RFE/RL ran a story yesterday on a judge recently fired from his position who says he will now support the candidacy of former president Levon Ter Petrosian in the 19 February presidential election in Armenia. Interestingly, linking to an interview I conducted with him on the trafficking of women and children from Armenia, Ara Manoogian over at Martuni or Bust remembers the judge in question.

It seems that Levon Ter-Petrosian has attracted the support of former judge Pargev Ohanian. If you recall from my interview with Onnik, there is mention of corrupt practices by judge Ohaian […]

[…]

[…] The law contains provisions to hand down heavy sentences to traffickers but the legal system is not functioning correctly. I was present at the trial of five traffickers in Armenia last August and as far as I am concerned, Judge Ohanian and the prosecutor failed to do their jobs properly. These individuals should have received sentences of at least ten years but when Gulnara Shahinian, an expert on trafficking, presented the judge with details of Armenia’s international obligations to prosecute those guilty of trafficking, he instead insisted on prosecuting them with old Soviet laws that carried lighter sentences of only two years.

[…]

Though I don’t think LTP has a chance to win, if he does for some reason come back into power, you can be sure that the “justice” we will see is not the kind of justice we are in need of. If Ohanian is a reflection of the type of people LTP will surround himself with to fix our problems, then we can’t expect too much change if LPT wins, nor will we see our problems go away.

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Reuters reports that Turkey will finally consider amending Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code which has long been considered an obstacle to democratization and freedom of speech in the country. In particular, the article which makes “insulting Turkishness” a crime, has been used to prosecute Turkish intellectuals, activists and writers such as Orhan Pamuk as well as Turkish citizens of ethnic Armenian or Kurdish extraction such as Hrant Dink.

Indeed, many pro-democracy and freedom of speech activists consider that Article 301 was indirectly responsible for Dink’s murder in Istanbul earlier this year. Anyway, Reuters says that the amending the article is not guaranteed, but with growing pressure from both inside and outside Turkey to do so, let’s hope it is.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is preparing to amend a controversial law on freedom of speech that has been criticized repeatedly by the European Union and could slow EU accession talks with Brussels.

The justice ministry will hand the draft amendment to article 301 of the penal code, which makes it an offence to “insult Turkishness,” to the cabinet within 15 days, Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin told reporters on Tuesday.

It was not clear when the cabinet would approve the amendment.

Article 301 has been used to prosecute Turkish writers and thinkers, notably for comments on the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 under the Ottoman Empire.

Two years ago the government tried Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk under article 301 for his remarks on the events of 1915-16, but he was acquitted on a legal technicality.

The European Commission’s annual progress report on Turkey, published in November, called on Ankara to make “significant further efforts” on freedom of expression and religion, and noted that more people had been prosecuted under article 301 last year than in 2005.

[…]

Critics say Turkey’s centre-right government is dragging its feet, fearing that amending the law could spark a nationalist backlash at a time when EU membership is becoming less popular among Turks.

EU officials said the law was poisoning Turkey’s relations with Armenia and weighing on the media and non-government organizations in Turkey.

Now that the electorate know the nine politicians hoping to run for president in the 19 February 2008 presidential election in Armenia, last week saw the obligatory declaration of income and assets from all of them. Interestingly, many were surprisingly open about their wealth although most Armenians will consider declarations by the prime minister, Serzh Sarkisian, and former president, Levon Ter Petrosian, suspect to say the least.

To be honest, however, while Sarkisian did report savings of $191,000, Levon Ter Petrosian claims to have no savings at all. One wonders how he can afford to eat or maintain the upkeep of his mansion, I suppose. RFE/RL has more.

[…] former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, declared ownership of a three-story house in Yerevan and some 10,000 square meters of adjacent land that was granted to him by the government after he lost power in 1998. Ter-Petrosian also told the CEC that he co-owns office space in two separate locations in the city center and has no personal bank savings.

Ter-Petrosian’s mansion is much bigger than even the home of Tigran Karapetian, a controversial millionaire businessman and TV commentator.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

RFE/RL reports that the U.S. born former foreign minister Heritage party leader, Raffi Hovannisian, is once again attempting to put forward his candidacy for the presidential election in Armenia early next year. However, as was the case in 2003, problems linger with his citizenship. Under the constitution, presidential candidates must be citizens of the Republic of Armenia for at least 10 years. Hovannisian was only granted his in 2001.

