218 replies to this topic

[Yervant1]

Panorama, Armenia

Oct 13 2017

 

 

Azerbaijanis attempt to steal stand property of the Armenian Pavilion at the Frankfurt Book Fair

 

“On October 12th, 2017 at the Frankfurt Book Fair two Azerbaijani men came to the Armenian stand and took away several maps of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh),” Deputy Culture Minister of Armenia Nerses Ter-Vardanyan wrote on Facebook.

According to him, Armenian representatives tried to stop them, requesting the return of the stand property, but one of them shouted out political statements and returned to the Azerbaijani stand.

“The representative of the Armenian stand, including me followed them to their stand and I took back the maps from their hands. I immediately called the book fair security and police, as well as the Deputy Director of Frankfurt Book Fair, Mr Tobias Voss. The police talked to the witnesses of the event and took written notes. Mr Voss promised to do his best to solve the situation. I offered to organize a discussion with the representatives of the Azerbaijani stand with participation of Frankfurt Book Fair officials,” wrote Ter-Vardanyan.

According to the message, the incident was recorded and photographed on camera by journalists. Despite Azerbaijani efforts to delete the recordings, the Armenian side promises to share the materials with the press.

“Today, I have already seen the article in the Azerbaijani press about the incident, which states that they have found and extinguished maps from the “separatists’”stand.  And this is done by a country whose stand is overwhelmed by political propaganda to the detriment of culture and literature (see some pictures attached). We are looking forward to a positive solution of the problem from the Frankfurt Book Fair management,” the message read.

https://www.panorama...ok-Fair/1849573

[Yervant1]

Asbarez.com

 

Azeri Destruction of Armenian Monuments Featured on UN Website

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July 13, 2018

The demolished Armenian cross stones in Djulfa

STEPANAKERT—On July 11, a memorandum by the Artsakh Foreign Ministry about the state of the historical and cultural monuments in Artsakh and Azerbaijan was published at the United Nations’ official website. Earlier, the foreign ministry memorandum was circulated in the UN, as well as the OSCE and the Council of Europe.

The document emphasizes that all the architectural monuments in the territory of the Republic of Artsakh are the property and heritage of Artsakh. They are included in the State Register of Immovable Historical and Cultural Monuments and are under the state protection.

Being a responsible member of the international community and attaching great importance to the preservation of cultural and historical monuments, the Republic of Artsakh, on a voluntary basis, undertook commitments stemming from the European Cultural Convention, the European Convention on the Protection of the Archaeological Heritage and the European Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe. The corresponding instruments of ratification were sent to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on 22 December 2014 and 30 June 2015.  In compliance with the undertaken commitments, the Government of the Republic of Artsakh allocates funds annually for the preservation of historical monuments, regardless of their origin.

View photo gallery below

Artsakh Foreign Ministry presents proof of Azerbaijani destruction of Armenian monuments in Azerbaijan

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The document presents facts that refute the false accusations of Azerbaijan on the destruction of Islamic monuments in the territory of Artsakh. The Memorandum notes that besides false allegations, Azerbaijan does not present any evidence and merely attempts to attribute its own approaches and actions to the Armenian side. In this context, it is stressed that during the Soviet period, as well as during the war, Azerbaijan destroyed 167 Armenian churches, 8 monastic complexes, 123 historical cemeteries.

Today, Azerbaijan continues its deliberate policy to destruct the Armenian monuments in the territories under its control. Moreover, during peacetime the Azerbaijani authorities completely or partially destroyed all the Armenian cultural and historical monuments of Nakhichevan, where until the end of the 20th century there were 218 Armenian Christian monasteries, churches and chapels, and more than 4,500 khachkars (cross-stones) and, at the same time, only 6 mosques.

The document expresses concern over Azerbaijani authorities’ attempts to interpret the construction of churches in Artsakh as a violation of international humanitarian law and to attach religious character to the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict.

In this context, the document stresses that there is no single clause in international Humanitarian and Human Rights Law, which restricts freedom of religion, including building of places of worship. Armenians have been building churches for over 1700 years, long before the appearance of Azerbaijan itself. According to the position of Artsakh, the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict is not of a religious nature, but it is a clash of two systems of values — an aspiration to freedom and democracy, from the side of Artsakh, and an attempt to suppress by force the inalienable right of the people of Artsakh to decide their own destiny, from the side of Azerbaijan.

The Memorandum also includes numerous visual materials testifying to the deliberate destruction and desecration of the Armenian monuments by Azerbaijan.

 

 

http://asbarez.com/1...-on-un-website/

[Yervant1]

 Azerbaijan’s Destruction of Armenian

            Monuments Exceeds ISIS Crimes

            By Harut Sassounian

            Publisher, The California Courier

            www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

“A groundbreaking forensic report tracks Azerbaijan’s destruction of
89 medieval churches, 5,480 intricate cross-stones, and 22,700
tombstones,” is the subtitle of an incredible article by Simon
Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman, published in the Hyperallergic Magazine
last week. The article is titled: “A Regime Conceals its Erasure of
Indigenous Armenian Culture.”

In April 2011, when the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan wanted to visit
Nakhichevan, an Armenian territory classified by the Soviets as an
“autonomous republic” of Azerbaijan, to verify the destruction of
thousands of historical medieval Armenian khachkars (cross-stones), he
was blocked by Azeri officials who told him that reports of their
destruction was fake news.

