Deliberately Misleading Photo -- The parliament building in Yerevan, undated

The Prime minister takes the House floor, defines the government’s motion in a calm, self-assured way. States the need, brings the argument, dwells on key examples. All it takes is 7 minutes.

The opposition speaker steps in, blasts the PM’s definition, comes down hard on him with a couple of counter-arguments. Makes it known, that they’ve got more examples.

Opposition supporters in the House bang the tables in a reserved demonstration of support..

A rare quality of debate. I find it hard to believe, that the debaters are Armenians.

A truly mature debate. I find it hard to believe, that the average age of debaters is 22.

A two-week educational camp organized with the initiative of International Debate Education Association is coming to the end. More than three dozens of young Armenian women and men (only 4 guys!), have gone through a demanding training process on every aspect of Parliamentary Debate to reach this very exciting Grand Final Debate.

Armenian Debate Culture?

An argument full of insults and mutual accusations broke up in the Armenian Parliament back in November 30, 2011, pointing to the total lack of debating culture and basic manners among Armenian MPs.

“Good Lord!” I thought to myself at that point. “And these are the people who make laws for my country?”

The Solution

In a matter of days the group of bright, but rather undisciplined training participants underwent a miraculous transformation as an international team of trainers: Lublin University’s Sergey Naumoff, Anna Merkurievia of the St Petersburg debating association and IDEA UK’s Alexander Cavell, along with Armenian trainers Lucine Arakelyan and Anahit Galikyan progressed with their curiculum.

Armenia has no developed culture of university-level or post-graduate debating. The above-mentioned Armenian debate trainers, Anahit and Lucine, are involved in an initiative of bringing debating to Armenian schools.

There are a couple of new initiatives to widen the scope of debate education and perhaps bring it to the University level.

With time, effort and more investment, hopefully things will change and we will see much needed meaningful debates in the Armenian Parliament as well. As these brilliant young people from the Debate Camp go back to their lives, I somehow feel very optimistic for Armenia.

PS: The best debate speaker at the camp is Mariam Muradian. She’s a charismatic, bright young lady who lays out her arguments with such a masterful combination of logic, structure and persuasion, that the listener starts nodding before realizing: “Yeh! She talks sense!” Looking at Mariam, I catch myself on the thought, that emerging young female leaders in Armenia are the best hope we got for this country’s future.

Armenia -- Journalist Hayk Gevorgyan covers and opposition rally, Yerevan, undated

Rock-solid and self-assured Hayk Gevorgyan projects an image of a reliable man. Tall and tireless, Hayk is one of those rare Armenian journalists, who has always been on the spot to face riot police, their water cannons and stun grenades with a camera and a hell of a lot of courage.

Gevorgyan, 45, a prominent journalist working for pro-opposition newspaper “Haykakan Zhamanak”, was arrested on Friday on charges of running over a man named Ashot Frangulyan and abandoning him on the site of the traffic accident.

The veteran journalist, columnist and editor of Armenia’s top-selling daily newspaper has been detained more than 20 days after the alleged accident.

Gevorgyan’s friends, colleagues, as well as the Armenian opposition claim, that charges against Hayk Gevorgyan are fabricated. Prominent opposition activist @himakaren twitted yesterday, that head of Armenia’s police Vova Gasparian is thus punishing the journalist for a critical article published on the day of the alleged car accident, January 13th.

Gasparyan Vova arrests the vice-general editor of #ARMENIA 's leading opposition daily for his article here. armtimes.com/30768—
Arm oppositioner (@HimaKaren) February 03, 2012

Gevorgyan drives a popular off-road vehicle, a Niva.

Note, Hayk Gevorgyan’s son, Vahagn Gevorgyan, is one of the accused in the Aug. 9, 2011 incident between Armenian National Congress activists and police.

PS: I simply refuse to believe that Hayk Gevorgyan could run over somebody and leave them helpless on the street. He is just not that type of a person. And I firmly believe, that the Armenian police are trying to punish Hayk Gevorgian for being who he is… for being a real journalist!

