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NSS Director says stolen sums should be returned to state budget

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YEREVAN, JUNE 4,  Director of National Security Service of Armenia Artur Vanetsyan has clarified why no one has been arrested after the exposure of tax evasion cases by major supermarket networks of Armenia. The NSS Director told the reporters at the parliament that they are not interested in arresting and imprisoning people. “We are more interested in returning the sums stolen from the state to the state budget”, ARMENPRESS reports Vanetsyan as saying.

Artur Vanetsyan assured that any official, incumbent of former that will appear in their view and if there will be enough grounds for bringing them to responsibility, they will stand responsible.

Vanetsyan said that it’s often said that this or that individual stands behind this or that case, but it’s rather difficult to prove it legally. “And the article of the criminal code says that in case of restoring the losses inflicted on the state the charges are dropped. This is not something we do arbitrarily, it’s not me to decide not to imprison. It is provided by the article of the criminal code. When someone returns the stolen money he is exempted from criminal responsibility”, the NSS Director said.

As part of anticorruption campaign the National Security Service of Armenia has exposed tax evasion mechanisms developed by the largest business entities of Armenia. The mechanism is based on the registration of hundreds of individual enterprises that are in fact engaged in false entrepreneurship.

 “Alex Holding” LTD, being a accompany that pays value added tax, reached an agreement with the former leadership of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) of Armenia at the end of 2016 to implement the realization of agricultural products bought from farmers in the supermarket chain “Yerevan city” under the name of different individual enterprises the annual turnover of which does not exceed 115 million AMD. This gave “Alex Holding” LTD an opportunity to pay only 2% turnover tax instead of 20% VAT and income tax.

The leadership of “Alex Holding” LTD registered 461 individual enterprises at the same notary office in the name of the employees of their company and the family members of the employees. Some of the enterprises were registered without the knowledge of the citizens, using the identification documents or their copies kept at “Alex Holding” LTD. When the turnover of the false individual enterprises reached the threshold of 115 million AMD, they were dissolved and new ones were registered.

Taking advantage of the opportunities granted illegally and arbitrarily by the former leadership of the SRC, “Alex Holding” LTD sold also many other types of goods in addition to the local agricultural products in the name of the mentioned 461 individual enterprises, again paying only turnover tax.

Preliminary calculations show that the total sales implemented in the name of the 461 individual enterprises has amounted over 40 billion AMD, for which only 2% turnover tax was paid, while in case of legal operation “Alex Holding” LTD should have paid 20% VAT and income tax.

In addition, there is reliable information that the former leadership of the SRC has granted another 11 major companies engaged in network trade with an opportunity to operate under the same tax evasion mechanism, which obviously created unfavorable and unequal competition condition for many other companies paying VAT.

Checks are carried out in the mentioned 11 companies as well.

SRC Chairman Davit Ananyan has announced that agreements with the former authorities have no force and urged the entrepreneurs to work according to the new rules and in the framework of the law. On June 1 the owners of major supermarkets of Armenia, including Yerevan City and SAS, sent an open letter to the Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan asking for a meeting to discuss the ways of solving the problem. They offered to develop legislative mechanisms for solving the problem.

 

 

Turkish-German film director Fatih Akin delays Turkish film on murdered Armenian journalist DINK

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Turkish-German film director Fatih Akin says a film he wants to make about the murdered Armenian journalist Hrant Dink remains on ice because no Turkish actor was ready to play the lead role. Dink was shot dead in 2007.

Akin, who has collected a string of German and European cinema awards over 2 decades, told Saturday’s edition of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos on Saturday that the risks for Turkish actors were still too high and so he had put the project “in the freezer.”

Dink was shot dead by a teenage Turkish ultranationalist on a busy Istanbul street in 2007, outside the offices of Agos.

The 52-year-old Dink had campaigned for reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, who say that up to 1.5 million people were killed in 1915, during World War I, as the Ottoman Empire fell apart.

Turkey has long denied that the deaths amounted to a massacre, although in April Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke of “our shared pain.”

Script ‘too strong’

Akin said he had drafted a very text-rich script based on 12 of Dink’s articles published in Agos.

“However, I couldn’t convince any actor from Turkey to accept the role of Hrant [Dink]; they all found the script too strong,” Akin said.

“I didn’t want to put any actor at risk, but it was also important that a film about Hrant would be a Turkish film,” he added. “An American or French actor couldn’t have been cast as Hrant. We have to deal with this alone.”

Different entry at Venice festival

Akin said instead he combined parts of the Dink script to complete a different film, “The Cut,” which will premier at Italy’s Venice International Film Festival later this month.

“The Cut,” starring French actor Tahar Rahim, tells the story of an Armenian man who survives the 1915 killings and embarks on a journey across the world to find his daughter.

Dink’s assassination drew international attention and grew into a wider scandal with accusations of a Turkish state conspiracy.

At his funeral, an estimated 200,000 people marched, chanting “We are all Armenians.”

In February this year, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists ranked Turkey as the world’s leading jailer of journalists.

ipj/slk (AFP, Reuters)

 

It is worth dying for art – Turkish director’s Genocide movie premiered at Venice festival

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A Turkish-German director’s movie telling viewers about the Armenian Genocide has been screened at the 71st Venice International Film Festival.

it is worth dying-for artThe Cut, which was premiered at this year’s cultural movie event, vies for the Golden Lion prize, according to Hurriyet.