Under Azeri oppression, the longstanding Armenian community of
Nakhichevan had dwindled to zero. Not content with ethnic-cleansing,
the Azeris proceeded to eliminate all traces of Armenian monuments,
claiming that no Armenians had ever lived in Nakhichevan.

“In December 2005, an Iranian border patrol alerted the Prelate of
Northern Iran’s Armenian Church that the vast Djulfa cemetery, visible
across the border in Azerbaijan, was under military attack. Bishop
Nshan Topouzian and his driver rushed to videotape over 100
Azerbaijani soldiers, armed with sledgehammers, dump trucks and cranes
destroying the cemetery’s remaining 2,000 khachkars; over 1,000 had
already been purged in 1998 and 2002,” reported Maghakyan and Pickman.

The flattened land, where the khachkars stood for centuries, is now a
military rifle range. The “demolition was the ‘grand finale’ of
Azerbaijan’s eradication of Nakhichevan’s Armenian past,” wrote the
two authors.

Maghakyan and Pickman reported that “the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) employed remote sensing technologies in
its pioneer investigation into cultural destruction. Their 2010
geospatial study concluded that ‘satellite evidence is consistent with
reports by observers on the ground who have reported the destruction
of Armenian artifacts in the Djulfa cemetery.’”

“Absolutely false and slanderous information … [fabricated by] the
Armenian lobby,” proclaimed Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who
makes frequent threats against Armenia and distorts its history.

The authors also quote from public decree No.5-03/S on December 6,
2005, by Nakhichevan’s “local autocrat” Vasif Talibov, a relative of
Pres. Aliyev, “ordering a detailed inventory of Nakhichevan’s
monuments. Three years later, the investigation was summed up in the
bilingual English and Azerbaijani ‘Encyclopedia of Nakhchivan
Monuments,’ co-edited by Talibov himself. Missing from the 522-page
‘Encyclopedia’ are the 89 medieval churches, 5,840 intricate
khachkars, and 22,000 tombstones that [Armenian researcher Argam]
Ayvazyan had meticulously documented. There is not so much as a
footnote on the now-defunct Christian Armenian communities in the
area—Apostolic and Catholic alike. Nevertheless, the official
Azerbaijani publication’s foreword explicitly reveals ‘Armenians’ as
the reason for No. 5-03/S: ‘Thereafter the decision issued on 6
December 2005 … a passport was issued for each monument … Armenians
demonstrating hostility against us not only have an injustice [sic]
land claim from Nakhchivan, but also our historical monuments by
giving biassed [sic] information to the international community. The
held investigations once again prove that the land of Nakhchivan
belonged to the Azerbaijan turks [sic]….’”

Any Azerbaijani who dares to speak out in defense of Armenians is also
attacked as an enemy of Azerbaijan. A courageous Azerbaijani writer,
Akram Aylisli, paid a hefty price for telling the truth about the
destruction of Armenian monuments in his hometown of Agulis (known
today as Aylis). The well-known novelist was furious that the Azeri
government was destroying Armenian churches. In his novel, “Stone
Dreams,” the protagonist, an intellectual from Agulis, refers to
memories of the town’s eight of the 12 medieval churches that had
survived until the 1990’s, and protects a victim of anti-Armenian
pogroms in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku. Pres. Aliyev revoked Aylisli’s
pension and title of “People’s Writer.” His writings were removed from
school curricula, his books were publicly burned, and his family
members were fired from their jobs. He has been under de facto house
arrest since the release of his novel. Aylisli protested the
destruction of the Armenian churches in Agulis and resigned from his
position as Member of Azerbaijan’s Parliament. He fearlessly sent a
telegram to Pres. Heydar Aliyev in 1997, calling the destruction of
the Armenian churches in Aylis an “act of vandalism being perpetrated
through the involvement of armed forces and employment of anti-tank
mines.”

The two authors spoke with Russian journalist Shura Burtin who after
interviewing Aylisli in 2013 traveled to Nakhichevan and reported that
he didn’t see “a trace of the area’s glorious past.” Burtin concluded:
“Not even ISIS could commit such an epic crime against humanity.”

The authors reported that Aylisli’s 2018 non-fiction essay in
Farewell, claimed “that a mosque built five years ago on the site of
one of the destroyed churches has been boycotted by locals because
‘everyone in Aylis knows that prayers offered in a mosque built in the
place of a church don’t reach the ears of Allah.’”

Argam Ayvazyan, a native of Nakhichevan who spent decades
photographing the local Armenian monuments before their destruction,
was quoted by Maghakyan and Pickman as decrying the world’s silence:
“Oil-rich Azerbaijan’s annihilation of Nakhichevan’s Armenian past
make it worse than ISIS, yet UNESCO and most Westerners have looked
away.” ISIS-demolished sites like Palmyra can be renovated, Ayvazyan
argued, but “all that remain of Nakhichevan’s Armenian churches and
cross-stones that survived earthquakes, caliphs, Tamerlane, and Stalin
are my photographs.”

[Yervant1]

The Guardian, UK

March 1 2019

 

 

Monumental loss: Azerbaijan and 'the worst cultural genocide of the 21st century'

 

A damning new report details an attempted erasure by Azerbaijan of its Armenian cultural heritage, including the destruction of tens of thousands of UNESCO-protected ancient stone carvings

 

by Dale Berning Sawa

 

Lost to time … some of Djulfa’s thousands of khachkars, circa 16th century, photographed in the 1970s before their destruction. Photograph: © Argam Ayvazyan archives, 1970-81

 

The 21st century’s most extensive campaign of cultural cleansing to date may not have happened in Syria, as you might assume, but a largely ignored part of the Transcaucasian plateau.

