Also, I would be curious how/where Setta obtained the police/medical report that described this incident. Additionally, I don’t think the solution to students who protest the alleged poor bahvior of the rector is to simply tell them to go back where they came from. I agree with some of Setta’s points she brings up regarding how Diasporans are portrayed in the blogs/media, but, you lost me with the ” go back where they came from if they don’t like it” statement. It almost invalidates the rest of your arguement.

For me, the bottom line is that the EMT’s took a very long time to get to the victim. And, the students seem really pissed/annoyed with the rector. There have to be reasons for both, whether people want to agree or not. Everything else is up for debate.

I wonder why the extreme reactions and behavior?

I’ve been wondering the same. Could be that anti-Armenian plants have taken this as an opportunity to incite the protests. Exhibit A: http://oneworld.blogsome.com/

Somewhat ironically, when the protest outside parliament started I was still in a car with Edik Baghdasarian travelling to Yerevan from Berd and had to be informed about the protests by Garo over at Notes from Hairenik. I even missed one demonstration because I had other work to do.

Still, there’s some reason for optimism. At least one forum member isn’t as paranoid as “Erebuni”. Thanks Azgaser. This is what I would call “productive nationalism” of the type that Ara Manoogian represents. Perhaps patriotism is a better word with less sinister connotations.

Considering how the Armenian authorities threat their own people - Armenian citizens and tourists alike - this does not come as a surprise. Well, if they behave like this they should not complain when all the foreign students leave the country

Still, the thought processes, if you can call it that, of nationalist nutters in any country of the world never ceases to amaze me. The Indians starting a revolution in Armenia, who would have thought it? When exercizing a democratic right to protest results in knee-jerk reactions such as this, I really have to shake my head in disbelief.

There are also some interesting discussions on More Feminist Garbage and Taking Samtskhe Javakheti in Georgia.

Ironically, I don’t protest enough.

I didn’t protest when independent channel A1+ was shut down and denied a license since 2002.

I didn’t protest the fraud in elections, as I didn’t protest Armenian government’s brutal crackdown against opposition protests in April 2004. I didn’t protest the attacks on journalists and political arrests.

I didn’t protest when a 24 year old Edgar Arakelian struck a police officer with a plastic bottle and received an 18-month prison sentence while gang members who assaulted protestors on the same demonstration were fined less than $200.

I didn’t join environment activists in their protest against government plans to build a second highway to Iran through the Shikahogh nature reserve and Mtnadzor forest.

I didn’t protest when old houses on Abovyan Street, the ones that hold architectural value, were torn down and citizens found themselves in the streets.

I didn’t protest against all of that and I do feel guilty about it.

This is not an issue of if someone committed suicide or pushed out a window.

This is an issue of what happened after someone fell from the 6th floor.

The fact that the victim was not given reasonable help that could have saved his life is the issue.

The rector who is a “doctor” stood by and did NOTHING.

This is the issue at hand.

As for what the authorities state was the reason of death and what led up to their alleged suicide, you should believe very little what the authorities in Yerevan announce, since in most cases it not what they say it is.

On a more personal note, however, the conduct of the Vice Rector has been astonishing. Arrogant, rude, and confrontational. That says a lot to me. Although he tries to intimidate people first of all, he soon reverts to a position that can only be described as scared. This in itself says a lot about what is alleged to have happened and as Nessuna points out, hundreds of students don’t march on Parliament when the police has a history of repression and assault on protesters for no reason at all.

Anyway, I have used the term alleged in all my posts, I think, and have merely done my job. What you don’t like is the fact that journalists cover stories you don’t like. Like I said, it is not by chance that most of the media misreported last week’s protests outside Parliament and totally ignored Saturday’s sit-in on Republic Square. What’s your explaination for that? A 6-7 hour takeover of the heart of Yerevan doesn’t merit a mention on TV?

Like a typical nationalist who would argue that white is black if it suited your political agenda, you say this:

I have a reasonably decent view of what the news should be, and this isn’t it. The suicide or accidental death of any student would never be covered in any newspaper, with the exception of a provincial weekly in a small backwater town.

As I said before, when students march on parliament and refuse to move even though Ministry of Interior troops have been called in, and when they take over Republic Square, that becomes news, especially in a country such as Armenia where such things do not happen often or even at all.

Firstly, as a journalist I report on what is around me, and as a blogger I have already tried to get a young Armenian in Moscow to blog about the situation of Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians and other peoples from the South Caucasus there. Why? Because for Russian nationalists they are considered the same and known by the same collective name of “black.”

