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Open Letter to Mayors of Yerevan’s Twin Cities: Suspend Cooperation With Yerevan Municipality Since it Perpetuates Violence

February 26, 2018 By administrator

Open Letter to Mayors of Yerevan’s

13:49, February 26, 2018

To the mayors of Volgograd, Stavropol, Nice, Rostov-on-Don, Antananarivo, Beirut, Bratislava, Isfahan, Carrara, Los Angeles, Cambridge, Chisinau, Marseille, Tbilisi, Buenos Ayres, Montreal, Odessa, Sao Paolo, Venice, Riga, Amman, Novosibirsk and Antony

CC: Ambassadors and/or honorary consuls of Russia, France, Lebanon, Slovakia, Iran, Italy, USA, Ukraine, Brazil, Latvia, Jordan in Armenia

CC: Local media outlets of Volgograd, Stavropol, Nice, Rostov-on-Don, Antananarivo, Beirut, Bratislava, Isfahan, Carrara, Los Angeles, Cambridge, Chisinau, Marseille, Tbilisi, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Odessa, Sao Paolo, Venice, Riga, Amman, Novosibirsk and Antony

The website of  the Yerevan municipality, capital of the Republic of Armenia, states that your city is one of Yerevan’s twin cities. The municipalities of the two cities have signed an agreement of friendship, partnership and mutual support.

On February 13th, 2018, unprecedented public violence was perpetuated against 2 oppositional members of the Council of Yerevan at the council meeting chaired by mayor Taron Margarian. Marina Khachatryan and Sona Aghekyan of “Yerkir Tsirani” oppositional party intended to draw the attention of the municipal council and particularly Mayor Taron Margarian on the years-long  neglected issue of the residents of Nubarashen District. At the request of fellow citizens, in glass jars they brought samples of the sewer water that was leaking from inside the prison of Nubarashen into the residential areas spreading intolerable odor. The aim was that the council members and the mayor temporarily feel the dire conditions in which the residents of the prison and the residential district lived in and to temporarily give a solution to the long-standing issue. At the herding of Mayor Taron Margaryan, other male council members and staff of the municipality (including Artur Gevorkyan, Davit Ohanyan, Sergey Mkrtchyan, Hovhannes Avanesyan, Edmond Kirakosyan, Vaspurak Martirosyan, Gor Vardanyan) literally  assaulted Marina Khachatryan and Sona Aghekian, publicly beat them, manhandled them, threatened and used sexual swear words against them, exerted sexual abuse and other forms of violence.

Not only did mayor Taron Margarian not assume responsibility for the violence perpetuated at his command and in his presence, but he subsequently continued exercising various administrative repressions against the oppositional women council members. After the violent incident, the municipality has also decided from now on to illegally restrain and bar the presence of media at municipal council meetings.

10 days have passed after the perpetrated violence, however the Republican Party holding majority seats both at the municipal council and in the parliament of Armenia, has not condemned the violence. On the contrary, it has justified the brutal acts blaming the women council members and making uttery sexist statements. Some media outlets also continue publishing articles directly justifying gender-based violence and sexism.

Armenia’s law enforcement bodies reacted to the acts of violence with a great delay under the influence of public outcry and demand. The criminal investigation will be held under Articles of the Criminal Code of Armenia implying mildest publishment.

With this open letter, we, the undersigned, are pleading with you to unilaterally sever or suspend the agreement of friendship signed with the Municipality of Yerevan until the perpetrators of violence and the incumbent mayor Taron Margaryan are held responsible and the current municipal council is changed. Having a sister-city with a violent and corrupt mayor and council members does no honor to the administration and population of any city, therefore with call upon you to share our concern and renounce cooperating with a structure perpetrating violence.