 

According to a lengthy report published in the art journal Hyperallergic in February, the Azerbaijani government has, over the past 30 years, been engaging in a systematic erasure of the country’s historic Armenian heritage. This official, albeit covert, destruction of cultural and religious artefacts exceeds Islamic State’s self-promotional dynamiting of Palmyra, according to the report’s authors, Simon Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman.

 

Maghakyan, a Denver-based analyst, activist and lecturer in political science, labels it “the greatest cultural genocide of the 21st century”. He grew up with stories about his father visiting a beautiful, mysterious place called Djulfa. Located in the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan, on the banks of the Araxes river, it was the site of a medieval necropolis, the largest ancient Armenian cemetery in the world. Visitors through the centuries, from Alexandre de Rhodes to William Ouseley, had noted the remote location’s splendour.

 

At its height, the graveyard counted around 10,000 khachkars, or cross stones, standing to attention, the earliest dating back to the 6th century. Unique to Armenian burial traditions, these distinctive tall steles of pinkish red and yellow stone feature crosses, figurative scenes and symbols, and highly decorative relief patterning. By the time the Soviets formalised the autonomous regions of Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhichevan in 1920, after decades of plunder, less than 3,000 khachkars remained. Subsequent episodic vandalism led Unesco in 2000 to order that the monuments be preserved.

 

But that had little effect. On 15 December 2005, the prelate of northern Iran’s Armenian church, Bishop Nshan Topouzian, filmed – from across the river in Iran – the Azerbaijani military methodically laying waste with sledgehammers to all that remained of Djulfa. The soldiers loaded the debris on to truck beds and dumped it into the Araxes.

 

             

 

The footage can be found in a 2006 film entitled The New Tears of Araxes posted on YouTube, [https://www.youtube....h?v=JZu2zqFE_gI] edited by Maghakyan and scripted by Pickman. It is chilling. Satellite research shows that, in 2003, the uneven, textured landscape was dotted with multiple small structures. By 2009, it is flattened and empty.

 

The Azerbaijani government has repeatedly refused international inspectors entry to the site, it has not responded to requests for comment – including for this article – and it has denied Armenians ever lived in Nakhichevan. Such stonewalling renders independent verification difficult, but the sheer amount of forensic evidence that Maghakyan and Pickman present makes a rock-solid case for at least not being deterred. Their contention is that the dramatic events at Djulfa marked the final stage of a broader campaign to denude Nakhichevan of its indigenous Armenian Christian past.

 

Underlining quite how little international attention has been paid to this story, most of the material on which this report is based was gathered not by official bodies but by individuals, who, like Maghakyan and Pickman, have operated on their own dime.

 

 

Armenian art researcher Argam Ayvazyan in 1981, next to a 14th-century khachkar in Nors, near his birthplace. Photograph: © Argam Ayvazyan archives, 1970-81

 

Local researcher Argam Ayvazyan, now exiled in Armenia, photographed 89 Armenian churches, 5,840 khachkars, and 22,000 tombstones between 1964 and 1987 – which the report states have all disappeared. A Scotsman named Steven Sim travelled on a whim to eastern Turkey in 1984 and has taken in excess of 80,000 slides and photographs over the past 35 years documenting ancient Armenian heritage across the region: “It was the nearest faraway place to Britain, at the time, that was cheap to go to,” he says. He’s been regularly returning ever since, amassing a 1,000-tome library – with many books by Ayvazyan – mostly on Armenian architecture.

 

Azerbaijan’s erstwhile national treasure Akram Aylisli, meanwhile, has lived under virtual house arrest since 2013, when he published writing critical of his government’s actions. He first protested what he termed “evil vandalism” in a 1997 telegram to the country’s president. “Such senseless action,” he wrote, “will be perceived by the world community as a manifestation of disrespect for religious and moral values.”

 

Sim points out that the Hyperallergic report fails to adequately explain the artistic value of what has been lost. Armenian architecture is unique, he says – deceptively minimal in appearance but highly sophisticated structurally and built to withstand the landscape’s seismic volatility. He describes the diminutive churches as more sculpture than building; single-volume dome-topped structures that look like they’ve been cast in stone. The khachkars, meanwhile, are regional, the meaning of the iconography and symbolism they display largely lost to time. That loss is most keenly felt with the destruction of the Djulfa cross stones, which featured scenes of daily medieval life – people riding horses, carrying water jugs, or picnicking in gardens, the food laid out on carpets – and strange mythical creatures including a four-legged hooved beast with two bodies, a single head and wings. “I’ve looked at thousands of khachkars throughout Armenia,” Sim says, “and I’ve only ever seen one which has this twin-bodied single-headed animal. But they all had them in Djulfa.”

 

The world rightfully recognised Isis’s wrecking of Palmyra as a war crime, an immense loss for the Syrian people and humanity as a whole. Maghakyan hopes Armenians and Azerbaijanis alike will see what has happened in Nakhichevan as a crime against all, committed by a ruthless regime. The Azerbaijani historian who acted as peer reviewer for the article, but wished to remain anonymous due to fears for their safety, told Maghakyan that the report was “for all of us, regardless of ethnicity and religion”, but especially for Azerbaijanis who had not lost or surrendered their conscience.

 

https://www.theguard...ocide-khachkars

[Yervant1]

Atlas Obscura

March 1 2019

 

 

Noratus Cemetery Khachkars Hundreds of intricately carved Armenian stone crosses can be found within this huge cemetery.  