Then the Zaman journalist. In your first post, like a typical paranoid nationalist you believe that he was there knowing full well what was happening. I can tell you quite categorically that he was there by chance. Yesterday, though, he was at the ARF / AYF procession to remember the Genocide with that event in mind. He had also interviewed Oskanian as well.

Anyway, long and the short of it is that if you think other information should be out there start up your own blog if you really care so much. I’d also add that the fact that the local Armenian media ignored 99 percent of what was a news story also says a lot. What reason can there be for not covering properly a demonstration outside parliament and totally ignoring a mass sit-in on Republic Square inbetween the main government building and the Foreign Ministry?

What amazes me most is that when something like this happens elsewhere to an Armenian, it becomes a matter for Armenians to talk of how they are always persecuted. When it happens in Armenia, including to Armenian citizens, the minority in the Diaspora that can be best described as “armchair nationalists” deny that something might have happened.

This is the sad reality of that small percentage of Armenians in the Diaspora who would rather propaganda than news, and who in their heart of hearts would rather there be no Indian students in Armenia because they are inherently racist. It’s simple. You side with the Rector because she is Armenian even though you have no comprehension of the type of buse of power that occurs in Armenia. You hate the Indians because they are not Armenian.

It’s very simple.

Thankfully, other bloggers — including three ethnic Armenian citizens of the Republic of Armenia — as well as one Diasporan blogger do not agree with such a mindset. I can only be grateful for that. There are some problems on the Indian side, for sure, but witnessing how they have behaved and how YSMU has suggests that something very wrong did happen. Ironically, such an incident is also related to the lack of protection of local Armenians here which is why such stories need to be highlighted.

The Indians did just that in ways that Armenians are still to scared to do. I can only hope that this situation changes in the near future.

Regarding your comment about Armenians killed in Russia being parallel to Georgians, Chechens, and other Caucasian people as well as your comment about justice being for human rights everywhere can be best addressed by Samuel Adams.

“The man who says he loves other countries as much as he loves his own country is like the man who says he loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.”

There is a contradiction in your philosophy. First you say that you are concerned with injustices against all people everywhere and then you indicate that the murder of an Armenian in Russia is of no interest to you because the event did not occur in Armenia. At least, I’m consistent in my views. My concern is with all Armenians everywhere.

I have a reasonably decent view of what the news should be, and this isn’t it. The suicide or accidental death of any student would never be covered in any newspaper, with the exception of a provincial weekly in a small backwater town.

The Zaman journalist just doing his job is not the issue. That website is notorious for its anti-Armenian biases with coverage of 1915 is consistently characterized as the “so-called genocide.” In any case, my concern is not whether a Zaman journalist was covering the “news” as much as the Indian students decision to turn a colleague’s death into a mass protest over human rights and their decision to answer questions from a man associated with what is, with a few exceptions, a virulently anti-Armenian website.

The gist of my comment is that it is this “story” that is “rubbish.” The hypocrisy is not mine but the Indian students who are protesting an ethnic slur spoken by a woman surrounded by self-indulgently angry adolescents blaming her for the death of a man who fell out of a six-story window. The essence of their shallowness regarding their “fight..for human rights everywhere” can be best illustrated by the apathy of those same Indian students regarding the atrocities being committed by their own government against the people of Kasmir.

Censorship is anathema to me. Nothing in my comments indicated that I thought the story should be censored. The opinion of this “racist” is that it was a non-story that wouldn’t have rated any coverage in any responsible news outlet. And as far as the Indian students’ money….

Your contempt for the Diaspora may play well with non-Armenians, but you may want to get yourself an adding machine and calculate the amount of money provided by those students versus the amount of money provided to Armenia by the “racist, nationalist” Diaspora and think again about the level of responsibility you yourself are exhibiting. Your love of Indians and other non-Armenians juxtaposed with your disdain for Diasporan Armenians may sound like unversality to you. It sounds like self-hatred to me.

Nessuna,

With all due respect, I’m not a forensic doctor, but common sense would indicate that the only way someone’s feet would be damaged in the manner consistent with suicide would be if they were sitting on the window with their feet dangling outside. If they were sitting on the sill with their feet on the inside, the damage would have been of a different nature.

You characterize the students as being shocked and confused and requiring someone to hold their hands. Are these twenty-year olds or five-year olds?

You doubt the rector’s side of the story but are willing to embrace whatever the Indian students have to say. Why?

The reports are that the students surrounded the rector in her office and were shouting obscenities and accusing her of being responsible for the student’s death. It seems to me that the misbehavior is more on the part of the students rather than the rector. She may have lost it and called the girls prostitutes, but even that is hardly grounds for an hysterical mass over-reaction.