Gyumri Mayor Vardan Ghukasian, Photo from the official website of Gyumri City Hall

Gyumry mayor Vardan Ghukasian announced on Monday, that his family is ready to contribute all the money necessary to acquire great Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanian’s house in Tbilisi and hand it over to Armenia’s Writers’ Union to be turned into a literary, cultural center and library, Aravot.am reports.

Hovhannes Tumanian, THE greatest Armenian poet and writer of last century, used to live in a 120 sq/m flat in Tbilisi for several years. Consequently, the house turned out to be the property of a Georgian, who said he’s ready to sell the house. Rumor has it, that a Turkish buyer had appeared, which caused quite a stir in Armenia last month. Many Armenians felt strongly, that Armenian government or benefactors should purchase the house and not let it fall into the hands of a Turk and Turkey, Armenia’s arch-rival.

Soon it became clear, that Gagik Tsarukian, Armenia’s richest oligarch is ready to sponsor the $100,000 purchase. But Asekose.am, a portal which is known to spread a lot of gossip and false information, has published a curious entry, claiming, that Tsarukian has been prevented from buying the poet’s house ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, in which his “Bargavach Hayastan” (Prosperous Armenia) party is expected to come second after President Serzh Sargsyan’s Republican party. The authorities had worries, that Tsarukian would make the house purchase a political propaganda issue as the election approaches, Asekose.am claims.

The same source speculates, that Gyumri mayor is being punished for the recent scandal related to to opening of his luxary hotel Alexandrapol.

PS: As an inhabitant of Gyumri, I have to note, that Gyumri mayor frequently does beneficiary work: he covers tuition fees for many Gyumri students, distributes food and assistance to the poor in Gyumri and more. However, his interest in Tumanian’s house in Tbilisi is surprising, considering the fact, that Tumanian is from Lori region and Gyumri has its own famous poets. So in this light, the rumor by Asekose.am looks like a reasonable explanation too.

What happens when Armenian Americans, pick up, and move to Armenia? Produced and Directed by Robert Davidian. (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Last week I had the opportunity of test-running Orange Armenia’s new Internet Now 4 broadband modem which boasts supporting up to 42 Mb/sec speed.

With the Internet Now 4 modem watching 480p YouTube videos finally became a pleasure from pain it has been on regular 3G modems. Going HD still involves pausing a little and waiting the video to buffer before going ahead.

The real speeds I got during the 2 days of testing in central Yerevan and Erebuni district, was an average of 6-8 mbps. On one or two occasions my speed jumped as high as 12 mbps in downtown Yerevan.

This product announcement by Orange Armenia came less than one month after Armenia’s largest mobile phone operator VivaCell-MTS announced the launch of its 4G internet offering – Internet Express, with a speed limitation of 6mbps. Orange Armenia’s 3G+ offering is designed to compete with VivaCell-MTS’s 4G and to beat it on price and speed.

The price for Orange’s Internet Hima 4 starts from 11,000 AMD per month contract with an additional cost of 39,000 AMD for the modem, which totals to 171,000 for a year or 456 USD. The least expensive variation of VivaCell’s Internet Express will cost 15,000 per month with no fee for the modem itself. But on the totals the price is nearly the same – 180,000 AMD or 480 USD.

So, to conclude, if you’re looking for faster mobile internet options, Orange’s Internet Hima 4 seems like the slightly better choice.

However, consider the fact, that there are much cheaper 3G options. You could get 2-3 mbps speeds at the cost of around 6,000 AMD per month or 80,000 AMD per year (200 USD). In this light, both VivaCell’s or Orange’s fast new offerings don’t seem to make much sense just yet.

Dealing with clichés:

It is a great shame that most of the hundreds of repetitive articles on the issue in the recent days, seem to focus on the French-Turkish political controversy and the alleged violation of the ‘freedom of speech’, rather than exploring the reasons why such bill became necessary.

Some of this journalism seems to be more about ‘copy’- ‘paste’ rather than research and one cannot help the anger at the unprofessionalism of the authors, who fail to make an effort to see the larger picture.