 

The carving of khachkars, literally meaning “cross-stones,” is an ancient Armenian art. It began with a simple cross depicted on a stone, usually a tombstone or memorial, and eventually evolved into very intricate knotwork patterns covering the entire marker.

These beautiful stelae, some over a thousand years old, can be found all over historic Armenia and are a symbol of Armenia’s cultural heritage. The largest collection is at the Noratus Cemetery, near the Alpine Lake Sevan, where they line the hill around two simple old chapels, most of them liberally sprinkled with lichens. (There was at one time a much larger khachkar cemetery located in Old Julfa, but that was sadly destroyed over the years by the Soviet, then Azerbaijani governments.)

While some of the nearly one thousand khachkars at Noratus Cemetery date back as far as the 10th century, the majority were made in the 1500s and 1600s when three master carvers named Kiram Kazmogh, Arakel, and Meliset were hard at work. Aside from the elaborate patterns, the stones at Noratus depict saints, angels, wedding scenes, men riding horses, and scenes from life at the time.

In 1977, the head of the Armenian Church donated one of the khachkars to the British Museum, so you don’t necessarily have to make it all the way to the shores of Lake Sevan to see one of these beauties.

Know Before You Go

 

The cemetery is located just over a mile from the main road, open 24 hours. Give yourself plenty of time to wander around and admire these wonderful works of art.

https://www.atlasobs...etery-khachkars

[Yervant1]

Transitions Onlin, Czech Rep.

March 4 2019

 

 

Report Documents Destruction of Armenian Necropolis in Azerbaijan Exclave

World’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery in Nakhichevan was obliterated in 2005, say researchers.

4 March 2019

Azerbaijan authorities have been denying the recent destruction of churches, monuments, and tombstones in the Azerbaijan exclave of Nakhichevan, and saying that such testaments to the Armenian presence in the region “never existed in the first place,” according to a report published by Simon Maghakyan and Sarah Pickman in the Hyperallergic art journal.

 

However, written accounts, eyewitness testimonies, recordings, photographs, and satellite images paint a different picture. 

 

The most blatant destruction targeted the Djulfa cemetery, which contained up to 10,000 Armenian burial monuments called khachkar, some of them more than 1,500 years old, according to a short film done by Pickman and Maghakyan, a Denver-based political analyst.

Local residents were forced to leave in the 17^th century by a Persian shah, but most of the headstones survived until the beginning of the 20^th century, as related in the film, titled “The New Tears of Araxes” (after the eponymous river that flows near the cemetery and marks Azerbaijan’s border with Iran). However, their number decreased to around 2,000 by 1998, mostly because some of them were used in building projects across the region.

 

The final blow came in December 2005, when the prelate of northern Iran’s Armenian church, Bishop Nshan Topouzian, recorded the Azerbaijan military from across the Iran border as they destroyed the remaining headstones with sledgehammers, and then dumped the debris into the Araxes River.

 

The official Azerbaijani version is that Armenians never lived in the region, and the authorities have prohibited an international inspection of the site. But satellite footage from 2003 and 2009, also presented in the film, showed a markedly different landscape at those two times. In 2003, small structures dotted the landscape, which, however, was completely empty in 2009.

 

That conclusion has been backed up by photographic evidence from local researcher Argam Ayvazyan, and Scotsman Steven Sim, who has visited the area for over 35 years since the 1980s. Ayvazyan documented the existence of 89 Armenian churches, 5,840 khachkars, and 22,000 tombstones between 1964 and 1987, which were missing from the official “Encyclopedia of Nakhchivan Monuments” published in 2008.

 

In a recent article on the subject, The Guardian says that the Azerbaijani government has failed to comment on the allegations, including for its article.

 

 

• Nakhichevan emerged at the end of World War I as an autonomous region within Soviet Azerbaijan, whose Armenian community gradually dwindled throughout the 20^th century.

 

• At the center of the conflict between present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan is the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but with an Armenian majority and a de facto independent government. The two former Soviet republics fought a bloody war over the territory as the Soviet Union collapsed and then in the following years as independent countries.  

 

• Ayvazyan, who is banned from Nakhichevan, told Hyperallergic “Oil-rich Azerbaijan’s annihilation of Nakhichevan’s Armenian past make it worse than ISIS, yet UNESCO and most Westerners have looked away,” while the only memory of the monuments still alive are his photographs.

 

• Azerbaijan’s human rights record is at odds with the image it wants to project in the West, say critics. In 2015, a documentary done by a French TV station showed a presenter trying to interview Azerbaijani First Lady Mehriban Alieva at the launch of the exhibition “Azerbaijan, land of tolerance” in Paris. Asked if Azerbaijan really is a “land of tolerance,” and how the then-imprisonment of human rights advocates Leyla Yunus and Khadija Ismayilova fits in with the label, Alieva told Lucet to “get the correct information,” and left without any comment.

Compiled by Ioana Caloianu

 

https://www.tol.org/...-monuments.html

[Yervant1]

Panorama, Armenia

April 23 2019

 

 

Society 19:51 23/04/2019 Armenia

New album on Jugha’s cultural genocide published

The “Service for the Protection of Historical-Cultural Museum-Reserves and Historical Environment” NCSO completed the publication of a new album n Jugha’s cultural genocide in four languages.

