken out amid a land dispute that could threaten the Armenian Quarter’s future. We demand immediate intervention by the Israeli authorities.

Largely coordinated attacks against members of the Armenian community of Jerusalem are a matter of grave concern. These attacks have ranged from vandalism and destruction of property to physical violence against innocent civilians.

Irvine, California Great Park, an Armenian Genocide memorial is in the works

January 12, 2024 By administrator

The Orange County Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee hopes to start construction in the first half of 2026,

By HANNA KANG,

Irvine is getting closer to erecting a memorial dedicated to the victims of the Armenian genocide within the Great Park.

Early plans for the memorial, approved by the Great Park Board on Tuesday, Jan. 9, include a potential location, the size of the memorial and how the memorial will be funded. City leaders unanimously approved the Orange County Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee’s proposal and directed staff to work with the committee in developing a schematic design and budget.

The proposed location is what will be called the Heart of the Park, a yet-to-be-completed area of the Great Park in its expansion over 300 acres of amenities. Because it is surrounded by a dense forest, the location will provide privacy and peace, said assistant city manager Pete Carmichael.

And the size of the memorial will be consistent and commensurate with the vertical and horizontal area provided within the surrounding forest, approximately 20 feet wide and 15 feet high, said Lauren Jung, the city’s senior management analyst.

The Orange County Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee, comprised of 11 members representing various Armenian organizations from around the county, hopes for construction to begin in the first half of 2026 and be completed in 2027, according to a staff report.

The Heart of the Park, where the memorial will be located, is slated for initial grading beginning this year with subsequent construction starting in 2026. That area “is a mix of quiet contemplation and social interaction,” Carmichael said.

The committee is in the process of incorporating as a nonprofit in California and requesting nonprofit status with the IRS to fundraise for the cost of the memorial’s design and construction, said chairperson Kev Abazajian.

Per city rules regarding monuments and memorials, the project proponent must foot the bill for the project while the city is responsible for the daily maintenance and upkeep of the memorial.

Abazajian said he anticipates the state designation to be made within the month while the 501(c)(3) designation may take a couple more months.

The process of homing an Armenian genocide memorial in Irvine began in 2022 after a video surfaced in which Mayor Farrah Khan appeared to joke and laugh with representatives of local Turkish groups, among them a man who has been outspoken in denying the genocide.

Khan, at the time, said the genocide was not a topic of conversation and the video was released out of context. Members of the Armenian community met with Khan, and she said she would support finding a place in the city for a memorial.

“Irvine is home to people from all over the world, including many like Armenians, who have faced a devastating genocide. We currently have Armenian community members whose family members are facing forced displacement in Armenia, Azerbaijan and in Jerusalem,” Khan said. “This is one of the ways that we, as a city, can provide a safe space for people to reflect on the past and strive to do better in the future.”

An estimated 1.2 million Armenians died during the genocide that began in 1915 in the Ottoman Empire, widely considered to be the first genocide of the 20th century, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. While most historians — and the White House — agree the deaths that occurred constitute a “genocide,” the Turkish government has denied a genocide occurred, contesting the estimated death toll.

In February 2023, city leaders directed staff to work toward the dedication of a memorial within the Great Park to the Armenians who died, according to the staff report, and in September, the Great Park Board adopted a policy dictating how the city considers requests for monuments and memorials within the park.

“Out of something horrific and divisive, something beautiful can come out of it,” said Garo Madenlian, a member of the Orange County Armenian Center.

Madenlian said the city moving forward with a plan for the memorial means a lot to the Armenian community in Orange County since many are descendants of genocide survivors.

“My grandparents were orphaned in the Armenian genocide,” he said. “This is really important for us to remember and never forget.”

The committee has planned for April a small commemoration of the start of the Armenian genocide, April 1915, which may take place at the project site.

“We are excited to move something like this forward of this gravity,” said Councilmember Mike Carroll, who also chairs the Great Park Board.

Staff is set to return in March with the schematic design and budget, Jung said.

Investigation: Armenian Fears of a ‘Concentration Camp’ in Nagorno-Karabakh May Have Been Warranted

January 11, 2024 By administrator

Newly available satellite imagery suggests a possible basis for rumors Azerbaijan was preparing to imprison the region’s residents.

Late last spring, Armenian residents in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh heard the clamors and loud noises of construction work. At night, from their sleepy village of Khramort, they could see bright lighting and hear screeching noises emanating from the nearby region of Aghdam, across the de facto border in Azerbaijan. “We can’t be sure what they were building,” said Aren Khachatryan, a boutique winemaker whose vineyards were only 500 yards from Azerbaijani military positions, “but the sound wouldn’t stop.”

