Miriane Demers-Lemay

In the heart of Istanbul, a few meters from bustling Istiklal Avenue, an unassuming black doorway serves as the entrance to the courtyard of the 19th-century Church of the Three Altars (“Uc Horan”), standing proudly but discreetly—just like the estimated 60,000 Armenian Christians of Anatolian origin living in Turkey today.

One by one, the faithful join the Divine Liturgy that has already begun on a Tuesday morning in February. The voices of the choir resound in the building. A place of prayer and music, the church is also a gathering point for a community that embraces, against all odds, its culture, language, and religion.

After the liturgy, the faithful gather in an adjacent room to talk over a meal prepared by the local Armenian association. Around the table, suspicious looks are directed toward a visitor, but they soon soften as church members begin to talk about their lives in Turkey.

After the liturgy, the faithful gather in an adjacent room to talk over a meal prepared by the local Armenian association. Around the table, suspicious looks are directed toward a visitor, but they soon soften as church members begin to talk about their lives in Turkey.

The family of one of the Armenians gathered here in Istanbul is originally from Cappadocia, while another’s family originally comes from Dersim—both places that were once part of a multicultural Anatolian territory rich in Armenian communities. They are among the descendants of the survivors of death marches into the Syrian desert and large-scale massacres before and during the First World War, events that are considered one of the first genocides in history by the international community—except by the country of most concern to the people gathered here: Turkey.

Today, two-thirds of all Armenians live in a vast diaspora across Europe, and in Russia, Iran and the United States. From the estimated 1.5 million Armenians present in the Ottoman Empire before the genocide, only a tiny population of about 60,000 remain in Turkey today. Most, uprooted from villages in eastern Anatolia, now live in neighborhoods in Istanbul like Kurtulus, Bakirkoy, Yesilkoy, Samatya and Kumkapi.

Armenians living in Turkey still live in fear more than a century after the genocide. On the margins of a society where socio-political tensions are high, many are preserving their 1,000-year-old culture in the churches, while some are trying to break the silence and open a dialogue for reconciliation.

“We were taught to keep quiet,” an Armenian woman said about life in Istanbul before hastily ducking out of the porch of an Armenian Catholic church in Yesilkoy and away from the conversation. She is not the only Armenian woman who has learned to keep a low profile. Many people of Armenian descent in Turkey avoid talking about their origins or their religion. Many have adopted Turkish names. According to some estimates, as many as 200,000 Armenians survived the genocide through forced conversion to Islam, which means their contemporary descendants could number in the millions.

This group of Armenian Christians represents a minority within a minority. Perhaps fewer than 4,000 members of the Armenian Catholic Church now live in Turkey; members of an Armenian Rite church that is in union with the Roman Catholic Church.

“The genocide is not really over,” said a Turk of Armenian ancestry. He can list a series of massacres in Turkey targeting ethnic minorities including Armenians and Alevi Kurds.

With their identity shrouded, many contemporary Christians in Turkey become crypto-Armenians—Turkish citizens hiding or ignoring their Armenian ancestry. The civic spaces where their ancient culture is still freely expressed have been reduced to Armenian churches, schools and associations in Istanbul.

“The genocide is not really over,” said Deniz Karakaya, a Turk of Armenian ancestry now living abroad. He can list a series of massacres in Turkey targeting ethnic minorities including Armenians and Alevi Kurds, who practice a mystical form of Islam not considered authentic by the Sunni majority, that have extended throughout the 20th century, like the Sivas massacre in 1993, in which radical Islamists attacked and set fire to a hotel in Sivas where Alevi intellectuals and artists were gathered.

“The murder of Hrant Dink is also part of the genocide,” he said. Hrant Dink was the prominent editor in chief of the newspaper Agos, which advocated Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and human rights. After receiving numerous death threats from nationalist Turks, Hrant Dink was killed in January 2007 by a 17-year-old ultra-nationalist.

After the murder, the young assassin reportedly shouted “I killed the infidel.” A photo surfaced following his arrest, showing him posing with the Turkish flag and embraced by policemen who received him as a hero.

After the murder of Hrant Dink, Mr. Karakaya believes many Armenians “closed in on themselves,” perhaps believing, “If they don’t make noise, the politicians will leave them alone.” Unsettled by the continuing hostility to ethnic Armenians, he said, contemporary Armenians still choose to move abroad if they have an opportunity to do so.