The album compiled by NCSO employees Ashot Movsesyan and Arshak Banuchyan includes Aram Vruyr’s photos of Jugha’s Armenian cemetery khachkars, scientific and historical materials. “Vandals of the 21st Century” documentary’s DVD about the demolition of Jugha’s khachkars is also included in the album.
The album is published in 500 copies yet the number is planned to increase in the future.

The official presentation of the publication will take place at Bookinist bookstore on 29 April, the NCSO reported in a press release. 

https://www.panorama...-album-on-Jugha’s-cultural-genocide-published/2105066

[Yervant1]

Shame on you UNESCO, what a farce!

Hyperallergic

July 9 2019

 

 

This Year’s UNESCO Session Was an Insult to World Heritage

Djulfa, a sacred site for Armenian Christians, is disqualified from consideration because the host of this year’s UNESCO World Heritage Committee session, the government of Azerbaijan, has erased its existence and destroyed tens of thousands of Armenian cultural monuments.

Simon MaghakyanJuly 9, 2019

 

A 1915 photograph of researcher Aram Vruyr’s son with one of many thousand cross-stones at Djulfa, enhanced by Judith Crispin’s Julfa Cemetery Digital Repatriation Project (courtesy Aram Vruyr archives)

 

Moments ago, the global organization for cultural preservation — UNESCO — announced the final list of 29 historical and natural wonders that have now officially joined the ranks of the Pyramids and Grand Canyon as World Heritage Sites. But the celebrated site of Djulfa, which boasted the world’s largest collection of exquisitely-carved medieval cross-stones as remnants of the area’s once-thriving community of Armenian Christians, was not among the 35 candidates vying for World Heritage Site designation. The legendary historical site is disqualified from such an honor, because the host of this year’s UNESCO World Heritage Committee session, the government of Azerbaijan, has erased its existence.

In December 2005, Nshan Topouzian, the leader of north Iran’s Armenian church, posted a chilling video online. An Iranian border patrol had alerted him to the deployment of Azerbaijani troops at Iran’s border with Azerbaijan, where Djulfa had stood for centuries. The tearful Bishop rushed to videotape over 100 Azerbaijani soldiers armed with sledgehammers, dump trucks, and cranes as they destroyed the sacred site, pounding the intricately carved sacred medieval headstones into rubble and then dumping their pulverized remains into the river. Within weeks, thousands of sacred stones, which had memorialized numerous medieval Armenian merchants — a community whose legacies include Europe’s first cafés and Captain Kidd’s pirated loot — had disappeared. This erasure is part of a state-sanctioned war on history that is arguably the worst act of cultural cleansing of the 21st-century. Yet unlike the cultural crimes of ISIS or the Taliban, few have heard of it.

A partial view of the world’s largest collection of medieval cross-stones at the cemetery of Djulfa, photographed in the Soviet era (courtesy Argam Ayvazyan archives)

As Sarah Pickman and I exposed in an investigative report in February, Azerbaijan’s destruction of Djulfa was the grand finale in a broader campaign. Between 1997 and 2006, the authoritarian regime in Azerbaijan worked systematically to demolish every trace of medieval Armenian Christianity in the region called Nakhichevan (formally called the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic). The final toll included 89 medieval churches, 5,840 cross-stones — half of which were at Djulfa, and 22,000 tombstones. One of the churches erased was the majestic Saint Thomas cathedral of Agulis, originally founded as a chapel in the 1st century and one of the oldest churches in the world. According to official Azerbaijan, none of these 28,000 monuments were destroyed: they never existed to begin with.

As the preeminent organization charged with protecting global heritage, UNESCO was expected to speak out to prevent Azerbaijan’s erasure of Nakhichevan’s Armenian past. Instead, UNESCO has not only avoided a public condemnation of this destruction but also praised Azerbaijan as a “land of tolerance.” The cooperation between UNESCO and Azerbaijan became strong in 2013 after the latter donated $5 million to the cash-strapped organization. In 2011, after Washington cut a quarter of UNESCO’s budget due to member states’s vote in favor of Palestinian membership, the organization had to seek alternative funding.

Undoubtedly, UNESCO conducts vital operations across the world. Its different arms oversee the designation of cultural and natural World Heritage Sites, educate children, empower women, and serve vulnerable communities around the globe. The 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, an important international treaty, is one of many lasting legacies of the organization.

Five of Djulfa’s 3,000 medieval cross-stones photographed in the Soviet era (courtesy Argam Ayvazyan archives)

Underfunded international organizations cannot be too picky about their donors. Resourceful countries with questionable motives know this all too well, which is why Azerbaijan has made its courting of UNESCO a top foreign policy priority. An exiled Azerbaijani dissident historian, Arif Yunus, thinks that his government’s obsession with receiving UNESCO’s approval has more to do with domestic than international politics. “Nothing projects the Aliyev dictatorship’s power to Azerbaijani dissidents,” Yunus told me last year, “like committing cultural genocide in Nakhichevan then showering in international praises of tolerance.”

But others explain the destruction through the lens of ethnic conflict. Following the USSR’s sudden dissolution in 1991, Djulfa — along with the wider Nakhichevan region — became an exclave of independent Azerbaijan. By then, Nakhichevan’s indigenous Armenian population had dwindled to zero. This fate was precisely what the Armenian-majority population of another autonomy within Soviet Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, had wished to avoid by seeking independence. That led to the early 1990s Armenian-Azerbaijani war, which Azerbaijan lost.