The main critique of the Bill is summarised in the rather correct statement that, ‘history should be left to historians’. This catchy line is repeated in parrot fashion by every other commentator on the issue, without giving much thought to what this actually means in the current scenario. Let’s see.

Historians have indeed done their job and they found in their overwhelming majority a genocide to have taken place in Turkey in 1915, taking the lives of around 1,5 million innocent Armenians. The Turkish government not being able to bring itself to accepting the outcome of leaving history to historians, invests heavily into creating the industry of denial of what the historians have established, hiring London and Washington based professional lobbying groups, paying pseudo-historians for scientifically incorrect articles and, most importantly, applying political pressure on other governments to refrain from accepting what the historians are saying.

So, it is actually Turkey that is against leaving history to the historians and the main culprit of the further international politicisation of the issue.

Then, it is argued in almost every report on the issue, that the French Bill was a political move on behalf of the Sarkozy’s government to win 500,000 Armenian votes. Numbers are a great way to make an impression, are they not? 500,000 – any politician would want that number of votes, if it could be achieved through a single piece of legislation, right?

Now, 500,000 is not very accurate, it is an estimate. But lets accept it as a true number of people of Armenian decent in France.

Around 100,000 of those will not eligible to vote in the next elections not having achieved the required suffrage age.

Many of these people will vote for Socialists because of ideology, many do not like Sarkozy personally, many do not like his party. This Bill, which was cross-party supported and argued against is not a move that would have made all these French citizens forget every other worry they have with regards to the future of France and always vote for Sarkozy from now on. He has not even done enough to associate himself with the Bill, as not to raise further international tension.

It is rather insulting to the Armenian community in France to treat them as this homogenous mass, almost a totalitarian religious sect, that is making decisions in a centralized way and forcing its members to follow the ruling of the chiefs of the tribe.

And what about Turks living in France? Has a single journalist quoting the 500,000 Armenian votes even attempted to look up their numbers? You might be surprised. By different estimates there is, yes, you have guessed, around 500,000 Turks living in France. When we add the millions of Muslims who could potentially take this Bill as an insult to a fellow Islamic nation, as indeed the Organisation of Islamic Conference has declared, then you get a slightly less convincing argument.

Now, I am getting closer to the more serious point put forward by the more respectable critics of the Bill, who are voicing, sometimes quite convincingly, concerns with regards to the impact this law could potentially have on the freedom of speech in France.

 The necessity of the Bill explained:

In the opinion of a number of Genocide scholars, denial is the last component of an unpunished genocide. If states which have committed genocide get away with denying it, they achieve the ultimate goal of the perpetrators.

When a powerful nation, such as Turkey is allowed by its allies to conduct a unequivocal campaign of denial, paying pseudo-historians to rewrite history, this issue needs to be addressed in legal terms.

If someone denies the Holocaust, which as you know is recognised by Germany and taught in its schools, the sheer power of Jewish and pro-Israeli organisations will put an end to that person’s career in any walk of life. However, in many countries, including France, the denial of Holocaust is prosecuted as well. And that is a good thing.

Jewish communities around the world might have enough influence to destroy such people today with non-legal means, however the enhanced power to bring prosecution against them in court, allows better peace of mind for the future.

There is a number of extremist organisations all across the globe who try to justify past crimes against humanity and if they are given a platform under the auspices of ‘freedom of speech’, that will bring end to all freedom in our understanding.

In the case of Armenians who are up against a denialist machine of a G20 country such law becomes a necessity. The undignified approach of Turkish government of cowardly undermining a great tragedy that wiped Armenians of the face of their ancestral land, most probably never to return, is sickening.

What freedom of speech is being protected here, I cannot comprehend. The freedom of expression has never been absolute and limitations on it are in place in a number of democratic societies based on the overriding considerations of public policy.

Arguably genocide denial is just another expression of hate speech and a very dangerous one indeed.

After the September 11 attacks British government introduced a law banning ‘glorification of terrorism’. Why did no one object to that? Because it is immoral to glorify terrorists, one would argue, although all that is being done is expressing one’s thoughts.