A great trauma is still present,” he said.

In 2015, the centenary of the Armenian genocide put a spotlight back on the terrible events before and during World War I that also claimed the lives of thousands of Assyrians and Pontic Greeks who had long-established communities in Anatolia. In 2010, when the United States and Sweden considered formally designating these events as a genocide, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the current president of Turkey, threatened to expel 100,000 Armenian workers from Turkey before withdrawing his ambassadors from both countries in retaliation.

The young assassin of Hrant Dink reportedly shouted “I killed the infidel.” A photo surfaced following his arrest, showing him posing with the Turkish flag and embraced by policemen who received him as a hero.

In 2021, President Joseph Biden of the United States formally recognized the mass killings and expulsions of Armenians and other ethnic minorities as a genocide. Some 30 countries to date have recognized the Armenian genocide in defiance of the wrath of the Turkish government.

Despite the clear historical evidence, the Turkish government continues to deny that the Ottoman Empire’s 19th-century rampage against Turkey’s Armenian community constitutes a genocide. The Turkish Foreign Ministry maintains its own version of events to justify the violence, arguing that “the violent political objectives [of the Armenians] made them susceptible to displacement” and that “Armenian terrorists engaged in a war of self-defense that continues today.”

A recognition of the genocide would have to be accompanied by reparations, Mr. Karakaya said, which explains in part the continued official resistance by Turkey. Many Turkish fortunes were built on businesses, land and property that were looted at the time, he said.

The state narrative of the events in 1915 is uncritically echoed by Turkish media. Its pluralism and independence have been greatly eroded in recent years, and the contemporary media in Turkey more often than not merely acts as a megaphone for Mr. Erdogan’s policies.

In 2019 alone, more than 4,000 articles and opinion pieces targeting ethnic or religious minorities in Turkey were identified in local and national newspapers, according to a report about hate speech published in 2019 by the Hrant Dink Foundation. The report found that hate speech in Turkish media targeted mostly Armenians, followed by Syrians, Greeks and Jews.

In 2021, President Joseph Biden of the United States formally recognized the mass killings and expulsions of Armenians and other ethnic minorities as a genocide.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, that was reignited in 2020 and still smolders, fanned the embers of ultranationalist hostility against Armenians in Turkey. A day after the start of the conflict, a convoy of vehicles waving Turkish and Azerbaijani flags paraded in support of Azerbaijan through a largely Armenian neighborhood in Istanbul. Many Armenians then told local media how concerned they had become because of an increase in hate speech in the country.

Preserving identity

In Turkey, is it possible to turn the page on the genocide and see true reconciliation? Despite the challenges, many Armenians continue to nurture their culture while seeking to open the door to dialogue.

“Tradition is a cultural treasure, the memory of a people. It is my mission to perpetuate it,” says Murat Iclinalca. A graduate of a music conservatory in Istanbul, he sings in the choir for the Church of the Three Altars. After the Divine Liturgy, he drinks a quick coffee before going to a school for Armenian children next door. This afternoon he is teaching music to a younger generation of Armenians.

In the same room, adjacent to the Surp Yerrortutyun Armenian Church, Avedis Cakmak, the choir director, displays portraits of Armenian patriarchs and Komitas, the famous ethnomusicologist who collected and saved thousands of traditional Armenian songs.

Mr. Cakmak pulls a huge book from the shelves filled with century-old books. Melodies are written in the Armenian annotation system; it is the repertoire sung by the choir members during the Divine Liturgy, he proudly explains.

Signs of the influence of Armenian culture are everywhere in Turkey, he said, noting that the architecture of Istanbul has been shaped by the Balyan family, court architects during the Ottoman Empire who for generations built palaces, mosques, public buildings and churches in the city. Unfortunately this heritage is often erased from Turkish school books.

Signs of the influence of Armenian culture are everywhere in Turkey. Unfortunately this heritage is often erased from Turkish school books.

Last night, at around 1 o’clock, the RA police, without presenting any legal basis, broke into the “Polygraph” club, about which there was a lot of noise early in the morning because the video of the incident appeared on the club’s Facebook page.

