Friday, 29 03 2024
Friday, 29 03 2024
12:54
Starting today, Belarusians are prohibited from owning drones
12:35
No precipitation is expected, the air temperature will rise by 8-10 degrees
12:16
“Russia deceived us and tried to drag us into a new war, already on the territory of Armenia.” Alain Simonyan
11:57
“No one in Armenia has the right to hand over anything by law.” Alain Simonyan
11:38
The ideologies of European party unions were discussed at the KP session
11:19
A military plane fell into the sea in Sevastopol
11:00
The humanitarian aid sent by Armenia to Gaza is in Egypt
USA
10:41
The USA informed Russia about the terrorist threat on March 7
10:22
Russians are losing interest in Dubai
10:03
The EU will present the plan for the supply of weapons to Ukraine by April
16:04
Israel liquidated 200 Hamas militants in Ash-Shifa hospital
15:45
“The special services of Germany did not know about the terrorism being prepared near Moscow.” Scholz
15:26
“The question of leaving the EAEU is not being discussed now.” Maria Karapetyan
15:07
Clinton lobbied to swap Navalny with Krasikov
14:48
Georgian parliamentarians visited Tsitsernakaberd
14:29
“Russia knew about the preparation of terrorism for more than a month.” Budanov
14:10
Vasquez and Nacho will also extend the contract with “Real.”
13:51
The new Ukrainian law discriminates against Russian speakers, Armenian speakers, and Roma
13:32
“It’s hard for me to stay in the football world.” Mkhitaryan gave a briefing
13:13
The Foreign Ministry of Latvia declared the Russian diplomat persona non grata
12:54
Armenia will send humanitarian aid to Gaza
12:35
Kroos will spend another year in Madrid
12:16
Weather without precipitation is expected
11:57
Georgia will receive 9.25 million euros from UEFA
11:38
Alen Simonyan presented the current security situation in the South Caucasus to his French colleagues
USA
11:19
“The main point of the US-Armenia-EU meeting is economic stability.” Miller
The Armenia-EU-USA meeting is not related to third countries
Nikol Pashinyan’s interview was published in The New York Times
10:22
Banks in Turkey, UAE, and China are delaying payments for Russian oil
“NATO member Turkey will not create problems in this case.” Edgar Vardanyan

Don’t Silence Another 60. The Armenian Weekly

Greg Bilazarian, first year MBA student at the Yale School of Management, writes that his next trip to Armenia is in December, but if it were tomorrow, he wouldn’t be very excited to get on the plane.

He goes on explaining that currently, Vartan Oskanian, Armenia’s former minister of foreign affairs faces charges of money laundering, embezzlement, and who knows what else. Many people thought Oskanian a likely challenger to Republican incumbent President Serge Sarkisian in February’s presidential election, unless, of course, Oskanian is tied up in court, or worse. Seemingly to correctly prove the hypothesis that the charges are politically driven, the ruling Republicans and their de facto proxy party voted 64-6 to remove Oskanian’s immunity and leave him open to charges, which followed a week later. Every political party boycotted the vote except, you guessed it, the ruling majority and its friends. Interestingly, a party historically loaded with parliamentarians sporting shoddy attendance records somehow managed to convince 96 percent of its membership to show up and remove Oskanian’s immunity. Meanwhile, Georgia just completed a legitimate election and power transfer, further widening the democratic gap between the two neighboring former Soviet states. And yet, this isn’t even the beginning of my frustration…, writes Greg Bilazarian.

The student notes that Oskanian is also the founder of the Civilitas Foundation, a think tank promoting an active civil society. The money laundering charge stems from a charitable donation made to the foundation by U.S. businessman Jon Huntsman, Sr. The foundation’s roughly 60 employees are predominantly young, multilingual Armenians working to improve their country by focusing on issues such as women’s rights, the rule of law, and the environment. Their main vehicle is the news and public affairs website, civilnet.am, which started from scratch with a team of inexperienced future journalists, and has since developed into a real source for independent, analytical news and dialogue. Unfortunately, that mission sometimes interferes with the establishment’s suppressive interests. During his 14 months producing for Civilnet, Greg Bilazarian says he learned twice as much as he taught about advocacy journalism and became exceedingly optimistic about Armenia’s future. Civilitas is an oasis for free-thinking creativity, safe from the desert of anti-progressive thought that sometimes pollutes Yerevan.

But now, Civilitas is under fire, facing potential interference from the government, which claims it wants to “protect” Civilitas. Nobody knows what that means and nobody is optimistic about it either.

At September’s Armenians and Progressive Politics (APP) Conference in New York, one attendee astutely described Armenia as an unstable balloon that inflates with each repressive event, such as the one happening now with Civilitas.

Greg Bilazarian will get on that plane in December, and his long-term plan to live in Armenia has not changed. “I am excited to enjoy the city I love and see the friends I left behind a few months ago. I only hope some of them will still be there to greet me at the airport.”

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