Respectfully,

Anna Nikoghosyan

Marine Margaryan

Anna Shahnazaryan

Lucine Talalyan

Susanna Gyulamiryan

Vanadzor Citizen’s Assembly, NGO

Sofya Manukyan

Armine Ishkanian

Nelli Sargsyan

Anahit Sargsyan

Ruzanna Grigoryan

Alex Sardar

Anna Zhamakochyan

Nana Mantasheva

Levon Barseghyan, Gyumri Municipal Council member

Marianna Grigoryan

Women’s Rights House, NGO

Women’s Support Center, NGO

Society Without Violence, NGO

Gevorg Kehyan

Commune

Mariam Kurshudyan

Sevan Petrossian

Anush Khachatryan

Real World, Real People, NGO

Mayranush Davtryan Gevorgyan

Lucine Navasartian

Arpi Balyan

Anahit Simonyan

Nuard Minasyan

Milena Abrahamyan

Vardine Grigoryan

EcoRight, NGO

Elvira Meliksetyan

Karen Hakobyan

Lala Aslikyan

Maral Bavakan

Alisa Qamalyan

Lida Minasyan

For Equal Rights, NGO

“Women in Black, Armenia” Initiative

Lara Aharonian

Hasmik Gevorgyan

Milena Tadukhepa

Nelli Paytyan

Karine Ghazaryan

Women’s Rights Center, NGO

Tehmine Yenoqyan

Ruzanna Tsaturyan

Sargis Kharazyan

Vahan Ishkhanyan

Zaruhi Hovhannisyan

Lucine Sargsyan

Naka Duli

Ecolur Information Center, NGO

Elmon Yegnukian

Zara Harutyunyan

Source:https://hetq.am/eng/news/86097/55-anhatneri-ev-kazmakerputyunneri-bac-namaky-erevani-quyr-qaxaqnerin.html

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Mayors, open letter, Yerevan’s

Adam Schiff delivers open letter to Obama, urges to recognize #ArmenianGenocide (Video)

April 21, 2016 By administrator

Gongress man  schiffU.S. Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), the lead sponsor of the Armenian Genocide Truth and Justice Resolution in Congress, spoke on the House Floor and delivered an open letter to the President of the United States, Barack Obama, urging him to recognize the Armenian Genocide in his final year in office in advance of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

The text of the letter is as follows:

“Dear Mr. President:

In 2009, less than a year after assuming the Presidency, you accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. You began your acceptance of this honor by acknowledging that it was bestowed, at the “beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage.” You spoke on that day with eloquence and conviction about fundamental human rights – rights that are endowed not by accidents of birth like nationality or ethnicity or gender, but by our common humanity. And the principles that you articulated have indeed guided and defined your presidency.

In your foreign policy, you have emphasized the rights of ethnic and religious minorities worldwide and put these causes closer to the center of our foreign policy. You have extended aid to refugees fleeing horrific violence. You established the Atrocities Prevention Board to coordinate and monitor our efforts to prevent mass atrocities and genocide.

And in a few days, you will have a chance to add to your legacy.

On April 24th, the world will mark 101 years since the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. The facts of the slaughter are beyond dispute. And I know you are well-acquainted with these horrors visited upon the Armenian people, having spoken eloquently about them as Senator.

I have sat with survivors of the Genocide. Men and women, their numbers dwindling year after year, and heard them recall the destruction of their lives and their families and all they had known. As children, they were forced from their homes and saw their families beaten, raped, and murdered. They fled across continents and oceans to build lives in our nation.

Mr. President, for them and for their descendants, the word “genocide” is sacred because it means the world has not and will not forget. To deny genocide on the other hand, is profane. It is, in the words of Elie Wiesel, a “double killing.”

This April 24th will be your final opportunity to use the presidency to speak plainly about the genocide. In past years as President, you have described the campaign of murder and displacement against the Armenian people as a “mass atrocity,” which it surely was. But, of course, it was also much more, and you have avoided using the word genocide even though it has been universally applied by scholars and historians of the period. In fact, as you know better than most, the Ottoman Empire’s campaign to annihilate the Armenian people was a prime example of what Rafael Lemkin was trying to describe when he coined the very term “genocide”.

I know that as you consider your words this year, you will hear the same voices as in the past who will tell you to hold your tongue and speak in euphemisms. They will say that the time is not right or that Turkey is too strategically important or that we should not risk their ire over something that happened a century ago.

Mr. President, regardless of what you say on April 24th, there can be little doubt that Turkey will do exactly as it has always done in its relations with the United States – and that is whatever Turkey believes to be in its self-interest. Many of our European allies and world leaders, including Pope Francis, have recognized the genocide, yet they have continued to work closely with Turkey, because that has been in Turkey’s interest. The same will be true after U.S. recognition of the Genocide.

I dearly hope, as do millions of Armenians descended from genocide survivors around the world, that you take this final opportunity to call the Armenian Genocide what it was – Genocide. To say that the Ottoman Empire committed this grotesque crime against the Armenians, but that their campaign of extermination failed. And that, above all, we will never forget and we will never again be intimidated into silence. Let this be part of your legacy, and you will see future Administrations follow your example.

When you spoke in Oslo, more than 7 years ago, you closed your remarks by returning to the counsel of Dr. Martin Luther King and said, “I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him.”

Mr. President, confronting painful, difficult but vital questions “is” who you are. Help us be the America we “ought” to be, that beacon of freedom and dignity that shines its light on the darkness of human history and exposes the vile crime of genocide.”

Filed Under: Genocide, News Tagged With: Adam Schiff, BREAKING NEWS: Obama Wants Military Strike Against Syria, Obama, open letter

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