Armenian President receives Serj Tankian and Garin Hovannisian

July 5, 2018 By administrator

Armenian President Armen Sarkissian today received member of the Board of Creative Armenia innovative cultural foundation, famous American-Armenian rock musician Serj Tankian and founding director of the foundation Garin Hovannisian, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

President Sarkissian highly valued Serj Tankian’s both cultural and public activity and stated: “You are not only a great musician, but a wonderful Armenian, dignified and proud Armenian”.

Garin Hovannisian introduced the main goals and activities directions of the Creative Armenia foundation. Hovhannisian said their mission is not only to develop the Armenian culture, but also to become a platform to reveal talented artists, assist them and implement promising projects.

The members of the Board of the foundation stated that the Creative Armenia aims at becoming one of the most dynamic and effective cultural initiatives.

President Armen Sarkissian welcomed the foundation’s programs and initiatives and expressed readiness to assist their implementation as much as possible.

NEW YORK Balakian Receives His Pulitzer Prize

November 2, 2016 By administrator

balakian-pulitzer-prize NEW YORK (Armenian Weekly)—Peter Balakian received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry at the 100th anniversary Ceremony of the Pulitzer Prizes held at Columbia University on October 13. Balakian was one of the seven recipients in the fields of Letters, Drama, and Music.

Among the other recipients were Viet Thanh Nguyen in fiction for his novel The Sympathizer, Lin-Manuel Miranda in drama for the musical Hamilton, and jazz composer Henry Threadgill for “In for a Penny In for a Pound.” Among the fourteen prizes in journalism were Kathryn Schultz for Feature Writing at the New Yorker, Alyssa J. Rubin for International Reporting at The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times Staff for Breaking News Reporting.

Professor Daniele Allen, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, was the keynote speaker. The awards were presented by Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University.

The Pulitzer committee cited Ozone Journal for “poems that bear witness to the old losses and tragedies that undergird a global age of danger and uncertainty.” Writing about Ozone Journal in Consequence Magazine, Keith Jones wrote: “Balakian is a master of—the drifting, split-second mirage, the cinematic dissolve and cross-cut as well as the sculptural, statuesque moment chiseled out of consonant blends and an imagistic, jazzman’s ear for vowels… beautiful, haunting, plaintive, urgent, in our dying world’s age, these poems legislate a vital comportment to the demands of our shared present, timely and untimely both.” And David Wojahn in Tikkun wrote: “Few American poets of the boomer generation have explored the interstices of public and personal history as deeply and urgently as has Balakian.”

Balakian is the first Armenian American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize since William Saroyan in 1940.

Armenian Genocide receives wide coverage in social networks – expert

June 26, 2016 By administrator

Pope Francis’ visit actually received wide Facebook coverage, but Brexit-related reports diverted universal attention, IT expert Samvel Martirosyan told Tert.am.

“In fact, Brexit-related reports proved to be the mainstream in, for example, Twitter. At the regional level, we can say that reports on the Pope’s visit to Armenia were among the top news stories – especially the Gyumri pictures,” Mr Martirosyan said.

“The shares addressing the Pope’s visit have been very active also on Instagram,” Martirosyan noted.

Another popular topic, he added, was the Armenian Genocide. “All the media outlets’ attention was focused on the fact that the [Pope] hadn’t initially used ‘genocide’. And there was a boom after he said it. So the Genocide has been the most actively shared topic on Facebook.”

Martirosyan noted that most of the posts with hashtags and photos were shared by Armenia-based media outlets and users. He added that reports by foreign media were given more preference. “Our media were not in a monpopolistic positions so to speak,” he added.

Armenian President receives special envoy of his Chinese counterpart

May 22, 2016 By administrator

Jianzhu YEREVAN. – President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan on Saturday received the delegation headed by special envoy of Chinese President Meng Jianzhu, who is also the Secretary of Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China.

The Armenian President welcomed the guests, noting that such a visit is indicative of the strengthening of bilateral ties, Armenian President’s press-service reports.

The interlocutors expressed satisfaction with the fact that since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, the Armenian-Chinese interstate relations have been on the rise in all areas, including political, economic and cultural.

“The People’s Republic of China is one of the important partners of Armenia, and we welcome its success and are happy for the progress recorded in all the spheres,” the President said.

Sargsyan and Mr. Jianzhu agreed that the official visit of the Armenian President to China raised the Armenian-Chinese interstate relations to a qualitatively new level, once again showing that both countries are developing productive and multilateral cooperation in all the areas.

The interlocutors attached importance to the mutual high-level visits, which have become frequent recently.

