PRESS RELEASE
Book Signing: The Dignity of Being American

For Immediate Release    
Monday, January 8, 2024                                                
Contact      
Sophie Mekhitarian: 559.284.3018                                                        
Varoujan Der Simonian: 559.224.1001

FRESNO, CA: A book signing event for a recently published book, The Dignity of Being American, will take place on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, from 1:00 – 3:00 PM at the Armenian Museum of Fresno located at the University of California Center in Fresno, California. 
 
Co-authored by Varoujan Der Simonian and Sophia Mekhitarian, the book records 14 histories of Fresno Displaced Persons. It highlights the extensive involvement of George Mardikian, the founder of ANCHA (American National Committee to Aid Homeless Armenians). The 260-page book includes details of the ANCHA Monument in Fresno, all six panels placed on the monument’s pedestal, extensive coverage of the role of the Unsung Heroes, over 300 photos, and traces of the DPs’ paths and the trials they endured.
 
Our mission is to focus on the accomplishments of our ANCHA leaders and affiliates for their magnanimous undertaking and to preserve our history for future generations.  Heroes they were, and so shall remain.
 
As a donor to our ANCHA Monument, contributors are entitled to a copy of our recently published book The dignity of being American. We request donors attend the book signing event to pick up their complimentary copy.
 
The limited-edition books will be available on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, from 1:00-3:00 P.M. at the Armenian Museum of Fresno at the UC Center, 550 E. Shaw Avenue, Suite 130, Fresno, 93710.  The building is located directly across the street from Fashion Fair. Please use the Shaw Avenue (main) entrance. Refreshments will be served. 
 
Additional copies of this limited-edition book may be purchased at $60.00 per copy, pending availability.  If you cannot attend, please get in touch with Varoujan Der Simonian at (559) 224-1001 to make other arrangements.

The purchase price for this limited edition book is $60.00 per copy. Those who
contributed to the ANCHA Monument will receive their complimentary copy.
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
At the Armenian Museum of Fresno 550 E. Shaw Ave. Fresno, CA 93710

None of the procession accompanying him dares to contradict; everyone admires and approves of the insults addressed. For example, you look at the obedience and, at the same time, the expression of concern and pity on the face of the minister of KGSM, who always accompanies the prime minister. “Is it worth humiliating yourself to such an extent for money?”

Not being a specialist, when I follow the visits of the so-called prime minister to the regions, looking at his facial expression with the most significant discomfort and listening to his words with the same discomfort, I regret that I am not a psychologist. I cannot give a scientific, accurate description of what kind of psychological syndrome he is suffering from. However, I will try to present with my observations, in an amateur way, what kind of psychological syndromes are characteristic of the prime minister and his subjects.

I have known today’s prime minister since the late 90s. Thus, our acquaintance remained just an acquaintance, never becoming a warmer friendship or partnership. There is such an apt saying. One asks the other:

• What is your brother like?

The answer follows.

• I don’t know, I haven’t made friends with him.

Sometimes, as in the fight for the A1+ TV station, we were and acted as if we were like-minded, but I repeat again, I did not make friends with him.

When I was the editor of the “Haykakan Zhamanak” newspaper, I heard a lot of negative things about him: love of money, dishonesty, gossip, but I didn’t take those stories for granted. My first serious disappointment happened in 2008, not because he treated himself, but because he pretended to be Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s number one fan. Many people, including some of my friends, also supported Levon Ter-Petrosyan in 2008, and because of this, our company was not disrupted. And I was disappointed with today’s prime minister after his aggressive attitude and cursing towards the people of Artsakh. In hindsight, it seemed to me, a simpleton, that he changed his point of view on Artsakh and separated himself from Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Like me, he misled many others, first by writing the “Great Confusion” series of articles, and later by several times speaking against unilateral territorial concessions in the Artsakh issue.

He lied and deceived everyone to gain power.

However, becoming the prime minister and in office, being in the center of everyone’s attention, he revealed his true character. The first swallow was flooding the streets of the republic with his “wise” words. On the one hand, this was an attempt to please the people, typical of many tyrants, and on the other hand, it was the first attempt at self-assertion. The second was the public humiliation of the customs officer.

This was already the first step of self-affirmation at the expense of humiliating others, which shows his small-mindedness, cruelty and human, or rather, anti-human complexes. It is not a great courage to be the number one official of the country, surrounded by bodyguards and shouting hysterically at an ordinary employee of the customs office. why didn’t he recognize himself, the all-knowing prime minister, and didn’t stand in front of him sensitively?

Later, this way of working continued purposefully, at the expense of humiliating the people, to assert themselves. Let’s remember the grandmother kissing the Prime Minister’s feet, the grandfather blessing the Prime Minister on the Genocide Memorial Day, the one pouring water from the back of the Prime Minister’s car in Artsakh, the woman saying “don’t leave us alone” and other similar performances. The heroes of all these performances – grandparents – women – men – children, played their assigned secondary roles for appropriate remuneration. He and his wife, the prime minister suffering from Lady Macbeth syndrome, did not even hesitate to humiliate the parents of the victims of the war they instigated and lost. And, unfortunately, this time too, many relatives of the victims gave in to the temptation of money and were photographed next to the prime minister with smiles on their faces.

Later, it turned out that the prime minister doesn’t really have any close friend, colleague, or associate. He treats all his party members, ministers, governors as his subjects, nazirs, viziers, and internal affairs. This is evidenced by his insistence that all the above-mentioned figures post his portrait in their private rooms, stand up as soon as he appears, even in case of removal from office, in public thank you. And those “friends” have come to terms with their roles, which is called humiliation for money. And friends, like-minded people are not treated like that. Friendship is a high concept that implies equality between friends, devotion and in no case, a friend exploitation, use and humiliation. Involuntarily, I remembered Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” and Erich Maria Remarque’s “Three Friends”, ode-novels dedicated to the company.