Simon Maghakyan Simon Maghakyan is an investigative researcher

Artyom Tonoyan Artyom Tonoyan is a sociologist and Karabakh conflict researcher

Siranush Sargsyan Siranush Sargsyan is a refugee journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh

Lori Berberian Lori Berberian is a geospatial analyst

As gentle breezes gave way to the hot summer months, the specter of violence for those living in the ethnically Armenian enclave increased. Azerbaijani soldiers would periodically open fire on the harvesters picking grapes for Khachatryan and his father, Arkadi, the two men told New Lines.

Soon, rumors swirled that Azerbaijani soldiers had prevented a man from leaving Nagorno-Karabakh to seek medical treatment in Armenia, promising him a bleaker future than dying untreated: He would instead be sent to a large prison complex being built for the men of the self-declared republic. In September 2023, after nine months of living under a siege that cut off access to essential goods including food and medicine, Nagorno-Karabakh was captured by Azerbaijan in a rapid military operation. Since the assault, the overwhelming majority of the region’s 100,000 people have fled for neighboring Armenia. Baku has said it seized control of territory that was rightfully part of Azerbaijan — “Azerbaijan restored its sovereignty as a result of successful anti-terrorist measures in Karabakh,” said the country’s President Ilham Aliyev in a televised address on Sept. 20, while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused its neighbor of “ethnic cleansing.”

The goal Aliyev had long sought — “If they do not leave our lands of their own free will, we will chase them away like dogs,” he proclaimed in an October 2020 wartime address to his nation — was now a reality: The long Armenian presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh, as it is known to Armenians, had ended. On Jan. 1, the self-declared republic formally ceased to exist, a condition of the cease-fire that ended Azerbaijan’s military operation.

Using satellite imagery of both the site of a potential prison and surrounding areas, applying lessons drawn from the politics of memory and the region’s history of heritage crime, and constructing a timeline leading up to the depopulation of the region, New Lines has pieced together the role played by intimidation in the dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh, cultivated by Azerbaijan over many months leading up to the September attack. Nagorno-Karabakh’s violent end is a chilling lesson of the risks involved in aspirant statehood, and one that feels especially relevant today.

The top court of the United Nations recently acknowledged how coercion by Baku has played a role in the conflict. In mid-November, judges at the International Court of Justice ordered that Azerbaijan allow those who recently fled their homes to return to Nagorno-Karabakh “in a safe, unimpeded and expeditious manner” and “free from the use of force or intimidation” that caused them to flee.

In August of last year, Ara Papian, a former Armenian ambassador to Canada and leader of a pro-Western party, said on an Armenian talk show hosted by online media outlet Noyan Tapan that Azerbaijan was building a “concentration camp for 30,000 males.” The Armenian newspaper Hraparak reported the same a month later, citing an unnamed military source. Speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, a high-ranking Armenian government official told New Lines that Yerevan possessed classified knowledge of the construction of such a structure before the September attack, saying the government believed it was intended for over 10,000 individuals.

The risk of incarceration was already high: Over the summer of 2023, four male civilians were detained by Azerbaijan in what local human rights groups have decried as arbitrary arrests and abductions. The most publicized of these cases is that of Vagif Khachatryan (no relation to the winemaker Aren), whom Baku accused of killing its civilians in the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 1990s, charges he denied in a court of law. The 68-year-old was heading for Armenia for an urgent heart procedure, as noted by the members of the International Committee of the Red Cross who accompanied him, when he was arrested by Azerbaijani authorities. On Nov. 7, after a trial that involved a translator who occasionally misconstrued his statements — as shown on courtroom video released by the Azerbaijani authorities — Khachatryan was sentenced in Baku to 15 years in jail. This followed the detention, in late August, of three university students from the enclave who were charged with “violating” Azerbaijan’s national flag. They were later released.

Also currently awaiting trial are eight high-ranking officials of the breakaway government, including three previous presidents. Among them is Ruben Vardanyan, a former state minister. The Russian-Armenian philanthropist and businessman, who founded an international high school in the Armenian countryside, was detained in September while trying to cross into Armenia and is now languishing in an Azerbaijani jail.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to New Lines’ request to clarify the nature of the construction identified by satellite imagery.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, driven in part by a century-long enmity between Christian-majority Armenians and Muslim-majority Azerbaijanis, saw its first intercommunal clashes during the Russian Revolution of 1905. The Soviet Union, to which both countries belonged, largely managed to keep ethnic tensions at bay, but these unfroze as the superpower began to crumble in the late 1980s. Deep-rooted distrust and ethnic hatred on both sides has been intensified by the four wars that have since ensued.