“Everyone in the club was laid on the floor and forcibly taken to the police station. Our staff and visitors were brutally beaten and strip-searched at the police station. We demand justice for all victims. This is an attack not only on Poligraf but also on the entire club community. All of us, as part of a unique cultural and creative sphere, are at risk. It is not just about our right to dance or express ourselves, but about the very essence of our society. We are part of a community that promotes creativity, diversity, and inclusion. Now, however, we are under attack. The forces that seek to suppress our way of life threaten our very existence. They try to silence our voice, stifle our creativity, and impose their narrow worldview on us. We cannot allow this to happen.

We call on all clubs and entertainment venues, representatives of the local and international community, artists and everyone who shares our values ​​to stand up with us and speak out against this injustice. Sign the petition in our bio and share our words. We demand that the illegally sealed doors of Poligraf be opened. We will soon inform you all about our further actions,” the polygraph statement said. It is already noticeable from the announcement that the club is visited by people of non-traditional orientation. Perhaps this is also the reason why the Soros community reacted violently to what happened and many organizations and individuals began to demand an account from the authorities.

And NA MP Zaruhi Batoyan asked Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Arpine Sargsyan about the incident, to which she replied: “If there is such a disproportionate use of force that would imply responsibility on the part of the officer, then it will definitely happen. At this moment, it will be difficult for me to say whether the use of force was proportional, or whether there was violence or not, but I assure you that we are apparently receiving reports from victims and accordingly, the police within their jurisdiction, and later also the investigative bodies within their jurisdiction, will respond accordingly. are provided. If there are grounds for an official investigation, that will also be carried out. If there was a devolution of power, then I agree that we have work to do here.”

It is no secret that the police use violence, even against mothers in black, but the Soros circles did not raise such a noise. Not justifying the atrocities of the police at all, let’s note that the units that call themselves political society criticize the inhuman actions of the same police very selectively.

Former deputy police chief Gagik Hambardzumyan, referring to the incident in a conversation with “Hraparak” , says that even if the police searched for and found drugs in the club, it is the result of the same police’s bad work. As for the use of brute force, according to Hambardzumyan, it is highly unacceptable.

“It is not acceptable for me to put the ugliness of the police in the night club and the beating of the parents of the soldiers who died in Yerablur on the same level. Although a person is a person, the rights are equal, but there are uglies, like the Prime Minister and CP members, and there are patriotic good people, whom we cannot put on an equal level with the uglies. Drugs have choked the nightclubs, we all know that. Moreover, under the patronage of CP members. I am not familiar with the details and cannot make clear assessments, but beating and mocking a person is ugly. The police have become an instrument of ugliness. Today’s police officers have only one overarching problem: to protect the safety of the jackal and his family at any cost. Those people have no other purpose in this life.”

According to Hambardzumyan, the numbers of all kinds of crimes have increased dramatically and the law enforcement system should think about it, not subject the elderly woman, the club’s owner, to violence. Gagik Hambardzumyan said to the question of what unprecedentedly brutal actions the police have resorted to in the last five years, which will make them stand out. “The ugliness that happened to the parents of the fallen servicemen is unprecedented. Running over a pregnant woman was also an unprecedented case that bypassed the law enforcement system. The main driver was not held responsible for hitting the pregnant woman. I don’t remember such a case. The opponents are brought into custody in a demonstrative way, humiliating them, this is also unprecedented,” Gagik Hambardzumyan concluded.

Hayk Gevorgyan

A little while ago, we learned that an extraordinary incident happened in Yerevan. According to our information, the young man shouted “Nikol traitor” on Sayat-Nova Street, after which the police arrested him.

We tried to contact human rights defender Ruben Melikyan, who told us that he learned about the incident from an unknown citizen. Now he is going to the Central Police Department to find out the details of the incident.

P.S. A little while ago, Ruben Melikyan presented some details about the incident during the live broadcast on Facebook. According to this, the young man called Nikol Pashinyan a traitor face to face on the street, after which the police took him into custody.

At this moment, Ruben Melikyan is also joined by opposition members of the National Assembly.