However, public policy and safety require such limitation on that freedom.

How is denial of genocide, which can lead to falsification of history, glorification of murderers as national heroes and representation of racist ideology as necessary for national preservation different?

Is it not in public interest to stop this type of expression of extremist views?

Acts such as this adopted by the French Parliament are the powerful tool the free world can impose against such blatant efforts to rewrite history and help to push Turkey closer to an open debate of their not so recent dark past.

As long as their well-paid agents in universities, newspapers and international organisations are allowed to continue creating this industry of denial, the lazy, unprofessional journalists will continue to refer to such works and publications, creating an impression of historical non-clarity. This phenomenon, quite cynically,  pictures Armenians and their allies as being politically motivated to harm Turkey and masterfully imposes such views on major world media – which in their polit-correct bid to be ‘impartial’, continue to add to the general public opinion confusion over the issue. This is insulting to the descendants of the survivors and should not be allowed to happen.

This is the type of denial this law is called to address. Drawing false parallels with other historical events and arguing that this might open the floodgates for more similar laws is not correct. Each page of our common history deserves a full examination of all relevant circumstances and the circumstances of the tragic event in question call for such drastic measures in the name of humanity and its common values. No one challenges the historical truth about the slave trade today, but if someone did it would arguably have purely racist motives. If then it grew to be a global political issue and governments started embracing this denial for sinister reasons, hurting the feelings of millions of descendants of the victims of the slave trade, then, yes, a law prohibiting such denial would become necessary in democratic societies around the world.

As Socialist legislator Yannick Vaugrenard told his upper house peers. “The truth is not always strong enough to conquer lies.”

Political importance:

Another misconception of the Armenian question is that it is something belonging to history books, a non-current issue with no implications in the modern times. One could not be more mistaken.

Turkey, needs to face its demons if it plans, as it argues, to become a free, democratic society. As long as Turkey, as a nation, does not have the maturity of a society which can deal with its historical shortcomings, how can other members of the international community treat it with trust and respect? Is such a country ready to be accepted as a full member of the European Union?

More importantly, the Armenian genocide is a current political question that stands between Armenia and Turkey. Unless, Turkey recognises the fact of the genocide to have taken place, there can never be peace and reconciliation between the two nations. How long are Armenians to leave in fear of one day being subjected to the same treatment as their ancestors from a country that proclaims many of the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide national heroes?  Modern Turkey was founded on the very racist ideology that was the reason for this genocide and as long as the Turkish establishment refuses to be honest with the world and its own citizens, the Turkish state remains a danger to all neighbouring nations and their own ethnic minorities.

Therefore, I submit that arguments for the ‘protection of freedom of speech’ are rather naïve and counterproductive.

A line must be drawn between true and false. Denial of the Armenian genocide should be prosecuted in the name of preventing hate speech in free societies, in the name of achieving peace between Armenia and Turkey, for the sake of scientific integrity, and the more democratic future of Turkey itself.

The victims of the genocide deserve to rest in peace.

About the Author

Arshak Mkrtchyan (aka Arshakuni) – is a relatively new but very interesting, sometimes controversial blogger from the UK, who blogs only when he really has a point to make.

A Putin’s Fan Club will open in Armenia on February 2nd with the initiative of a recently founded organization called CIS Youth Council.

According to Aravot Daily, the goal of the club is to promote Russian – Armenian relations as well ass the ideas of Russian presidential hopeful V.V. Putin.

The Fan Club will operate in Russian Book Houses operating in Armenia. That probably means two locations: one in Yerevan and a recently opened one in Artashat.

The initiator of this idea is Andranik Nikoghosian, the president of the above mentioned CIS Youth Council, as well as the owner of a large number of Armenian media outlets and founder of a range of organizations, among which are Gazeta.am, MaxInfo.am, NeoNews.am, InterPress.am, Evraznews.com, “De Facto” magazine, youth movement “International”, Fund “Forward Russia-Armenia”, “Eurasian Integration”, Panarmenian International Youth Centre, Civil Youth Initiative “Russians of Armenia”.