Buoyed by independence movements across the Soviet bloc, ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been designated by Moscow as an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan, sought unification with Soviet Armenia. The peaceful 1988 protests in the regional capital of Stepanakert were met with violence elsewhere in Soviet Azerbaijan, including anti-Armenian pogroms and expulsions, which prompted the formation of Armenian self-defense units, transforming both the nature and the scope of the conflict. Years of war and mutual bloodletting followed. By the time a Russian-brokered cease-fire was signed in 1994, at least 1 million people had been displaced, according to Human Rights Watch. In October last year, the New York-based group estimated that 700,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were then either expelled or displaced from Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, while 300,000 to 500,000 ethnic Armenians fled or were expelled from Azerbaijan.

Defeated and traumatized, Azerbaijan soon developed into an oil-producing, authoritarian and dynastic regime whose political legitimacy depended almost exclusively on its revanchist posture. Equally important was the cultivation of the image of the Armenians as the leading existential enemy of the people of Azerbaijan. Hatred has been common on both sides — some Armenian nationalists belittle Azerbaijanis by declaring that “Coca-Cola is older than Azerbaijan,” an English-language phrase that first appeared a decade ago on the online Armenian news site mamul.am. Accompanied by a photo of the drink with the year 1892 and the flag of Azerbaijan with the year 1918, the phrase became a popular social media meme during the 2020 war — a nod to the notion that Armenia is an ancient state while its enemy is an extension of Turkey and not a real country in its own right. The Azeri language is Turkic, and Armenians often refer to Azerbaijanis as “Turks,” a terminology that connects them in the Armenian psyche with the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Until the early 20th century, Azerbaijanis were referred to as “Tatars,” a generic name for Turkic-speaking people.

Yet unlike in Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh, following the 1990s war the hatred of the enemy in Azerbaijan became institutionalized, from popular culture to news. The official virtual presidential library, ebooks.az, features regime-approved titles like “Armenian Terror” and “Armenian Mythomania,” while books that acknowledge Armenian antiquity and suffering — like prominent Azerbaijani author Akram Aylisli’s novella “Stone Dreams” — are banned on the president’s orders. “It was only a matter of time before the revanchist machinery would realize its deadly potential,” Artak Beglaryan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s former human rights ombudsman, told New Lines.

A closer inspection of the timeline leading up to the September offensive shows how Azerbaijan’s international partners paved the way for what Armenia and prominent human rights activists, like the former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, say has been a concerted effort to intimidate Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and permanently remove them from the region.

In September 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Azerbaijan, with the aid of the Turkish military and Syrian rebel fighters, launched a war against Nagorno-Karabakh. Lasting 44 days, that war came to a halt when Russian President Vladimir Putin brokered a cease-fire. Azerbaijan began to nurse other plans. Restocking its depleted military arsenal and riding a new wave of popular support following its military victory, Azerbaijan’s strongman ruler Aliyev initiated a new push to solve the question of Nagorno-Karabakh once and for all. “There will be no trace of them left on those lands,” Aliyev said in an October 2020 wartime address.

In December 2022, after having secured a wide-ranging alliance with Russia that included military cooperation, Azerbaijan once again closed the Lachin Corridor, the lifeline of Nagorno-Karabakh and its only supply route to Armenia and connection with the world at large. At the time, Azerbaijan said it did this to protect the environment. Protestors blocked transportation, saying they were acting against mining operations — but the head of Ecofront, an independent Azerbaijani environmental group, described the protest as “fake.” People who called themselves “eco-activists” were sent by a state whose economy is completely dependent on oil and gas, as Azerbaijan prohibited all traffic through the Russian-patrolled corridor.

Beglaryan, now a refugee in Armenia, said that he first heard whispers about a mass prison being built in Aghdam for Armenian men well over a year ago. “Later I received some confirmation from intelligence services that the Azerbaijani authorities had such an idea and project, but I couldn’t independently verify the information.” Nagorno-Karabakh’s authorities did not publicize the information. “Firstly,” Beglaryan explained, “we couldn’t make sure of its full reality, and secondly, we didn’t want to contribute to the Azerbaijani psychological terror against our people. However, this didn’t stop rumors from spreading.”

The fear of mass imprisonment in a country devoid of a real justice system and fostering institutional anti-Armenian hatred “significantly influenced people’s behavior during and after the September genocidal aggression,” Beglaryan said, “deepening the panic and prompting the decision to flee their homeland.” During the later stages of the blockade and the early hours of Azerbaijan’s assault, he added, “Many current and former military servicemen discarded their uniforms and destroyed their documents in an attempt to eliminate any potential evidence and facts that could be used against them.”

In Stepanakert, New Lines witnessed several incidents of people setting light to military documents and medals, creating large dumpster fires on the streets. As they fled, some families discarded photos of fallen soldiers in uniform, leaving behind, burning, shredding or hiding their visual memories of the men and women who died on the battlefields. According to at least three conversations with residents, some buried uniforms in their backyards before they departed, in the hope that they would one day return.

