Provocation and YSMU
State Medical University, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006
Yesterday at 12 noon, Indian students gathered at Yerevan State Medical University to consider their plan of action after the death of a fellow coursemate and alleged racism from YSMU’s rector. What started as a trickle soon turned into a few hundred although by their own admission some Indian students did not attend. Afew foreign students were also in attendance, but not many. Insignificant in the larger group of Indian students, in fact.
The Vice-Rector (pictured below), however, did materialize and tried to forbid me from taking photographs. He also accused me of provoking the Indian Students, and asked me what country I was from. Probably he thought I was from the Middle East or something because he threatened to make a complaint to my Embassy. He soon shut up after I told him I was from England, but what was most evident was how a lack of media attention made guys such as him feel powerful and arrogant.
Interestingly, the Indian students said that they would support me in my work, especially as Hasmik and I were the only journalists properly covering this story. It was obvious that those in positions of authority rely on a weak media and civil society to get away with their own misconduct.
And really, apart from a few pieces of coverage of last week’s protest outside Parliament, the media has failed to do its job in Armenia. Hetq’s Hasmik Hovannisian and I were the only journalists to cover yesterday’s event with the exception of a film crew from state-controlled H1 and a photographer from Photolure. However, they stayed for only about 30 minutes when the Indian students organized a sit-in in Yerevan’s main Republic Square. By chance, a photojournalist from Turkey’s Zaman newspaper was also there.
Otherwise, no other media covered the event — a mass sit-in in the heart of the Armenian capital that lasted until 9-9.30pm. Still, a few bloggers were there. In addition to Indian blogger Nanyaar?, Zarchka from Life Around Me was there, as was Nessuna and a new blogger on my site, Loony Moony. They’ll post some accounts later, so perhaps in the case of this Indian protest, bloggers performed the role of citizen journalists while the rest of the media failed to perform its role.
Incidently, no other bloggers from Armenia appeared to be there although Garo (AKA Christian Garbis) from Notes from Hairenik did come down for a bit. Unfortunately, I missed the march of students to where the Indian student’s body was, but Nanyaar? captured that here. Great pictures, and again testimony to the fact that the so-called Armenian media is impotent and apathetic. Blogging in Armenia comes of age.
State Medical University, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Hetq Online 2006
[…]We Indian students in Yerevan state medical university, Yerevan, Armenia request the authorities to protect our civil rights as Indian nationals and enlighten us .Being the largest Indian population living on the Armenian land we hope that our pleas would be considered. Oblige us bye acting, we all are Son’s and Daughters of India […]
Comment by Nanyaar? :: Does it concern you? :: April :: 2006 — April 23, 2006 @ 12:03 pm
In addition to Indian bloggers such as Nanyaar? inside Armenia, others outside the country are also starting to post information.
Also at Kiruba.com and I’m sure, many other places.
Truly an indication of the power of blogging when the media fails to do its job properly.
Comment by Onnik — April 23, 2006 @ 2:33 pm