Nikoghosian, who is a young ambitious politician apparently based in Moscow, has become increasingly active as pre-election campaign activates in Armenia. Recently there were rumors, that he might be appointed as governor of Armavir region in Armenia, which he denied, but made a point of it in his own media outlets.

Andranik Nikoghosian is also rumored to be behind the controversial “Chenq lrelu” initiative.

PS: I have been taking this initiative with a lot of humor and skepticism, because there doesn’t appear to be much of anything else I can do. There certainly is nothing wrong with having a Putin’s Fan Club in Armenia, but I have a strange feeling, that this is part of a much bigger game.

A filmmaker makes a journey into her own family’s history to investigate the terrible truth behind her grandmother’s odd tattoos and, in the process, unveils the story of the Armenian women driven out of Ottoman Turkey during the First World War.

The film was screened prime-time on Al Jazeera from January 11 – 18th. (Thank you 517design for the link to the film in HD).

On January 15th more than a hundred environmental activists, artists and journalists visited Teghut forest, where a major mining project is underway.

Yerevan’s Central (Closed) Market, a popular tourist attraction and an officially recognized architectural monument, has closed its doors for renovation since January 1st.

While in operation, the picturesque market presented an opportunity to explore Armenian food and sweets, even though it was too expensive for an average Yerevantsi to shop in and was never really busy.

In September 2011 the market was acquired by MP Samvel Alexanian, who happens to be one of Armenia’s richest businessmen, top importer of food products like sugar and oil and the owner of supermarket chain Yerevan City. He bought it from another major businessman and MP Gagik Tsarukian. The two are often referred to as oligarchs.

Days before the closure of the market for renovation, rumors went around that Alexanian is planning to turn the market into a branch of his “Yerevan City” chain, leaving the 70-something salespeople in the market out of work, a charge which the business man denied today.

Digging inside the Closed Market, Photo via A1plus

“The Closed Market won’t turn into a Yerevan City shop. We will only renovate and bring it to a proper condition,” Samvel Alexanian told Hetq.am today.

The business man also informed that an underground parking facility is being built under the market. He insisted that the market will be modernized, shops will open inside and operate alongside food-sellers, thus creating many more jobs than the market used to provide (Alexanian mentioned up to 300 jobs to be created in the market, but I’ll believe it when I see it).

His words seem to be confirmed by Yerevan’s Municipality. Their spokesperson told RFE/RL that the Closed Market was in pretty bad shape, the toilets weren’t operating, there was no running water, so in fact the renovation works were taking place because the Municipal officials had demanded improvement of the conditions in the market. He also said the architecture of the building will remain intact.

PS: We have heard a lot of assurances by now that the Closed Market will continue to be a Closed Market. But something tells me – it will never be the same again, even as it seems from the first glance that big improvements are coming its way. Time will tell…

Meanwhile, most Armenians lay lavish tables on New Year’s Eve and celebrate with a lot of food. Khozi bood (glazed ham) and lots of meat products leave little chance for the believers determined to fast. New Year’s Eve and the following 3 days are a period of paying courtesy visits to relatives, respected friends, colleges and seating at the table and tasting the plentiful food…

A lot of Christmas symbolism is applied to the New Year instead of Christmas in Armenia. On New Year’s Eve we put up a Tonatsar (Christmas tree), prepare gifts for our children, because Dzmer Pap (or Kaghand Pap, otherwise known as Santa Clause) with Dzyunanushik (Snow-white, Santa Clause’s granddaughter) comes to Armenia on New Year’s Eve, not on Christmas.

Things get further complicated, because many young people celebrate Christmas on December 25th, with the tradition of Western Christian Church penetrating Armenia through Hollywood movies  and other types of Californication.

Christmas Day itself is more of a religious holiday in Armenia, so the feasts of New Year’s Eve are not really seen as appropriate. The day’s traditional food is harisa, fish and red wine.

With all of this confusion, New Year becomes Armenia’s favorite holiday, while the real Holy Day – the day of Christmas, pales and becomes something of a complimentary holiday.

