letter Archives

Talaat Pasha’s telegram asked on 2 June 1915 that the Armenian intellectuals be detained

February 24, 2017 by administrator

At Ayache prison should be tried by the Military Tribunal of Diyarbakir

But in mid-August these Armenians were murdered without trial

Kevork Hagopian, an Armenian from Istanbul living in the United States has recovered from the Ottoman archives an encrypted letter issued by Talaat Pasha. After his translation K. Hagopian submitted it to Akunk.net. The handwritten letter of Talaat Pasha, the leader of the Turkish youth and one of the principal perpetrators of the Armenian genocide, is dated June 2, 1915. In a telegram ciphered, the Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire, Talaat Pasha, asks The governor of Ankara to submit Armenian intellectuals and personalities detained in exile and detained in Ayache Prison to submit them to the Diyarbakir Military Court. But despite this telegram in mid-August on a new decision by Talaat Pasha and the deputy governor of Ankara, Atef, Armenian intellectuals detained at the Ayache prison without trial were murdered.

Krikor Amirzayan

Armenia’s Founding Parliament leader Sefilian writes another letter, mentioning 4 demands

August 6, 2016 by administrator

YEREVAN. – Armenia’s Founding Parliament radical opposition group member Jirair Sefilian has sent another letter from Vardashen criminal-executive institution, where he refers to the demand of President Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation and further process of struggle.

“The misinformation which was circulated a few days ago by [Karabakh MP] Vitaly Balasanyan on that the Sasna Tsrer [armed group] members and I have abandoned the demand of Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation, was immediately dismissed both by the representatives of the Sasna Tsrer group and me two days later.

Unfortunately, that misinformation continues to be circulated, this time, however, by the opposition figure, dear Nikol Pashinyan. The latter points out to my letter sent on July 31, saying that I didn’t “raise the demand of Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation” there. Unfortunately, he has misunderstood the content of the letter, specifically failing to notice the introductory paragraph, where it is apparently mentioned that the content of this letter exclusively refers to the proposal of possible negotiations as a happy medium, as a result of which the [armed group] members were to lay down their arms. I reiterate, it exclusively referred to laying down the arms by the members and preventing bloodshed.

Being in isolation and not fully disposing of the information, I thought of such a strategy to prevent bilateral bloodshed, and I don’t know, there might be another man or Nikol Pashinyan, who might find another way to prevent that danger.

Considering that this false information was dismissed that day by the Sasna Tsrer members and I learnt about Varuzhan Avetisyan’s speech at the moment of laying down the arms, and also read the 7-point demands mentioned in an interview given by Founding Parliament President Garegin Chookaszian to CivilNet, I accept Nikol’s conclusion with perplexity.

Going ahead and taking advantage of the occasion, I urge Nikol and opposition members to perceive the seriousness of the moment and do everything possible to make meaningful Sasna Tsrer’s sacrifice, our insurgent peoples’ readiness to sacrifice and, above all, the unity and solidarity with each other.

In order not to leave the movement without leaders, I urge to form various supra-party formats and rush to liberate our country as soon as possible.

Finally, I will try to re-edit the political agenda raised by us in the recent years, as well as the pan-Armenian political objective agenda of Sasna Tsrer’s demands in the following sequence:

1. Set free PoWs and political prisoners

2. Formation of confidence government /with anti-crisis and transfer phase program/

3. Serzh Sargsyan’s removal

4. Snap parliamentary and presidential elections

Family Mounted Melkonian wrote an open letter to Serzh Sargsyan

July 29, 2016 by administrator

Dear Sir :

We have learned with concern the detention by the National Security Service of July 27 great patriot, Ara Alec Yenikomshian. Mr. Yenikomshian has for decades been engaged in charity work in Armenia and the improvement of a country he loves more than anything else. He dedicated his life to the good of the Armenian homeland, and was one of the closest and most trusted comrades of your former comrade in arms,

the Armenian national hero Monte Melkonian. Despite the suffering of its major physical injuries he suffered in the process of his patriotic activities, Alec continues to work for the benefit of Armenia. Mr. Yenikomshian is an extraordinary patriot, conscientious and dedicated civil debate and legality, the peaceful improvement of institutions. We join the many others who ask that he be released immediately from the custody.