Hovannisian had been controversially barred by from contesting the previous presidential election on the grounds that he had not been an Armenian citizen for the previous ten years, something which is required by the country’s constitution. […]

Kocharian rejected at the time Hovannisian’s demand that his citizenship be backdated to 1991. The U.S.-born politician claimed that his repeated citizenship applications had been illegally ignored by Kocharian and his predecessor Levon Ter-Petrosian.

In a written appeal to Kocharian, Hovannisian’s Zharangutyun (Heritage) party stopped short of explicitly accusing the Armenian president of breaking the law, only urging him to “restore justice.” It also argued that Hovannisian had served as independent Armenia’s first foreign minister and is now one of the country’s most popular political figures.

“Based on the above-mentioned [arguments,] the Zharangutyun Party’s board expects him [Kocharian] to immediately reconsider and satisfy the public demand to grant Raffi K. Hovannisian citizenship effective from the declaration of the Republic,” the statement said.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.

Following on from Wednesday’s clashes in Tbilisi, Registan concludes that the decision to call a presidential election on 5 January 2008 is a smart move by the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili. A referendum to determine whether the parliamentary election should be held in the spring — one of the opposition demands — will also be held at the same time.

My snap take though is that this is tentatively good news for Georgia and the US. This hopefully will put Georgia back on more or less the right track. Rumors on the street were that the crackdown could only have come with US backing, and hopefully this will help repair some of the public relations damage.

[…]

[…] Georgia’s opposition is badly fractured; pretty much the only thing they could agree to was protesting Saakashvili’s regime. So this might, as commenters James and JB suggest, be a clever ploy to legitimately stay in power, however unpopular he may be.

[…]

[…] The Economist notes a curious synergy: “IT WAS exactly four years ago that Mikheil Saakashvili, then a youthful firebrand leader of the opposition to President Eduard Shevardnadze, brought his supporters out into the streets of Tbilisi.” Interesting.

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Reuters reports the expected. The Armenian Genocide Bill due to be put before the U.S. Congress next month has been suspended at the request of its co-sponsors. Well, they say “suspended,” but it’s unlikely that the situation with Iraq or Turkey is going to change anytime soon.

The sponsors conveyed their decision in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, after support for the controversial resolution support faltered in the face of vehement protests from NATO ally Turkey.

[…]

The sponsors asked Pelosi not to schedule a vote “at this time,” but said they would continue to work for “consideration sometime later this year, or in 2008.”

Right, but a word of advice. Don’t hold your breath.

Following on from the previous post detailing concerns about access to the media in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election in Armenia, RFE/RL reports that one regional TV station has already found itself in hot water after broadcasting last month’s speech attacking the government by the first president, Levon Ter Petrosian.

The Gyumri-based Gala TV’s Executive Director apparently aired the speech after being paid to do so by Ter Petrosian’s backers and despite warnings not to do so by the National Commission on Television and Radio (NCTR).

[…] Vahan Khachatrian claimed that officers of the Gyumri branch of the National Security Service visited him shortly afterward and warned Gala to stop covering Ter-Petrosian’s return to active politics.

Khachatrian said he will ignore the alleged warning. “I’m not afraid of anything or anyone,” he said, adding that tax officials in Gyumri are now investigating the legality of his ownership of real and other property.

Khachatrian also struck a defiant in a separate written statement issued later in the day. “I want to emphasize that the Gala TV company’s position will not change and that I, as the company’s owner, will not tolerate any attempt at interference by any structure or individual,” he said.

The claims came just three days after Armenia’s leading media associations expressed serious concern at reports that the government has ordered TV channels in Yerevan and elsewhere in Yerevan to shun events featuring Ter-Petrosian and, in particular, a rally which he plans to hold on Friday.

The full post is available on the 2008 Presidential Election Monitor Blog.

Via Blogian, the Los Angeles Times interviewed the Armenian Prime Minister, Serzh Sarkisian, on his visit to the United States. Obviously, despite also focusing on corruption and democracy in Armenia as well as the unresolved conflict with Azerbaijan over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh, the interview also touched upon the matter of House Resolution 106, the Armenian Genocide and relations with Turkey.

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As the U.S. Congressional House Resolution 106 recognizing the Armenian Genocide continues to make headlines around the world, The Economist has published a piece on Armenian-Turkish, U.S.-Turkish, and Armenian-Diaspora relations. While covering the larger picture, it looks at the difference on approaches to Genocide recognition between Armenians in the Republic and in the Diaspora as well as the Turkish response to H.R. 106.

Genocide is a tricky subject in Washington. Six weeks after the Rwandan genocide began in 1994, when 500,000 people had already been murdered for belonging to the wrong tribe, the American government still hesitated to call it what it was. The trouble with calling genocide “genocide” while the blood is still spilling is that, under the terms of a UN convention, one is obliged to do something to stop it.