I understand, that the root of the problem lies in our Soviet heritage. The Communists, who were atheists in their beliefs, fought fiercely against Christianity for 70 years. This included forbidding Christmas and encouraging lavish celebration of New Year as a replacement. Now, 20 years after Soviets are gone, we still see the impact.

I volunteered to work on December 31st and January 1st this year (as well as previous two years), because I firmly believe, that the real holiday for me should be the Armenian Christmas day – January 6th. Consider this my little protest against the extravagant New Year celebrations and a challenge to myself, to learn to appreciate real Armenian traditions and values.

I want to finish this post by wishing you all a “Shnorhavor Soorb Tsnund” (which means ‘Congratulations for the Holy Birth’). Let this year be full of blessings and joy for us and our wonderful country – Armenia.

This blog was viewed about 210,000 times in 2011. In 2011, there were 180 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1,232 posts.

Here’s the shameful bit – the busiest day of the year was September 17th with 6,272 views. The most popular post that day was Armenia’s first real porn scandal as it were…. :)))

The top referring sites in 2011 were:

• facebook.com
• networkedblogs.com
• twitter.com
• go.mail.ru
• wordpress.com

There’s a lot more I wanted to write about and discuss this year (e.g. issues of Kajaran mining project, Yerevan’s closed market and Parisian surch cafe), but everything ends at some point, so I will stop here and wish all the readers of this blog a very Happy New Year! Hope to see you here, at this blog – next year.

Photo from http://http://www.tekgoblin.com/

Armenia’s largest mobile operator, VivaCell-MTS, announced today about the commercial launch of its fourth generation 4G/LTE (Long Term Evolution) network.

Currently VivaCell-MTS’s LTE network is available in the small center of Yerevan, with further expansion planned in other parts of RA.

LTE, the new generation mobile communication technology enables an increased data transfer rate and reduced latency. The theoretical capacity of LTE network is up to 150 Mbps for download and up to 50 Mbps – for upload. However, VivaCell-MTS advertises a maximum speed of 6 Mbps. To compare, I have 3G modems from all of the Armenian operators – Beeline, Vivacell-MTS and Orange, which allow comfortable use of 3G internet at speeds of 1-2 Mbps.

Vivacell-MTS’s new offer currently doesn’t make much sense. You will be paying double or triple the cost of accessing mobile internet at 4G but only be able to use in Yerevan’s center, whereas all mobile operators have excellent 3G coverage almost everywhere in the country.

However, first commercial launch of 4G will surely push the market forward. And Armenia becomes one of the few countries in the world to launch it. BTW – as far as I remember, Orange was the first company to test-launch 4G in Armenia almost a year ago. I’m sure, that Orange will be next to commercially launch its 4G/LTE network in Armenia and it will be very soon!

The event was part of Winterfest 2011, a series of fun and enjoyable events, including the Winter Parade, Music Days, games and crafts as well as exhibition of eco-friendly New Year trees, on-line Contests and Santa Run.

The Winterfest is being held for the 5th time this year. The event is traditionally organized by Kanachastan NGO in collaboration with the Deem Communications.

Armenia -- Municipal authorities show a homeless person his temporary shelter, Yerevan, 23Dec2011 | Photo from Yerevan.am

The number of Yerevan’s homeless is a mystery. Municipal and State Social Welfare Administrations don’t have reliable data, because the homeless are constantly on the move and in many cases avoid the authorities. And yet, Yerevan’s mayor Taron Margarian has come up with a plan to solve the problem of sheltering them.

On Friday they mayor announced the launch of a joint project of Yerevan’s municipality and “Hans Christian Kofoed” fund, to search for and shelter all the homeless people in the capital before New Year and Christmas holidays.

According to the press announcement, financial means have been allocated to accomodate them, provide basic medical care and “other urgent needs.”

Armenia -- Yerevan's homeless at a temporary shelter provided by municipality and "Hans Christian Kofoed" fund, Yerevan, 23Dec2011 | Photo from Yerevan.am

Head of Municipal Social Welfare Department Ruzanna Zaqarian said, that the authorities plan to register all the homeless, create an inventory of their problems and start working towards finding employment or “other solutions” to their problems.