Following the 2020 war, numerous reports emerged of Azerbaijani torture against Armenian POWs, both physical and psychological. Armenia’s human rights defender at the time, Arman Tatoyan, the official ombudsman, reported several cases of religious discrimination against illegally held Armenian POWs. Some had their baptismal pendant crosses confiscated and desecrated; in one instance, a tattoo of a cross was burned with cigarettes. One Armenian serviceman was told to convert to Islam. When he refused, “his leg was burned, and [he] was severely beaten and ridiculed. We have never recorded anything like this before,” Tatoyan wrote in his report. Mutilations and the rape of female Armenian soldiers have been documented and publicized by invading Azerbaijani forces on social media that have been reviewed by New Lines. In the fall of 2022, at least seven Armenian POWs were executed unlawfully, apparently by Azerbaijani soldiers, Human Rights Watch reported, calling it “a heinous war crime.”

The signs of an impending invasion were visible in early September, following a high-stakes meeting on Sept. 4 between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin where they discussed key regional issues, including Ukrainian grain exports. On Sept. 7, the Armenian government expressed official concern over Azerbaijan’s military buildup around its sovereign borders, as well as around Nagorno-Karabakh. A few days prior, the investigative Armenian publication Hetq reported that there had been an increase in Azerbaijani cargo flights to the Ovda military base in southern Israel, where munitions are also stored.

In the past, as documented by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, this had often been an indication of an impending attack. There have been Israeli arms sales worth billions of dollars over the years to Azerbaijan, the newspaper reported, including a diverse range of weaponry from sophisticated radar systems to a wide range of drones and antitank missiles.

Utilizing Planet Labs satellite imagery, we have identified a site of interest that is the likely basis for the “concentration camp” fears. Nestled directly south of a key archaeological complex, near the village of Shahbulaq, there is a large, recently built but unfinished structure. To assess whether the complex was an intended prison, we applied spatial analysis methods to identify characteristics commonly associated with correctional facilities in the wider region, particularly the “medieval torture” facilities analyzed by Crude Accountability in Turkmenistan and political prisons reported by Foreign Policy in Turkey, both of which were identified in satellite imagery as well.

Pattern recognition allowed us to detect recurring elements, while feature-matching helped us compare these elements with known prison structures. Deductive reasoning enabled us to infer, from the presence of these features, the possibility that the facility in question could be an intended prison. The construction progress of the Aghdam facility, as seen in a May 2023 satellite image, reveals gridlike structures, the kind used in prison housing units or military sleeping quarters. Despite the absence of operational prison features such as guard towers and perimeter barriers, the incomplete project’s centralized layout in a desolate landscape and substantial gaps hinting at future recreational yards suggest that the secure facility is the basis for the prison rumors.

Much of the Aghdam region, where the potential prison is located, was destroyed and looted in the 1990s after it fell under Armenian control and became a de facto part of Nagorno-Karabakh. It was seized by Azerbaijan in the war of 2020; by then, Aghdam had become a ghost town.

Since late 2020, the Aghdam region has served as a site for military activities by Azerbaijani forces and retains the trenches, burn scars and military vehicle tracks of past and recent wars: In early 2021, the Cornell University-based Caucasus Heritage Watch satellite monitoring project raised the alarm over likely military installations near a seventh-century Armenian church. The complex we have identified is nearby.

A time series of satellite imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel–2A satellite revealed construction for the approximately 500,000-square-foot site likely began in July 2022. High spatial and temporal resolution satellite imagery (50 centimeters) from the Planet SkySat Constellation confirmed our initial findings.

The identified site contains features that could be associated with a mass incarceration facility: a single entry point, open-air space for inmates and uniform gridded structures. In places where government transparency is limited, such as the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan, we acknowledge the importance of further corroborating these findings with various independent sources wherever possible.

That the Aghdam facility is, at the bare minimum, a state building is corroborated by its proximity to another government structure — a temporary tent camp: In September, more than 200 oversized tents could be seen installed in an enclosed area, likely as either lodgings for the Azerbaijani military or a planned detention center for Armenians.

Satellite imagery suggests that the complex’s construction, which appears to have started in July 2022, stopped in late August or early September 2023. It was shortly before this period that Aliyev described in an interview with Euronews TV that he was seeking an end to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Referring to the November 2020 cease-fire declaration between the two countries, Aliyev said, “That was a capitulation act by Armenia. Therefore, we started to put forward some initiatives in order to find the final solution to our conflicts with Armenia.”

Read More: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/investigation-armenian-fears-of-a-concentration-camp-in-nagorno-karabakh-may-have-been-warranted/

Simon Maghakyan Simon Maghakyan is an investigative researcher

Artyom Tonoyan Artyom Tonoyan is a sociologist and Karabakh conflict researcher

Siranush Sargsyan Siranush Sargsyan is a refugee journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh

Lori Berberian Lori Berberian is a geospatial analyst