Respectfully,

Maile Melkonian
Markar Melkonian
Marcia Melkonian
Seta Melkonian-Kbranian
Suzy Mahseredjian-Melkonian

Friday, July 29, 2016,
Ara © armenews.co

Letter from Azerbaijan prison “Don’t let Azerbaijan use political prisoners as props”

April 11, 2016 by administrator

Khadija Ismayilova, a reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was convicted of several financial crimes and sentenced to 7½ years in prison in a case criticized by human rights organizations. (Aziz Karimov/Associated Press)

By Khadija Ismayilova

(washingtonpost) Khadija Ismayilova is an investigative journalist and contributor to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Azerbaijani service. She has been imprisoned in Azerbaijan since December 2014.

I am writing this letter from jail in Baku, Azerbaijan, where I’m serving a 7½ -year sentence for a crime I never committed.

I am a journalist and my only “crime” was to investigate high-level corruption within the government and family of Azeri President Ilham Aliyev . Aliyev inherited power from his father in 2003 and changed the constitution in 2009 so he could stay in power indefinitely. He has been called an enemy of the press by international watchdogs, while abusing other fundamental freedoms and violating people’s right to truth and decency.

Aliyev is in Washington this week to attend the Nuclear Security Summit that began Thursday. To get an invitation to this event from President Obama, he had to pardon several political prisoners. A lthough they have been released from jail, they remain confined within the country, barred from leaving, and justice has not been restored.

This is a very costly invitation for Aliyev, who for years refused to accept international pressure or criticism on this issue. His response was, always, that Azerbaijan doesn’t have political prisoners. In December, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) introduced the Azerbaijan Democracy Act to recognize Azerbaijan’s violations of human rights and freedoms and to hold individual officials accountable. It must pass.

But why were some of the political prisoners suddenly set free? What has changed?

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Aliyev needed these prisoners so that in exchange for their release, he could shake hands with Obama or get a loan from the World Bank to finance his failing currency and crippled economy after the sudden fall of oil prices.

Aliyev is shamelessly trying to use political prisoners as bargaining chips to advance his foreign policy agenda. And they are supposed to be happy that they were freed.

I am happy — very happy — that some political prisoners have been released. But their fights, and mine, are not over. I am not a toy to be exchanged for diplomatic gain by Baku or Washington so that officials can continue to pretend that it is business as usual. We are hostages of the regime, whether we are inside or outside of prison. Freedom is my universal and constitutional right, and Aliyev failed to protect it as the head of state. I am not going to ask to be pardoned for a crime I never committed. I am free even now, in jail, and my freedom is not for sale.

So President Obama, please ask President Aliyev to stop muzzling the independent media and civil society. Ask him to explain the billions of petrodollars wasted on white-elephant projects for the benefit of a few. Ask him when he is going to hold free and fair elections. Ask him when he is going to let all the political prisoners go free. Ask him when fundamental freedoms can become a right, in practice — not a gift that he can give or take away. I asked these questions, and I ended up in jail.

These are important questions. They must not go unanswered. And we will fight until justice is fully served.

Read more on this issue:

Khadija Ismayilova: A letter from an Azerbaijani priso

Aziz Baran: Open letter to NATO secretary general over Turkey’s policy against Kurds

September 29, 2015 by administrator

A Turkish police officer arrests an old Kurdish protester during a demonstration near Turkish-Syrian Kurdistan border Sanliurfa, Turkish Kurdistan. Photo credit: EPA

Aziz Baran | Special to Ekurd.net

Mr Jens Stoltenberg
Secretary General, NATO HQ
Bd Leopold III, B-1110 Brussels
Belgium
Fax: +32 2 707 4232
Email: Stoltenberg.Jens @hq.nato.int

Dear Mr Stoltenberg,
Your recent expression of solidarity with Turkey against “terrorism” is tantamount to unleashing attack dogs against Kurdish citizens with a decidedly racist subtext.

I feel obliged to make you cognizant of the fact, however remote and improbable it may seem at present, that you may someday be summonsed or hauled, against your will, to appear before a de jure or a de facto Kurdistan Revolutionary Tribunal and/or Truth Commission.