This is a very welcome move by the mayor, especially ahead of the festive holidays.

The Challenge

My collegue Vahe Sarukhanian, a journalist at Hetq.am, has covered Yerevan’s homeless people extensively. He told me the number of homeless people is definately more than 100 in the capital. As for a more accurate estimate, he says, nobody can be sure.

A Temporary shelter and Center for Supporting Homeless People has been operating in Yerevan’s Haghtanak (Choorod Gyugh) distrcit since 2006. It operates with state funding. The Center accomodates homeless people for a two-month period. During this time the social workers of the center try to address some of their problems.

According to Hetq.am, by the start of this year (during 4 years of operation), the center had returned 22 homeless people to their families, found employment for 20 of them.

A representative of the Ministry of Social Welfare told Hetq.am that 50% of the homeless people return back to Temporary shelter again and again after one or two days after their two-month housing period is over. The shelter can fit 60 people, so there’s always more people in need of a shelter than the center can provide. In winter they try to accomodate more people, cramming up to 100 in the space allocated for 60.

And yet, Vahe Sarukhanian tells me, even when those 100 have been in the temporary shelter, he has seen a lot more homeless people around the city.

Vahe’s articles show us portraits of hopeless and disappointed people (eg. here or here), who have no motivation to solve their problems and go on with life.

So, after the holidays are over, Yerevan’s mayor Taron Margarian will face a question - how long is Yerevan’s municipality, along with supporting donors and funds, ready and able to house those people?

The state-approved rate of sustaining a homeless person for a day is 2500 Armenian drams ($6.5). The state budget has allocated 69 million drams (around $180,000) for taking care of the homeless this year. This would be only enough for 75 people. The funding is up from 54 million drams of last year. But there’s always more in need.

Judging from Taron Margarian’s announcement, the municipality has found additional resources to house those not covered by the state budget, which is great. But their announcement also demonstrates, that the Social Welfare Administration don’t have numbers either. They don’t know if they’re dealing with 25, 50, 100 or 200 homeless. They are just starting to register the homeless and find out about their problems. I hope the municipality people have enough determination and resources to make everything right.

However, as the math above shows, only 20-25% of the homeless return to more or less normal life. What will happen with the rest? Will the municipality house 25, 50, 100 or a much larger crowd forever?

PS: I’m writing this blog-post as a note to myself. To get the facts down and revisit the issue in a couple of days, couple of weeks, couple of months, couple of years. Because it is very hard to see homeless people in the streets of Yerevan and harder to understand, that you can’t really help them. Hopefully, Yerevan’s mayor can.

General Assembly resolution 260 (III) of 9 December 1948 (Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) states, that (a) Genocide, (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide, (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide, (d) Attempt to commit genocide and (e) Complicity in genocide are all acts, which shall be punishable.

Gregory Stanton, the president of Genocide Watch,  suggests, that genocide develops in 8 stages.  What I’m most interested in is the 8th stage – Denial.

“DENIAL is the eighth stage that always follows a genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. [...] The response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts.”

Coming back to General Assembly resolution 260 (III) and considering Stanton’s description of denial, I would argue, that denial is “complicity in genocide” which should be punished.

The lower chamber of France’s Parliament adopted a draft bill that aims at criminalizing public statements denying genocides. Turkey, a country which has been denying the Armenian Genocide it committed for around 100 years now, has reacted furiously to this move of the French National Assembly and called it a limitation of freedom of speech. France’s move has been criticised by others as well, while French president Nicolas Sarkozy has said Ankara cannot teach his country any “lessons.”

Given the definitions I brough above, it seems to me, that France is holding the moral high ground and it is ridiculous to confuse denial – something that constitutes a genocidal act, with freedom of speech. It is similar to giving false testimony about a crime and claiming, that you’re simply exercising your freedom of speech.

PS: I can at least understand when Turks deny genocide and invent the ‘freedom of speech’ argument to justify their denial. But when representatives of other nationalities and especially Armenians bring up the argument, I simply lose patience.