You ask why students would be protesting for two days? If one of them had accused the young man of stealing and others were aware of it, it would be nothing more or less than human nature to cover up one of their own’s own responsibility for his death. To demand the rector resign for a student’s death from a sixth-floor fall or for misspeaking in a moment of anger or fear is going beyond the pale. As someone said it far better..

“Me thinks thou protest too much.”

And for the record, if a group of college students in any American university had pushed their way into a Dean’s office, surrounded him/her and hurled obsenities and accusations to the point that the Dean felt physically threatened, they would have been arrested first. Then, they would have been expelled.

Today is April 24. I am the daughter and grandaugher of genocide survivors. I won’t waste my breath here relating the non-suicidal and non-accidental deaths of virtually every member of my family nor the manner in which the “so-called” Genocide has haunted me with every breath I take every day of my life.

Your comment that that I or any other Diasporan consider Genocide recognition nothing more than a matter of political goals reveals that your high degree of sensitivity is limited to the feelings of non-Armenians with whom you share such admiral solidarity. I hope you and your fellow adolescents have fun today tearing down yet another Armenian in a position of authority. The Turks, at least, will be cheering you on every step of the way.

I agree with you that maybe little could have been done before ambulance arrived. However, I accuse Armenian medical personnel for being there 45 minutes later without neccessary equipment, not even oxygen. I accuse the Rector for not explaining to the students that their Dean who was there could not do much and that Armenian ambulance is expected to be so late regardless who falls from the 6th floor. Students were schocked and confused; it is not every day you see your friend die in front of your eyes. They needed an explanation and sympathy instead of insults. I accuse the Rector for calling indian girls prostitutes, or do you have an excuse for that one too? And this is how racism enters the picture by the way.

You say that the rector has stated that the Indian students began the insults and that she reacted only after being harassed by them. She would say that one, won’t she? But why would students insult her out of blue? And why would students protest in the streets for days, if she would have not done anything wrong?

People cannot cover ever single issue, they cover the ones they feel most strongly about, and the urge to cover an issue you care about that nobody else is covering is stronger. I wanted to write something about the skinheads in Moscow for a while already, and i will one day. However, I find the issue of the Rector’s misbehavior not less important and I chose to talk about it because very few do.

It all again started at 1 pm the afternoon of April 23. The crowd was small and questions many. Biased, emotional and logical were views. Sometime you come to a point were you have to stop and accept what has happened, and try and stop things happening in the future than rather trying to raise unrelated issues.

A fact that I would like to bring under, is that no one from the university, accompanied the body back to India. The reasons they gave was that a visa could not be made ready, and for it to get ready would take a week. I don’t understand why the Indian embassy could not help the pro rector is getting an urgent visa, I’m sure that if they has wanted to help they could have. Or was the Prorector too afraid to answer the media back home that he was bringing in a dead body of an Indian student, rather than sending him back alive as a doctor. Was he afraid to tell what had actually happened to him? Why?

[…]

Students walked their way down to the republic square, banners were raised. We could see that the local Armenians walk by, some come over and talk. Ask us what had happened, some tell us that we were doing the right thing and they had to give us a proper answer, and some of the youth even tell us that we were wrong.

[…]

The rector came forward better, one of the guys told me. It would have been great if she had just reacted the same way earlier that day when she was met by the crowd, she apologized many a times, for all that was done and her actions, she said that she didn’t know how to react in front of hundreds of students against her.She also says that she did not point those fingers to everyone but than to a person who showed her, still acknowledging that she should not have done it what so ever. And for the abuses that she gave out, she says that she did no such thing.

Things she has accepted/done:

1. To take necessary measures to make sure the investigation comes out by Tuesday evening.

2. That she is really is sorry but she would not be able to say it again because later she would have no respect from the Armenian youth, but has accepted to give it in written form.

3. As far as re-appointing a new dean, she says that the decision will be ours to take because, she believes there can be no better person in post than her, and we would have to tell her by Tuesday.

4. She has written a letter about Late Anchalia, addressing it to his parents.

5. She promises to take all the necessary steps to setup emergency rooms with the required materials.

6. She says that he has already written a letter to the government to ensure an ambulance ready to move in the hour of need.

7. She asured that no harm, would be brought to Anchalia’s roomate.

Other things also discussed,

There has also been a decision, not to expel 6 students who had to be expelled due to the fight that they had during the cricket match which resulted in one person ending up in the intensive care department, suffering from sub-dural hematoma, and various other problems, sad to say few of the students were amongst those 6 students who went along with the rector! I don’t understand why they were selected to go, and if it was all a bartered deal. How can some guys who don’t even know who Anchalia was go forward and talk, was it for personal gain? or is there something more to the issuse.