As a Norwegian, you cannot be unaware of the 1905 referendum by which the Union of Norway and Sweden under King Oscar II was dissolved and both countries became sovereign states in a peaceful and democratic way.

Allow me to refresh your memory about the process of separation as it is highly unlikely that you would have revisited the subject since your High School days. You will recall that the Norwegian Parliament voted to secede from the union on 7 June 1905 followed by a referendum on 13 August 1905 in which 99.95% of cast votes favoured secession. Though Norwegian women had no right to vote, they started a signature collection campaign and within two weeks, quite remarkably, collected 244,765 votes, that is, over 65% of formal and informal votes cast in the referendum.

The King did not send any assassins to Norway nor did he send the cavalry with heavy artillery to attack Norwegian separatists. Respectful of the freely expressed will of the Norwegian people, he accepted the dissolution in a civilized way.

The racist subtext in your expression of solidarity with Turkey emanates from your apparent belief that Turks and Kurds are not civilized enough to resolve their differences the way the Norwegians and Swedes did through the ballot box! With Turks and Kurds, it must be “dog eat dog” and you have thrown your weight behind the top dog. Let’s recall that British diplomat Lord Curzon has allegedly said, “Turks cannot be civilized.”

What is the real meaning of your expression of solidarity with Turkey?

Firstly, NATO is a military alliance whose charter is to defend member states against military threats from non-NATO member states. The armed conflict between the Turkish government and Kurdish people led by PKK is a civil war as defined in the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of the English language: A civil war is a war between citizens of the same country. A most legitimate question is why you would express solidarity with one party in a civil war when you are so terribly silent about gross human rights violations, brazen attacks on media, journalists and offices of political parties, and intolerable restrictions on freedom of expression in Turkey. You cannot be unaware of the published annual press freedom indexes showing that the Palestinians under Israeli occupation enjoy greater press freedom than citizens of Turkey.

Secondly, Turkey is a name for a geographic area. Solidarity with mountains, plains and lakes is meaningless. If your solidarity is with the Turkish government you should keep in mind that around 60% of Turkey’s citizens did not vote for the governing party and repeated polls show that over 70% of the citizens of Turkey want peace and a peaceful settlement of the armed conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK. Turkey has squandered $300-$400 Billion dollars, according to various estimates, in order to deny the Kurdish citizens the very same rights, freedoms and political status enjoyed by a few hundred thousand Cypriot Turks in the shadow of the Turkish Armed Forces that continue to occupy northern Cyprus since 1974. Around ten times as many Turkish citizens have died on Turkey’s roads in traffic accidents than in the on-going civil war over the past three decades according to many Turkish dailies, notably, Today’s Zaman and Hurriyet Daily News online English editions .

Thirdly, perhaps you –and your backers- do not want Turks and Kurds to resolve their differences and disagreements through peaceful means. Turkish top dog repeatedly says he will not negotiate with “terrorists” and by calling PKK terrorist, you are, in effect, telling him not to negotiate, not to implement democratic reforms that would make PKK’s raison d’etre virtually redundant and armed conflict as meaningless to the Kurds as it is to the people of Scotland who want to separate from the rest of the UK. Perhaps, you want the armed conflict to continue and even intensify to the delight of purveyors of weapons to both sides. Hatching major conflicts can take a long time and in another 10-15 years’ time Turkey can turn into what Syria and Iraq are today –to the absolute delight of the merchants of death and destruction.

PKK: Terrorist, Separatist or Federalist?

Terrorism is almost universally understood as the use of violence and intimidation against civilians not directly involved in the conflict for political gains. As far as I am aware, PKK has never attacked or threatened the civilian population. Surely, PKK attacks on Turkish assassins in civilian clothes cannot be deemed as attacks on innocent civilians.

Turkish government representatives around the world produce long lists of acts of terrorism by PKK, but the Turkish government never agrees to proper independent investigations of these acts, lest it comes to light that they were, in fact, the acts of its own agents and hirelings. There is a civil war in Turkey. Uniformed and armed PKK volunteer fighters stand against uniformed and armed conscripts. Therefore, calling one side terrorist can only be due to ulterior motives.