By Hagop Hagopian, Toronto, 25 April 2023

In an interview with the AGBU magazine in 2018, Patriarch Nourhan Manougian described the Armenian presence in Jerusalem as “one of the most miraculous sagas of the Armenian people.” He went on to describe the Armenian Quarter as a “miraculous possession…a spiritual fortress.” In the same interview, he promised: “We plan to build a housing project for young Armenian couples on a plot belonging to the Armenian Patriarchate…” The plot of land is Goveroun Bardez (“Cows’ Garden”).

But last year he and his right-hand man (75-year-old but still a Vartabed Baret Yeretsian) signed a secret and illegal 99-year lease with Australian businessman Danny Rubinstein who would build a 7-star hotel in Goveroun Bardez, in the shadow of the Patriarch’s residence.

What happened between 2018 and last year? Why did the housing project for young couples go the way of gone with the wind to be replaced by a hotel? Since the lease included the parking lot at Goveroun Bardez Rubinstein has taken over the parking lot and replaced the two guards appointed by the Patriarchate with guards hired by him. Some Armenians worry Rubinstein will ban Armenians from parking at the Goveroun Bardez lot. That would pose more than an inconvenience to Armenians since parking space in Jerusalem is as hard to find as locating an Israeli settler who doesn’t hate Palestinians. If denied parking space, some Armenian workers would be deprived of their livelihood. As in the past, it could result in immigration and in further shrinking of the tiny community. [Rubinstein recent maquette indicates that instead of a hotel, he would build a housing complex for Israelis. It would have two large swimming pools and cover all of Goveroun Bardez from the city’s southern wall to the police station. A secret agreement, which has been recently revealed, indicates that in addition to Goveroun Bardez, Rubinstein would take over several Armenian houses, the landmark Boulghourji mill/restaurant, and the shops facing the main entrance of the convent. As a result, the Armenian Quarter would be squeezed between the Jewish Quarter in the east and Rubinstein’s Jewish housing complex in the west. Already the south (despite the Armenian St. Savior’s Convent) is Israeli territory and in the north Israeli settlers recently took over several hotels. This is the strangulation of the Armenian Quarter…inch by inch.]

In the same AGBU magazine the so-called shepherd of the community, boasted: “We invest heavily to strengthen the infrastructure of the community… We need Armenia’s and Diaspora’s moral and political support. We need heightened consciousness and vigilance on the part of the Diaspora to help keep our presence in the Holy Land inviolable.” How can a person spout the above words when soon after he sells his nation and Church? How can a man who gave away so much of the Armenian lands have the nerve to ask for the Armenian nation’s help? How can an Armenian consider making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem when the so-called Patriarch is shrinking–square-meter-by-square-meter Armenian lands?

Since the so-called Patriarch began to give away Armenian lands to Israeli interests, Armenians and non-Armenians have wondered about the motivation for his treacherous acts.

Is it to enrich himself? Why would he need more money at his age (septuagenarian) when he is already wealthy and lives in palatial accommodations?

Is he a self-hating Armenian? Not likely: he has been a clergyman most of his life.

Is it because of imbecility? His acts speak loudly on that question.

Is it because of lack of character? Very likely. He is a coward and a defeatist with a yellow streak down his chunky back. Not long ago, when a Palestinian Arab with close ties to the Armenian community, asked him why didn’t he “build the promised Goveroun Bardez housing complex for Armenian couples” the ‘Patriarch’ said: “What’s the point when everything would be gone in twenty-five years?” Nourhan the Prophet expressed similar views on another occasion when he promised a young activist that the Patriarchate would grant him a scholarship at an Austrian university. He advised the young man not to return to Jerusalem following his graduation because soon “there would be nothing left to return to.” We don’t know whether the coward meant the Armenian Quarter or the Armenian community. The transparent bribe was obviously intended to remove the “troublesome” activist from the scene.

Some leader. Some father of the community. Some patriarch.

Nourhan can hardly walk (he didn’t officiate at the recent Easter ceremonies at the Holy Sepulcher). His phlegmatic demeanor can mislead some into thinking he is a serious person. How this disaster became head of the Jerusalem Church is a mystery. What we have in Nourhan is a slow-witted coward who is fueled daily by countless Ferrero chocolate balls. The man who mismanages the most important Armenian real estate in the Diaspora is a calamity.