The Pro-rector returned with the letter, to Anchalia’s parents, along with her apologies. They have decided to meet at 4pm on Tuesday, after classes.

Students have gone back with half filled hearts because we still aren’t sure, what really has happened is going to happen. The future is too bleak.

As for your other comment about the Zaman guy he was in Republic Square and had no idea that the Indians were coming. He knew nothing but did his jkob as a journalist just as he did yesterday when he photographed a Dashnak Genocide Memorial Procession. Unfortunately, rather than understand what news should be, you only prefer nationalist propaganda whereas the rest of us actually believe that news is news — good or bad, and regardless of when it happens.

Even Armenians here know who the rector of YSMU is and believe most of what they’ve heard. It’s usually only those Diasporans, and a handful of nationalists here, who believe in censorship that don’t. Personally speaking I have seen the attitude of the Vice Rector here and I can understand what’s happening. It’s also worth noticing that the Rector has not denied that she was offensive to the Indian students. In fact, she offered her apology 10 times although she appears to be disputing the exact turn of events.

Whether you choose to believe this story is your problem and nobody elses, but says a lot about what kind of rubbish you want covered in Armenia, and it also shows your lack of understanding about the situation in Armenia. As for the US, do me a favor. Students wouldn’t be arrested. Suspended or expelled maybe, but as almost eveybody knows, there’s nothing to suspend or expel them for otherwise they would. And as for timing, perhaps you should tell the Rector to choose when she acts in a manner not fit for position and not those who are protesting against such behaviour.

As for the Indians going back to their country, you might want that, but YSMU obviously does not because these guys pay a lot of money into the University and also the economy. Unfortunately, like most nationalists, you appear to be a racist and your comments clearly indicate that for some Armenians, Genocide recognition is not about justice being served for all those who face discrimination, but more about political goals and ambitions. Thankfully, not all Armenians think like you.

Apparently, many Armenians here are now starting to talk about the whole turn of events surrounding the death of this student, and I’m also glad to see that there are those in the Diaspora who also care. This is what saying you’re for historical justice is really about. Fighting human rights abuses and discrimination wherever and whenever it occurs and also to whoever it occurs to. Anything else is simply hypocrisy.

The rector has stated that the Indian students began the insults and that she reacted only after being harassed by them. They were the ones who tossed her the finger first. Her response was to say something to the effect that obscene gestures such as that (and she demonstrated the obscene gesture they had been giving her) were not a way to resolve problems. In what “normal” country would a rector have to resign after being accosted by a group of students hurling obscenities at her? In America, they would have been arrested.

And what exactly would the Indian students have had her do before the ambulance arrived? The medical report stated that his head had been split open and his brain was severely damaged. What American doctor would have done any more than the rector did? Would you have her pushing his brain back into his skull and stapling it up as he lay on the pavement? He didn’t jump from the second story. He jumped from the sixth story. And you’re accusing the Armenian medical personnel of being responsible for his death?

Why do you state that he “fell” from the window when the medical evidence, in particular the condition of his feet, points to the fact that he chose to jump?

Why would this be considered a “big” story? People commit suicide every day everwhere. Do you see any responsible journalist covering suicide as though it were a “big” story? Unless it’s someone like Vince Foster, it isn’t even covered by the press. Why, a day before the Armenian Genocide memorial, are you making a big deal of something that wouldn’t even get buried in the back page of any American paper? This is a story for the obituary page.

And how did racism enter the picture? Some kid jumps out of a window and the Armenians are racist because they don’t all take to the streets to protest? What exactly is it they’re supposed to be protesting? The fact that windows in Armenia can be opened?

If those Indian students have nothing better to protest than the fact that their friend died after stupidly jumping out of a six-story window of his own free will, they may want to take a look at their own government’s genocidal policies in Kashmir. If they want something to protest, they should look at the mass murders being committed by their fellow Indians.

And wasn’t it convenient that a reporter from Zaman just happened to be on the spot to cover the story? No doubt, he will make it as big a story as you apparently think it is.

There just seems to be an overwhelming number of people like you who pick us apart for things that other societies, such as America, consider utterly irrelevant and just part of the daily fabric in which tragedy and death are a normal part of life. The Armenians have enough problems without foreign nationals causing more. If they don’t like Armenia, they can go back to the egalitarian paradise they left behind in places like Calcutta.