A dozen units of Azerbaijan’s Army demolishing Djulfa in December 2005 as observed from the Iranian border (courtesy Djulfa Virtual Memorial and Museum | Djulfa.com)

Having lost territories and amassed refugees, Azerbaijan’s narrative blames every problem and criticism alike on “Armenian occupiers.” According to official Azerbaijan, Armenians’s latest plot is fabricating destruction of imaginary monuments for the purpose of laying new territorial claims. “Absolutely false” fabrication by “the Armenian lobby.” That is how, in April 2006, Azerbaijan’s president berated a confirmation of Djulfa’s destruction by a now-exiled journalist. Another dissident, the famous Azerbaijani novelist Akram Aylisli, has been under house arrest in Baku since 2013 for the crime of authoring Stone Dreams, a novel that pays homage to the vanished Armenian past of Aylisli’s native Nakhichevan.

Whether UNESCO should altogether sever its ties with an oil-rich country that destroyed 28,000 cultural monuments may be up for debate. But hosting the world’s top preservation summit in that country crosses a red line. The cruel irony of UNESCO hosting the World Heritage Committee session in Azerbaijan this week is nothing short of an insult to all world heritage.

 

 

https://hyperallergi...63/2019-unesco/

 

 

[MosJan]

https://artsakhpress...8yO813guku3F0TY

 

Azerbaijan decides to launch criminal case against Swiss journalists over visit to Karabakh

 

 

 

[MosJan]

 

Awareness for all the foreign tourists who intend to travel to Azerbaijan from Georgia or after visiting Armenia. THINK TWICE before going to azerbaijan because obviously your rights won't be protected there.
Here in these photos azerbaijani custom officers destroy Armenain souveniers, beverages, books and other products taken from foreign tourists just because they are "Made in Armenia". The haterd towards Armenians is so much in the blood of this barbaric nation that they are ready to destroy even simple souveniers for which the tourists pay money. This is a bright example of violation of human rights. No matter from which corner of the world you come, you will be treated like this if you have something Armenian with you! Sometimes they also destroy Georgian souveniers as they are not educated enough to differ the Armenian and Georgian alphabets.
And what do you think, after seeing this, is it really worth visiting Azerbaijan ?
#Boycott_Azerbaijan

[MosJan]

[MosJan]

http://asbarez.com/1...Hhr1tItNqwLyehE

 

San Francisco’s Krouzian-Zekarian School, Armenian Center Vandalized

 

[MosJan]

[Yervant1]

News.am, Armenia

July 24 2020

 

 

Azerbaijanis attack Armenian cafe in area near metro station in Moscow, there are victims

00:07, 25.07.2020

                  

 

 

Representatives of the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of Moscow clashed again, and this time the clash took place next to the Armyanskiy Dvor restaurant located in the premises of Salarevo metro station in southwest Moscow, the restaurant’s administration told RBK. The news was confirmed by Vice-President of the Union of Azerbaijanis of Russia Elunur Guseynov. “We still don’t know what happened exactly. The representatives of the Diaspora left for the scene of the incident to find out,” he said.

TASS’s insider in the law-enforcement authorities also reported that there had been clashes between the Azerbaijanis and Armenians in Moscow.

“In New Moscow (Salarevo), a group of Azerbaijanis attacked an Armenian’s construction materials store with wooden bludgeons and metal rods. Earlier, seven Armenian men had barged into an Azerbaijani restaurant on Bratislavsky street and destroyed it with wooden bludgeons. A few clashes have also taken place in other parts of the city,” TASS’s interlocutor reported.

About 20 people attacked the “Armyanskiy Dvor” restaurant, reported Baza Telegram, according to which the people had arrived at the scene in cars, after which they destroyed everything inside and beat the administrator of the restaurant, who is being transferred to a hospital.

The last clash between immigrants from Armenia and Azerbaijan was a brawl that took place on the night of July 24 in southeast Moscow. Some witnesses had heard gunshots.

 

https://news.am/eng/...sZMmDE033lRe3uy

 

[Yervant1]

Panorama, Armenia

July 24 2020

 

 

 

Politics 12:26 24/07/2020Armenia

Armenians attacked by Azerbaijani groups in Moscow

Armenians have come under attack by Azerbaijani groups in Moscow, which has sparked a chaos in the Russian capital, Infoteka24.ru reports.

A video released by the news outlet shows Azerbaijani hooligans beating Armenians, who are facing them alone, and smashing their cars.

The source calls attention to the fact that such three videos have been posted on the Facebook page of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s spokesperson Eynulla Fatullayev, which clearly shows that xenophobia is supported by the Azerbaijani authorities.

https://www.panorama...-Moscow/2333200

[Yervant1]

Panorama, Armenia

July 24 2020

 

 

Ombudsman calls attention to Azerbaijanis’ hateful attacks on Armenians

Armenia’s Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) Arman Tatoyan will today submit official letters to international organizations regarding the cases of hateful attacks on Armenians by groups of Azerbaijani in different countries. Below is a statement issued by the ombudsman on Friday.

"Azerbaijani attacks on Armenians on the basis of ethnicity are taking place in a number of countries these days.

This is evidenced by the materials (videos, notes, etc.) that the Human Rights Defender's Office is receiving through alerts, as well as by monitoring public posts.

The monitoring shows that attacks on Armenians are motivated by Armenophobia based on ethnicity and accompanied by hateful and humiliating chants. The attacks are provocative in nature, taking place by groups on defenseless civilians, taking them by surprise.

I call the attention of international community to these events. This must be prevented immediately in order to prevent further tensions or dangerous developments. I will send official letters to international organizations today.