The special envoy of the Chinese President noted that aim of the delegation’s visit is to invigorate and deepen the Armenian-Chinese cooperation in the law enforcement area, considering that it will significantly contribute to the strengthening of bilateral political ties. According to him, all this is also important in the context of the changes taking place in the world and the region. This dictates China Armenia Meeting Armenia and China to establish more close cooperation, he added.

Meng Jianzhu assured that his country will spare no effort to contribute to the stability and security in the region.

Azeri Journalist Writing for Armenian Newspaper Receives Death Threats, Forced to Live Abroad

November 5, 2015 By administrator

BY VERA TAN
FROM GLOBAL JOURNALIST

Azerbaijan-born journalist and blogger Arzu Geybullayeva has written for major news outlets like Foreign Policy and al-Jazeera. Yet it’s her work for Agos, a Turkish-Armenian newspaper, that has led to threats from her native land.

Azerbaijan and neighboring Armenia do not have diplomatic relations. The former Soviet republics have fought periodic border skirmishes since a 1994 ceasefire suspended a war over Nagorno-Karabakh, a Rhode Island-sized enclave within Azeri borders that is populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.

For the Istanbul-based Geybullayeva, the criticism of her work for Agos began with small Azeri outlets, and spread to Azerbaijan’s state-owned media. Eventually Geybullayeva, who frequently blogs about human rights in Azerbaijan, received death threats online. By 2014 she realized it was no longer safe for her to return to her home country.

That year the Azeri government of President Ilham Aliyev unleashed a crackdown on the media. Among other incidents, the government arrested Khadija Ismayilova, an Azeri journalist who investigated corruption in Aliyev’s family. Ilgar Nasibov, a journalist and human rights activist, was beaten unconscious in what his wife told local media was likely an attack by Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry.

Among the tactics the Azeri government has used against Geybullayeva is to apply pressure to her family in Azerbaijan, a strategy it has used againstother journalists and dissidents. Geybullayeva, 32, spoke with Global Journalist’s Vera Tan about press freedom in Azerbaijan and why she continues to write despite the risks.

Global Journalist: How did you know you wouldn’t be able to return to Azerbaijan safely?

Geybullayeva: I started to get mentioned in the news a lot more than I should have been mentioned. I was mostly labeled as a traitor because of my work [writing about] , and also because of my work with Agos.

Global Journalist: When did you start fearing for your life?

Geybullayeva: It was October [2014] when I received my first death threat – he told me [online] about the number of days I had left, he told me the exact location I’d be buried. I obviously realized that going home was out of the question because when you’re labeled a traitor, it’s quite a serious accusation…You realize that once you get labeled and such, it’s not really safe to go back, especially when a lot of people were ending up in prison at the time.

GJ: How long did the threats continue?

Geybullayeva: To be honest with you, some of them I stopped reading. It got to me, psychologically. And to me, what really pissed me off was when it went from being against me to against my family. People started calling my mom a whore, people started calling my father a traitor. When someone calls you a whore or a bitch, or imagines the many ways that want to rape you, that’s one thing, but when this imagination extends to your parents and the things that they imagine doing to your mother, for instance, I really think that’s borderline. At least it was for me.

GJ: Your brother has been threatened due to your work. How has that made you feel?

Geybullayeva: I try not to blame myself for the pressure and the stuff that he had to go through… But of course I do feel the responsibility… I so very clearly remember our conversation when – this was last summer – he called me yet again, and he was yelling on the phone, telling me how sick and tired he is of my writing and my work and then he told me that I should publicly apologize for my mistakes. He called my work a mistake… And it got to me.

But after that, I thought, no. I’m not going to write anything anywhere and to apologize for anything because I haven’t done anything wrong. And if it really does bother him, then I decided to tell him that he should disown me, that he should publicly disown me… And I think that sort of pushed his boundaries to actually realize that I am actually family.

GJ: How is it to live in Turkey knowing you can’t go back to Azerbaijan?

Geybullayeva: You really start understanding what freedom really is and what it really means in various circumstances. It makes me feel really sad because I cannot travel back to Azerbaijan, because I cannot visit my father’s grave, and I can’t visit my friends, but it definitely gives me the space and opportunity to do the work that I do.

GJ: Why do you still continue the work that you do?

Geybullayeva: I’ve always felt privileged. I’ve had the comfort of life that not everyone in Azerbaijan had… and I feel like I’m returning a favor to my upbringing by trying to tell the stories of those who did not or do not or will not have the same privileges… I sometimes wonder if it actually is making a difference, because to me it’s sometimes feels like it’s actually making matters worse, and more people get arrested, but then I also realize that if we keep silent then it’s even worse.

Already I see that people don’t know much about Azerbaijan. That is despite all the advancing that’s taking place in the sidelines, so what if people like me shut up? What if we stop doing the work that we do? Then what? I think that would not be me doing justice to my peers back home. Because I owe them at least a fight.