Clearly, PKK is not a terrorist organization and will not be one unless and until its leadership chooses to resort to violence and intimidation against civilians not involved in the conflict. No amount of pronouncements, declarations and listing it as a terrorist organization will make it so. As an example, let’s note that for many centuries, under the penalty of burning at the stake, the Church imposed the view that the earth was flat, stationary and at the centre of the solar system. None of its crimes against learned men and women made the world flat, stationary and at the centre.

If PKK leadership ever wants to harm civilians to achieve its aims, it would not be too difficult, with its apparent international support in the Kurdish diaspora, to acquire what has been called “poor people’s atomic weapons” such as the nasty chemical dioxin. A kilogram of dioxin could make a city the size of Ankara uninhabitable perhaps for a hundred years or more!

PKK’s armed struggle is inspired as much by the Vietnamese people’s heroic anti-colonial wars as by the words of the US President John F Kennedy in his 13 March 1962 speech, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Successive Turkish leaders have made necessary changes through peaceful means like the ballot box impossible.

Like all organizations that avoid the fate of the dinosaurs, PKK has evolved and adapted to prevailing realities. It is no longer advocating separation from Turkey and creation of an independent unified Kurdistan through armed struggle.

Its leadership’s recent public pronouncements and peace proposals to Turkish leaders clearly show that PKK stands for a form of political system that is best described as federalism. For example, an important step in the transformation of the decentralization of power is for the Turkish government to legislate the election of provincial governors by the people they are supposed to govern. The population of many provinces exceed the population of many states of the United States of America such as Montana, Wyoming, Delaware, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont that have their own legislatures and governors all duly elected by secret ballot after informed discussions and debates.

Fully aware of their brutal treatment of Kurdish citizens, Turkish leaders’ nightmare for decades has been that given half the chance the Kurds will want to secede from Turkey the way Norwegians dissolved the union with the Swedes. Yet there is simply no reliable evidence for this belief today.

In conclusion, PKK is best described as federalist and its armed struggle as civil war. Your public expression of solidarity with Turkey can serve no purpose other than to convince Turkish leaders and nationalists, also known as, Turkish “NAZIS” of their right to continue to oppress and disinherit the Kurdish citizens of their cultural, linguistic and historical heritage and true national identity. You -and via possible development of new legal concepts- the members of your close support system may someday be held accountable for the terrible crimes that are being perpetrated against the Kurdish nation. Whoever had heard of “war crimes” before the Nuremberg trials?

Yours faithfully,
Aziz Baran
azizb@hotmail.com

Rimma: Open letter to Mr. David Harris, Executive Director at AJC Global Jewish Advocacy

May 16, 2015 by administrator

by Rimma Varzhapetyan-Feller

Dear Mr. Harris,

I am making this appeal to you in an open letter to draw your attention to the fact that during the recent months articles inciting and propagating hatred towards Armenia and the Armenian people, and to me, as the leader of the Jewish community of Armenia, are published regularly in Israeli newspapers by a number of so called analysts – Arye Gut, Alexander Murinson, Maxime Gauin (e.g. Baku to the future: Azerbaijan, not Armenia, is Israel’s true ally , Anti-Semitism in Armenia.) report .jewishjournal.com

Biographies of the aforementioned authors and the content of the articles prove that they try hard to set public opinion and, particularly, the Jews, against the Armenian people, casting shadow on the centuries-old friendship of the two peoples.

Especially worth mentioning is Arye Gut’s latest brainchild – an article built on overtly false facts and attempts of manipulation.

A former citizen of Azerbaijan (he is Jew, not an Azeri), Gut, whose Facebook account provides ample evidence of his attempts to ensure the approval of the Azerbaijani authorities, speculates and manipulates data, positioning himself as allegedly “impartial” analyst.

In this article Gut yet again endeavors to convince the readers of the existence of anti-Semitism in Armenia and Diaspora. It is worth mentioning that Gut, Murinson and Gauin have already written nearly a dozen of articles, trying to provide proof of supposedly numerous cases of anti-Semitism in Armenia. Nevertheless, the examples they cite are either false or distorted. No representative of any political force, political party or NGO in Armenia has ever uttered any anti-Semitic remarks.

Rights of the Jewish community have never been questioned here. The Armenian people always have respected the Jews and admired the rich history of our people. Since time immemorial the Jewish community of Armenia has found favourable environment for free existence and enrichment of their culture on this land of rich culture.