I urge to be vigilant and not to succumb to provocations. Any illegal action, including against vulnerable people, cannot be allowed. It is necessary to rule out any event contributing to the dangerous developments and tensions.” 

https://www.panorama...budsman/2333681

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

 

Unidentified people attempt to burn down Armenian cafes in Ukraine

 

 

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 17:52, 24 July, 2020

YEREVAN, JULY 24, ARMENPRESS. The Union of Armenians of Ukraine condemns the attempts of burning down food public centers belonging to Armenians in Ukraine. ARMENPRESS reports AnalitikaUA.net informs the Union of Armenians of Ukraine issued a statement over the incidents in Ukraine.  

''We assess the attempts of burning down the cafes belonging to the representatives of the Armenian community as an attempt to involve the Armenian community in political processes. We strongly condemn any manifestation of violence and urge to respect the law and not to try to involve the community in political processes’', reads the statement.

 

It's mentioned that the leadership of the Union is in constant touch with law enforcement bodies and expects an operative investigation into the incidents.

An attempt was made in Kiev to burn down to Armenian cafes. The incidents took place this night. According to preliminary information, there are no victims, but the fire has damaged some parts of the cafes.

MFA Armenia issued a statement over the provocations against Armenians in different countries. '' Recently, we have witnessed the cases and attempts of violence against Armenian citizens and members of Armenian communities in different countries of the world. There have been cases of obstruction of the normal work of the Armenian diplomatic service abroad and the Armenian communities, as well as a deliberate destruction of their personal and working property, which in some cases have threatened the security of the diplomatic staff as well. Discriminatory steps are being taken to disrupt Armenia's trade and economic relations with different countries.

The expanding geography of these actions and the facts of the involvement of Azerbaijani officials in the actions against the diplomatic missions of Armenia prove that the above-mentioned actions are coordinated by the Azerbaijani official structures.

We strongly condemn the instigation of ethnic clashes in different countries, which is another manifestation of Baku's irresponsibility and is fully in line with the policy and rhetoric of the Azerbaijani leadership provoking hostility between the two peoples without geographical restrictions.

We call on our compatriots to be vigilant, not to give in to any provocation, and in case of such situations to immediately contact the local law enforcement bodies, Armenian community structures, diplomatic representatives of Armenia’'.

Editing and Translating by Tigran Sirekanyan

 

 

https://armenpress.a...tIsa-JB-MRTXKn8

[Yervant1]

Asbarez.com

 

No Hate Here

July 24,  2020

 

Camp Javakhk participants, 2016 (Photo provided by the author)

BY ANI KHACHATOURIAN
From The Armenian Weekly

In April of 2015, I came across a statement Erdogan had made about Armenians “fixing” commemorative events to coincide with the Gallipoli ceremonies on purpose. I remember sitting in my freshman dorm on that very late night, frustrated and fed up with it all. I immediately took to pen and paper and began writing my “letter to Turkey,” while reminding myself that in that moment, the pen was mightier than the sword…

It seems I have this habit of writing when I feel anger.

Months ago, I came across a video of a teacher in Azerbaijan teaching her students about their enemy: Armenia. I was outraged, of course, but unfortunately not surprised. This video resurfaced on my Instagram feed a couple of days ago, and I was even more angry with myself for not doing anything about it when I had first seen it. I continued watching it, over and over again, becoming increasingly more angry, infuriated and anxious for what they are capable of.

One of the worst things about social media is that once you are invested in something, you dig deeper and deeper for more information. So after watching this video, I wound up reading comment, after comment, after comment. The first few bothered me, I will admit, but I wish they hadn’t. I soon realized that these people, who claim themselves a nation, are so incredibly divided, misunderstood by one another and confused. One comment read, “Armenia is the attacker” while another read “we attacked you yesterday and we will do it again today and tomorrow.” And I realized, they’ve all learned the same lesson. They’ve all learned to hate.

The author with a Camp Javakhk participant named Ala (2016)

I then thought back to my own childhood…to my eight years of attending St Stephen’s Armenian Elementary School, the following six years of Saturday School, to my AYF experience, to my upbringing. There was no instance, no memory, no explicit lesson taught in any way, shape or form to make me “hate” any race… any single human being. If anything, the word “hate” was banned, as I brought up in my 2015 article. I was left to make my own judgements, create my own feelings. We try our best to pass that on to today’s youth. To ensure that they don’t grow up feeling hate and instead are able to feel the pride of their people. To wear their flag, to keep their heads up high and to never stop fighting for their rights.

I believe in the power of education wholeheartedly. Nelson Mandela once explained it as “the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.” As leaders and educators in our respective communities, let us never forget how much we influence what children learn and how easily they are able to interpret our emotions, feelings and judgments. Let us never stoop so low, to their level, to teach hate. If we do nothing else, let us promise that we will always, always teach our children to take the high road.

As Armenians, I hope we never change. I hope we continue to tell our timeless stories and share them through song and dance. I hope we continue to speak our beautiful language, to be proud of ourselves. Defend ourselves. I hope we stand up to and be there for others, just as we would expect from non-Armenians when we need them most. I hope we win again. And most importantly, I hope that we never lose hope.

Ani Khachatourian is a member of the Armenian Youth Federation – Youth Organization of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (AYF-YOARF) Greater Boston “Nejdeh” chapter. She is an Emerson College graduate student, and she works in Special Education.