For the same self-affirmation, the prime minister is trying to humiliate his opponents, instructing his subordinate law enforcement agencies to prepare criminal cases and bring charges against them or their relatives. Unfortunately, it should be noted that he sometimes succeeds in this matter. Many figures “went to the bottom of the water” after the accusations and no longer make a noise. Some, as they say, “changed their religion”, becoming one of its subjects, like sworn PAP member Sergey Bagratyan and Minister of Justice Grigor Minasyan. Some adapted to the situation, “forgetting” their prison sufferings, like the mayors of Goris and Kajaran, Arush Arushanyan and Manvel Paramazyan. These persons, in my opinion, will be subjected to double humiliation.

Source: https://168.am/2024/01/07/1979644.html

The “Cows’ Garden” in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem has been detained. Vigen Demirchyan, a Jerusalem Armenian community member, said.

Two Armenians were detained,

Demirchyan believes that this attack was organized by the company’s security service, which has been trying to occupy the area of the “Cows’ Garden” for a long time.

The Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem reports that a lawsuit it filed was met less than 24 hours later by “over 30 armed provocateurs in ski masks with lethal and less-than-lethal weaponry.” This was in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

As we already informed, a group of terrorists in black clothes and masks, numbering about 30 people, armed with sticks, tear gas grenades, and some other means on Thursday attacked the Armenians in the “Cows’ Garden” area of the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem to harm them, take them out of the area, and intimidate them. Also, these terrorists started throwing stones at Armenians.

The Armenian youth and the surprised Armenian clerics started a real battle against them, adequately responding and holding the area until the police officers—located 200 meters away—arrived late at the scene.

The attack has been stopped.

Two Armenians, however, were taken to the police.

The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem informs that several priests, deacons, and students of the Armenian Theological Academy, as well as some local Armenians, were seriously injured.

“This is the criminal response we have received for filing a lawsuit with the Jerusalem District Court regarding the ‘Cows’ Garden’ issue, which was officially received by the court 24 hours ago,” the patriarchate added, in particular.

By Harut Sassounian,

This week’s commentary is a lesson for all those who naively believe what they hear or read and then pass on unsubstantiated stories to others. By doing so, they are actually helping to spread fake news. When someone gives you a piece of ‘news’, you should always ask, ‘what is your source’? When the answer is: ‘I heard it from someone else,’ immediately dismiss what was said to you. It is critical to verify what you are told in order not to disseminate baseless rumors to others.

Those of us who are in the news business have a bigger responsibility to be vigilant because if we do not double-check what is being reported to us, then we become guilty of spreading fake news to thousands of readers or viewers.

Here is an example of a news item we just heard about. A 57-year-old entertainment producer, Armen Grigoryan, who had died in Armenia, was found guilty by a judge in Armenia last week, a year and five months after his death. Not having heard that a dead man can be tried and convicted, I wondered if such a thing really happened.

Since I have had long years of experience hearing all sorts of baseless reports, I immediately contacted the late defendant’s lawyer in Armenia, Ruben Melikian, who was kind enough to explain the circumstances of this strange story.

Armen Grigoryan, during a street protest against the authorities in Armenia in May 2022, shortly before the parliamentary elections, told a reporter that he stood by his earlier statement of April 2021 that half of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s supporters in certain parts of the country have Turkish blood. Naturally, this was a disparaging remark, but if a country is truly democratic, citizens have the right to use unpleasant, even offensive words. Nevertheless, Grigoryan had not said anything threatening, which would have been against the law.

In May 2022, Grigoryan, a vocal critic of the regime, was arrested and jailed for the statement he had made a year before his arrest. He was charged with “inciting ethnic hostility.” Those accused of such a charge in the past, had made offensive or degrading comments about other ethnic groups living in Armenia. However, no Armenian had been charged before with incitement after making such remarks about fellow Armenians. For example, Pashinyan supporters, who had made insulting comments against Artsakh Armenian refugees, have not been charged with incitement.

On July 15, 2022, two months after his arrest, Grigoryan was brought to court from jail to stand trial. Regrettably, in the midst of the trial, he collapsed and died in the courtroom from a brain aneurism or stroke.

In Armenia, when a defendant dies, his trial is discontinued. However, in this case, according to Armenian law, the defendant’s family has the right to ask that the trial be continued until a verdict is reached. Grigoryan’s lawyer explained that his family wanted to see that he is exonerated, even though, due to the presumption of innocence (innocent until proven guilty), he was merely charged, but not convicted prior to his death. The family insisted that Grigoryan’s name be cleared since they believe that he should have never been arrested, charged and jailed.

The attorney told me that during the trial, after Gregorian’s death, a government witness testified in court that he had not written the testimony that was submitted in his name to the court. This witness said that a government investigator had written the testimony and had told him to sign it.

Also, a government expert, who testified in court, admitted that Grigoryan’s words could not be considered an incitement to inter-ethnic hostility, which means targeting members of another ethnic group. Grigoryan had only used offensive words about his fellow Armenians, members of his own ethnic group.

Nevertheless, last week, a year and five months after Grigoryan’s death, the judge declared him guilty of the charge filed against him. His lawyer told me that after the verdict is received in writing, the family has one month to file an appeal, which they intend to do. If they lose in the court of appeal, they will then appeal to the Court of Cassation which is a Court that hears appeals against decisions of courts of appeal. If they fail there too, they will then go to the European Court of Human Rights.

Having investigated the circumstances of a court in Armenia holding a trial and finding a dead man guilty, I wanted to know if such trials had also taken place in other countries. Surprisingly, I found several cases in ancient and recent history when other countries held posthumous trials of defendants and found them guilty after their death.