The evidence of the Jewish presence in Armenia is a medieval Jewish settlement and cemetery, both preserved due to Armenian government’s and people’s care for it.

Not only does Arye Gut ignore it all, but also dares to voice poignantly indecent expressions addressed to me and the Jewish community of Armenia which is nothing but an example of anti-Semitism in itself.

As Michael Chlenow, Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, stressed during the recent Global Forum “Against the Crime of Genocide” held in Yerevan a couple of weeks ago, “Even if the Jewish community of Armenia is small, it is well-organized and proud, and through its activity contributes to both enrichment of the Jewish culture and strengthening of centuries-old friendship of the two peoples.”

Armenia has never denied the Holocaust. This year on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day President Serzh Sargsyan addressed the Jewish community in a statement. During his visit to the USA in May, the President of Armenia also visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Armenia is the only country in the region where school curriculum includes direct reference to the Holocaust; moreover, according to various assessments, from the point of view of the awareness of the Holocaust, the Armenians are amongst the best-informed people in the world.

In his article Gut once again tries to use to his advantage the fact of cooperation between some representatives of the Armenian Diaspora and the Nazis during WWII. It is a historical fact that the Armenian legion did not take part in the combat operations and was stationed in the rear – mainly in France, Holland and Poland. The Nazi leadership never trusted the Armenian legion. On December 12, 1942 Hitler said that “…In spite of all declarations from Rosenberg and the military, I don’t trust the Armenians”. The members of the Armenian Legion never missed a chance to revolt against the Nazis and join the resistance groups. The Armenian POWs played important role in the liberation of South France, while another group of Armenian POWs revolted in Holland.

Most probably, Arye Gut is also aware that the Azerbaijani legion in the German Armed Forces was four times larger than the Armenian one. The Azerbaijani legion participated in a range of massacres of the Polish and the Jews (particularly, 40.000 people were annihilated during Volyn massacre). The former President of the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920) Mamed Rasulzade, who nowadays is glorified in Azerbaijan, spared no effort to recruit the Azerbaijani prisoners of war to the ranks of the Nazi army.

As for the Armenians, they fought against the Nazis in the frontlines of the Red Army, as well as in Diaspora. More than half a million Armenians fought in WWII, and only half of them returned home. Armenian soldiers fought in all the bloody battles, liberating from the Nazi yoke numerous peoples, including Jews.

As if following a the long-standing tradition, Gut’s article ‘circulates’ the theses of Azerbaijani-Turkish anti-Armenian propaganda, i.e. the blatant denial of the Armenian Genocide and the repetition of the official Baku’s assessment of events in Khojaly in 1992. What is more, all this is by no means done in a professional manner. In reality, Mr. Gut would rather quote the then President of Azerbaijan Mutalibov on the events in Khojaly, who inadvertently exposed the masterminds and those who even today use these clichés for propaganda purposes.

I was raised in a Jewish family. From the very first days of war my father joined up and reached Berlin. He was given numerous military awards and decorations. Together with her parents and my elder brother, my mother was evacuated three times. My husband’s ancestors, Armenians, suffered the Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and a considerable part of the family was annihilated.

My family spares no effort to strengthen the friendly ties between Armenia and Israel. We wish peace and prosperity to the two countries, and, of course, all the people on Earth. Unfortunately, shameless liars and provocateurs like Mr. Gut accuse me of “complicity in Nazism, Fascism and anti-Semitism”.

They must have forgotten that people should think twice before they utter such remarks – one could be detained for that.

It is inconceivable that leading newspapers and journals publish rubbish, without thinking of their own reputation.

Dear Mr. Harris, your organization has always emphasized the importance of strengthening of tolerance between peoples and fight against hate speech.

Authors of articles, pointed out by me, try to manipulate the Jewish media and the Jewish community in their dirty and unacceptable propaganda stunts.

I am grateful to you and proud that for years I have been invited to participate in the American Jewish Committee Annual Forums, which always pay a great deal of attention to strengthening of tolerance and fight against inter-ethnic hatred.

I am full of hope that you will share my concern and together we will be able to exert joint efforts to resist such provocative behavior.

Sincerely,

Rimma Varzhapetyan-Feller,

President of the Jewish Community of Armenia

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