 

 

http://asbarez.com/1...nSK3ZI7TITNzyVY

[Yervant1]

Lame excuse that the name of that non country is misspelled, therefore it's not them is outrageous. These are the same messages that they say and write all around the world.

KTVU - Fox News San Francisco

July 25 2020

 

 

 

SF Armenian school vandalized, investigated as hate crime

 

By Jana Katsuyama

San Francisco

KTVU FOX 2

 

SF Armenian school vandalized, investigated as hate crime

 

Suspicious graffiti at a San Francisco Armenian school is being investigated as a hate crime by the district attorney's office.

 

SAN FRANCISCO - Members of the Armenian community were stunned Friday to find graffiti scrawled across the walls of the KZV Armenian School in San Francisco, including messages of intimidation and obscenities targeting the Armenian community.

 

"As I came today at 8 this morning,  I saw the graffiti on the walls. I was shocked. I was appalled," said Grace Andonian, the school principal, "The community is in shock. Our families, students, alumni, they were all in shock to see these hate messages on the wall."

 

By evening a crowd gathered in the school parking lot, coming together to pray and heal from the hurtful attack.

 

"This is the only Armenian school in Northern California. The community considers it the pride and joy of the community. It's one place where we can actually express our Armenian identity," said Roxanne Makasdjian, a member of the Bay Area Armenian National Committee.

 

The graffiti attack reopens centuries-old wounds with Turkey and comes as tensions have flared up between Azerbaijan and Armenia over new conflicts in an oil-rich region near their border.

 

Earlier in the week, protests in Los Angeles led to clashes outside the Azerbaijan consulate.

 

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This attack on a school in San Francisco, however, raises concern about the impact on the students and promoting the values of tolerance and peace.

 

"This is not how we solve our problems. This is not what we do. We teach them tolerance. We teach them sympathy. We teach them kindness," said Andonian.

 

Sympathy and support also was expressed by the Azerbaijani community in the Bay Area.

 

"We strongly believe this act is ugly, it is heinous, it is appalling," said Bakhtiyar Neyman, a board member with the Azerbaijan Cultural Society of Northern California, "Our tight-knit group of Azerbaijanis here in California have been sharing the news of it and everyone was very disheartened."

 

Neyman says the graffiti itself looks suspicious and should be investigated and condemned.

 

"The name Azerbaijan itself was misspelled. The other cities' names were misspelled," said Neyman.

 

"I call everyone, not just Armenian and Azerbaijani communities to be united in condemning this kind of act," said Neyman.

 

San Francisco's District Attorney Chesa Boudin is vowing to find the criminals.

 

"We are absolutely treating this investigation as a hate crime. It is outrageous. It is an attack on every single one of us in San Francisco. There is no place for intolerance or hate," said Boudin.

 

The school says they have received hundreds of calls from people throughout the community who said they want to help clean the walls and paint over the graffiti.

 

The school has security cameras and the district attorney says he's working with police on the investigation.

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.ktvu.com...d-as-hate-crime

 

[Yervant1]

KZV - ABC 7 News -  San Francisco

July 25 2020

 

 

'I'm afraid now for my son:' SF Armenian school vandalized with hateful graffiti

"I'm disturbed, and I'm very disappointed. Thank God the students are not here to see this," the school's principal said.

KGO

By Luz Pena

 

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- San Francisco's Armenian School Krouzian-Zekarian-Vasbouragan was vandalized overnight, raising concerns among parents.

"I'm afraid now for my son, our kids who go to this school and are Americans," said parent Liana Movsesian.

Hateful and racist graffiti covered the walls of San Francisco's KZV Armenian School reminding many of what they fled from.

 

"We became victims of the hateful crimes that happened in Azerbaijan and we ended up as refugees," said Movsesian.

Grace Andonian, KZV's principal released video surveillance to San Francisco Police showing multiple men vandalizing the school property around 2 am.

"I'm disturbed, and I'm very disappointed. Thank God the students are not here to see this," said Andonian.

It's an attack that the schools alumni turned into an opportunity for unity. Raising their flag high, dancing for peace and covering the front of the school with a banner that read, "Armenians stand against hate."

"To stand together and to show the world that they can graffiti our school and say whatever they want, but at the end of the day, we stand together," said alum, Raffi Samurkashiam.

Haig Baghdassarian with the Armenian National Committee of America, Western Region, says this is not an isolated attack, "Throughout the world, including in Russia, Ukraine, Germany. Now, it's landed on our shore."


This conflict points to years of tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"Azerbaijan is also a Turkish nation for those who don't know. They clearly left their signature with their red, blue and green flag. Clearly spread all over our school. It's an intimidation tactic," said Baghdassarian.

 

Baghdassarian also questioning if the attack was in response to the latest congressional action, "Congress took an action yesterday to de-mining efforts in the region of Artsakh, which Azerbaijan claims to be its own. Even though the people declared independence."

San Francisco District Attorney, Chesa Boudin calling this act "inconsistent with San Francisco values," and adding, "It is also a crime."

Someone vandalized the Armenian school/community center. I'm outraged. This is totally inconsistent with San Francisco values. It is also a CRIME. We are working with @sfpd to investigate. We stand with our Armenian brothers and sisters.https://t.co/xUp2FYqGT4

— Chesa Boudin 博徹思 (@chesaboudin) July 24, 2020

Boudin confirmed San Francisco Police is investigating the attack.

"In Armenian Hye means Armenian, and so we always say: "when they go low, we go Hye," said KZV alum, Sanan Panossian.

 

 

https://abc7news.com...ncisco/6333950/