Although timorous, he has surprised people by his obstinacy not to withdraw his signature from the treacherous forever leases he has granted to people who are no friend of Armenians. Has he been obdurate because he has secret and powerful non-Armenian backers who want to swallow the Armenian Quarter as part of their “Judaization” of Jerusalem? There is no proof of a blackmail but through a process of elimination, one can wonder whether the cowardly Patriarch has dared to betray his nation and Church because he is protected by shadowy big brothers who although active behind the scenes, have remained cunningly silent throughout “Patriarch” Nourhan’s real estate scandals.

But the tide seems to be turning against Nourhan. The community has become vociferous in its opposition to the Patriarch’s misdeeds. Sending a message to several targets, including Nourhan, at the Easter procession through the heart of the city, the scouts of the Hoyetchmen Club (one of the major Armenian clubs), carried trilingual placards (Armenian, Arabic, and English) which said: “Armenian Lands Are Not For Sale”. Young men have challenged Vartabed Baret at the entrance to the Armenian Convent to confess his misdeeds. The Patriarch’s former co-conspirator replied the hard-to-believe claim that he was following Nourhan’s orders. Representatives of the Palestinian Authority and Jordan demanded, during their recent meeting with Nourhan, that he withdraw his signature from the illegal leases. According to Jerusalemites, people who have been close to Nourhan for a long time, have begun to criticize him. Nourhan and Baret didn’t attend any of the events dedicated to the 108th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The above are positive signs. But to make the opposition to Nourhan effective, the members of the Sts. James Brotherhood should rise in unison and present Nourhan two choices: withdraw the illegal real estate signatures or resign.

These are sharp examples of personal persecution, brutal prohibition of freedom of speech, and oppression in one’s own country.

Aram Nikolyan was not fired. lawyer Criminal proceedings were not initiated in the case of designer Aram Nikolyan due to the absence of criminal charges.

Lawyer Alexander Kochubaev wrote about this on his Facebook page. “1. Criminal proceedings were not initiated in the case of Aram Nikolyan due to the absence of a criminal group. Aram Nikolyan was not fired from his job but was not allowed to enter the H1 building only with police intervention. Aram Nikolyan did not receive money for burning the flag, and that false news is spread by “Haykakan Zhamanak”, against which a lawsuit is filed for spreading defamation. Aram Nikolyan is prohibited from entering the library and all institutions with police checkpoints, on the instructions of the police leadership. These are sharp examples of personal persecution, brutal prohibition of freedom of speech and oppression in one’s own country. PS The important thing is that Aram Nikolyan’s grief is in place, and Mr. Nikolyan is smiling widely at all this,” Kochobaev wrote.

I should have said this the other day

Five years ago, I was also courageous for a moment and was sure that joining the “pan-people revolution” at the last moment, with water or without water, was the best political solution to clean the country from the swamped injustices, various pickpocket oligarchs, a few thieving officials and their coffee-baking eunuchs. 5 years ago these days I I sincerely believed that there would be no more teachers who falsified the electoral sheet with a dosh and cadastre scoundrels stamping bribes for the sake of their own village head.

5 years ago it was so natural for me that we have a safe Armenia and Artsakh it was so natural that Artsakh was Armenian and that’s it, that even when Nikol made a statement announcing the beginning of terror and violence: “whether I will be the Prime Minister of Armenia, or Armenia will not have a Prime Minister”, I did not understand and we didn’t realize this was a disaster call as John Don said, a bell that will ring for all of us.

5 years ago we had Artsakh

If we had Armenia as it is now, it does not lack like shagreen leather every day.

We had an army with a solid backbone.

Hadrut and Shushi.

They had international authority, from which in 5 years they made an eraser to clean geopolitical tables.

And 5 years ago, thousands of our sons were alive, in whose eyes were tattooed the Bayraktar of death for the last time.

I’m more guilty than the hundreds of thousands who were waiting for him to be declared Messiah, the operation of “looting” of the former and the righteous judgment of the Greek agoras.

I’m blushing about this picture.

Because I have my share of sin in this five years of hell.

And it doesn’t matter that my sin was the size of a pound, I guess.

Because when in five years, a patient from Armenia and Artsakh with a backbone is made from a wheelchair, whose days of life are already counted by everyone, there is no sin, big and small.

These days, five years ago, we committed suicide in paranoid ecstasy, killing not our bodies, but our security and the two Armenian states.

And it’s the least suicides.  ·   ·