The Armenian killings incur no such awkwardness. Obviously, Congress cannot do much about a massacre that happened nearly a century ago. But that does not mean that its words carry no cost. […]

[…]

A recent poll conducted by the International Republican Institute, a pro-democracy pressure group, suggests that the people of Armenia—unlike their brothers and sisters in the diaspora—may be ready for change. Only 3% of respondents said that recognition of the genocide was their first priority. A mere 4% listed it at all. For many, finding a job is their chief worry.

Meanwhile, Turkey has looked the other way as thousands of illegal Armenian migrants have sought work in Istanbul, the former Ottoman capital. Mutual suspicions are beginning to fade as these newcomers are recruited by Turks to care for babies and ageing parents. Armenian tourists, too, braving accusations of treachery back home, have been heading by the thousands to Turkey’s Mediterranean resorts. “Until I met a real Turk, I rather feared them,” confesses Tevan Poghossian, an Armenian pundit, who runs projects to promote Turkish-Armenian dialogue. “Now I go out drinking with them in Yerevan.”

[…]

Despite this burgeoning spirit of reconciliation, however, Turkey has balked at establishing formal ties and insists that Armenia must make the first move. Armenia retorts that it is up to Turkey to prove that its overtures are not designed solely to kill the genocide resolution; to prove its good faith, Turkey should act first. Mr Erdogan’s lieutenants blame the impasse on Turkey’s meddlesome generals, who insist that Armenia must make peace with Azerbaijan before it can make peace with Turkey.

[…]

[…] If Turkey wants to fulfil its dreams of being a regional power and an inspiring example of how Islam and democracy can co-exist, it must make peace with all its citizens, including its Kurds. And it should find a way to face up to its past. It could do worse than seek inspiration from Ataturk who, as Mr Akcam noted in a recent book, once called the Armenian tragedy “a shameful act”.

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Via Amerikan Turk, I stumbled upon an open letter to the Armenian Diaspora by Turkish writer, Mustafa Akyol. Of course, the subject of the letter is not hard to guess. It concerns the Armenian Genocide and is obviously written as a result of House Resolution 106. Before quoting from the letter which was also published by the Turkish Daily News, however, it’s interesting to read up on Akyol.

Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish Muslim writer, who argues both against Islamic extremism and extreme secularism and is an outspoken promoter of intelligent design.

Akyol was born in Ankara in 1972 and had his early education there. He later graduated from the Istanbul Nişantaşı Anadolu Lisesi and the International Relations Department of Bosphorus University. He earned his masters in the History Department of the same university.

[…]

In the past years he has given seminars in several universities in the U.S. and the UK on issues of faith, science, religious tolerance or inter-faith dialogue.

Mustafa Akyol’s articles on Islamic issues, in which he mostly argues against Islamic extremism and terrorism from a Muslim point of view and defends the Islamic faith, have appeared in publications like The Weekly Standard, The Washington Times, The American Enterprise, National Review, FrontPage Magazine and Islam Online. He lives in Istanbul and is currently working on a book titled An Islamic Case for Liberty, which he plans to have published in 2007.

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It should come as no surprise, especially considering the political fallout from the adoption last week of HR 106, that U.S. Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reported to be backtracking from the resolution that would recognize the Armenian Genocide. This always happens, cynics would argue, and The Financial Times reports that now is no different.

As recently as the weekend, Ms Pelosi said she planned to take the bill, denouncing mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire as genocide, to the full House this year.

Ms Pelosi is a longstanding backer of the measure, despite the anger it has caused in Turkey.

But, on Wednesday, facing increasing criticism and high-profile defections from among the bill’s supporters, she toned down her commitment to take it to a full House vote. “Whether it will come up or not and what the action will be remains to be seen,” she said.

This week declared support for the bill fell below the level needed for House approval – at least 10 members of Congress withdrew their backing, in addition to several others who peeled off earlier this year. As of Wednesday, the bill had 215 sponsors or co-sponsors in the 435-member House.

[…]

The legislation, backed by the House’s foreign affairs committee last week, has sparked concerns that US influence on Ankara could be weakened at a time when the Turkish government is contemplating a large military incursion into northern Iraq, to Washington’s dismay. The US military is also alarmed that the Turkish government could reduce logistical support for its troops in Iraq.

“Congress has more important work to do than antagonising a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that’s providing vital support for our military every day,” said President George W. Bush yesterday. after having made a phone call to Ms Pelosi on the issue the day before.

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