Hetq Online, 19 December 2005
Monday’s edition of Hetq Online, the internet publication of the Investigative Journalists of Armenia, is now up and features a variety of articles in both English and Armenian at http://www.hetq.am.
In this week’s English edition, Edik Baghdasarian reports on problems in Armenia’s Gold Mining Industry while Varduhi Zakaryan follows the hunger strike and re-trial of two conscripts who say they have been wrongly accused of murdering two other soldiers.
“I had a son who fell victim to one of the ‘accidents’ that happen in the army. Even if I’d had more, I would’ve sent them to serve in the army and protect our country, but not for these fascists. The court has turned into a circus,” said Gohar Armenakyan, president of the organization Soldiers’ Defense Committee.
On December 24, 2003, Privates Hovsep Mkrtumyan and Roman Yeghiazaryan disappeared from military base N. The military tribunal filed criminal charges against them fifteen days later, but then on January 9, 2004, their bodies were recovered from a stream nearby, with marks suggesting violent death.
The four conscripts who were arrested and charged in their murder implicated Battalion Commander Ivan Grigoryan and Officers Karlen Mayilyan and Ruben Baghryan in their testimony.
There is also an article on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia by Aghavni Yeghyazaryan and one by myself. Bambir’s recent mobile concert to protest environmental destruction and new construction in central Yerevan is also there.
Some of these article are also available in Armenian, and the articles which my recent photographs were taken for (in Kond and on Buzand Street) are also available. English translations will likely be available in next week’s edition.