The director, Fatih Akin, had earlier faced threats by Turkish nationalists. “It is worth dying for the sake of art,” he said in that connection.

Armenian members of the creative group, including scriptwriter Martik Marin, actor Simon Abgaryan (better known to the Armenian audience as Rober Keshishyan), also attended the premier in Venice.

First Turkish film to show Armenian genocide wins harsh reception

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By Orhan Kemal Cengiz 

German-Turkish director Fatih Akin and the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos have been receiving death threats from nationalist Turks since Agos interviewed the director about his new film last month. The Director Fatih Akin attends the "Soul Kitchen" premiere at the Sala Grande during the 66th Venice Film Festivalcontent of the messages, the outpouring of support for the threateners and the authorities’ inaction come as a grim illustration of the current atmosphere in Turkey. The death threats are an omen for the coming year, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.

Akin — the director of films such as “Head-On,” “Crossing the Bridge: the Sound of Istanbul” and “Soul Kitchen” — gave a long interview to Agos on July 30 about “The Cut,” his new film that focuses on the Armenian genocide. The interview was received with great interest and contained intriguing revelations.

For instance, Akin said he considered making a film about the life of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the former Agos editor who was assassinated in 2007, but none of the Turkish actors he approached would take the role.

Akin then began to work on a new project: the story of a Turkish Armenian who embarks on a worldwide search for his daughters after surviving the 1915 massacres. Akin wrote the script in German, but later decided to shoot the film in English. He sought help from Mardik Martin, an American screenwriter with Iraqi and Armenian roots who has contributed to the scripts of Martin Scorsese films. According to Akin, Martin not only translated but modified and “intensified” the script.

The film — starring French actor of Algerian origin Tahar Rahim and Turkish actor Bartu Kucukcaglayan — was shot in Jordan, Cuba, Canada, Malta and Germany. It is scheduled to premiere at the upcoming Venice Film Festival, and only a trailer is currently available.

Akin told Agos he did not consider “The Cut” a film about the Armenian genocide but rather an adventure movie. He said he had no political motives in making the film and hoped it would “receive due respect in Turkey and be shown in large, modern theaters.”

Akin was aware his film would not be treated as just another movie in Turkey, even though he did not see it as the genocide. “The Cut,” after all, is the first film by a Turkish director that addresses the events of 1915. The director, however, remained optimistic that the film’s showing in Turkey would be trouble free. “I’m confident that the Turkish people, to which I belong, are ready for this film,” he told Agos.

Yet as soon as the interview was published, a tweet by the ultra-nationalist Pan-Turkist Turanist Association suggested that Akin might have been overly optimistic.

The message read, “Efforts are underway, under the leadership of the Agos newspaper, for the screening of Fatih Akin’s film about the so-called Armenian genocide, ‘The Cut,’ in Turkey. ‘The Cut’ is the first leg of a plot to make Turkey acknowledge the Armenian genocide lies ahead of 2015 and we … will not allow it to be screened in Turkey. We are now openly threatening the Agos newspaper, Armenian fascists and the self-styled intellectuals. That film is not going to be shown in a single theater in Turkey. We are following the developments with our white berets on and our Azeri-flagged glider. Let’s see if you can!”

The “white beret” metaphor carries a sinister message. Ogun Samast, Dink’s suspected assassin, wore a white beret when he shot Dink in the neck outside the Agos office in downtown Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007. The white beret has since become a symbol displayed frequently at anti-Armenian racist and nationalist demonstrations.

The Turanist Association’s threat received a series of supportive messages by other ultra-nationalist groups on social media.

The ensuing events demonstrated that the Turkish authorities haven’t learned their lesson from Dink’s murder, which was preceded by similar threats. Under the Turkish penal code, those messages constitute a criminal offense on several grounds, from containing threats to spreading hate speech. The prosecution of these offenses does not require a complaint by injured parties. The law automatically entitles prosecutors to launch probes. Sadly, hate speech against minorities fails to attract prosecutors’ attention.

In remarks to Al-Monitor, Agos editor-in-chief Robert Koptas said the publication has become used to receiving threats, describing the authorities’ inaction as the norm. “For us, this is not an extraordinary situation. And the fact that it is not extraordinary is in itself an indication of what an atmosphere we live in,” he said.

“We had to file a complaint this time again, though the police and the judiciary were supposed to have already taken action. We are not asking for any special protection, but we are a publication whose editor-in-chief was murdered outside his own office. Thus, the threats we receive are supposed to have an extra meaning for the police and prosecutors,” Koptas said. He added that no government official has called him about the threats or made any public statement on the issue.

The threats indicate that certain tensions and troubles are in store for Turkey in 2015, the centenary of the Armenian genocide. The debate on the Armenian genocide in Turkey in recent years has become as free as never before. Commemoration events are now held across Turkey on April 24, the genocide remembrance day. Yet the latest incident suggests that ultra-nationalist groups are in a state of alert as the anniversary draws near.

The threats directed at Akin’s film demonstrate that some quarters in Turkey have lost none of their intolerance and, emboldened by the judiciary’s failure to act, feel free to target anyone they like. It seems no lessons have been learned from the past.