PROTEST AGAINST AZERBAIJAN TAKES PLACE IN OTTAWA
February 24, 2006
Source: Harout Manougian - Student at University of Waterloo
A protest took place yesterday in Ottawa as more than 160 participants took to the street, holding signs and shouting chants in the blistering weather that felt like -9C with the wind chill. The protestors, from Cambridge, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Laval, began their day in front of UNESCO's Ottawa office. The event was instigated as the Azerbaijani army was caught on video last December destroying ancient Armenian cross-stones in the Autonomous Region of Nakhichevan and dumping the remains into the Aras River. The engraved stones, some more than 1000 years old, were made by Armenian Christians who used to live in the region. However, Stalin had transferred jurisdiction over Nakhichevan (as well as the region of Nagorno-Karabakh) to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, by whom it was depopulated of its Armenian inhabitants, who were replaced with Turkish-speaking settlers. "They're trying to erase any trace of the Armenians who had lived in Nakhichevan for the past 4000 years," cried Raffi, an emotional protestor from Toronto, who described the acts as "cultural genocide". Thus, the group urged UNESCO to protect the ancient artifacts by making them World Heritage Sites. The UNESCO office refused to give a response.
The group then marched down the street with their signs, an 8-foot cross-stone and a 12 foot dummy with blood-stained hands representing the President of Azerbaijan. They stopped in front of the Azerbaijani embassy, where they protested the destruction of the cross-stones as well as the [...] {1988} massacre of ethnic Armenians in Sumgait, near the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, and threats by the Azerbaijani government of breaking the 1994 cease-fire with the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, a similar ethnic Armenian territory which rebelled against Azeri rule in 1988. Again the embassy was not available for comment.
Source: Harout Manougian - Student at University of Waterloo
A protest took place yesterday in Ottawa as more than 160 participants took to the street, holding signs and shouting chants in the blistering weather that felt like -9C with the wind chill. The protestors, from Cambridge, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Laval, began their day in front of UNESCO's Ottawa office. The event was instigated as the Azerbaijani army was caught on video last December destroying ancient Armenian cross-stones in the Autonomous Region of Nakhichevan and dumping the remains into the Aras River. The engraved stones, some more than 1000 years old, were made by Armenian Christians who used to live in the region. However, Stalin had transferred jurisdiction over Nakhichevan (as well as the region of Nagorno-Karabakh) to the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, by whom it was depopulated of its Armenian inhabitants, who were replaced with Turkish-speaking settlers. "They're trying to erase any trace of the Armenians who had lived in Nakhichevan for the past 4000 years," cried Raffi, an emotional protestor from Toronto, who described the acts as "cultural genocide". Thus, the group urged UNESCO to protect the ancient artifacts by making them World Heritage Sites. The UNESCO office refused to give a response.
The group then marched down the street with their signs, an 8-foot cross-stone and a 12 foot dummy with blood-stained hands representing the President of Azerbaijan. They stopped in front of the Azerbaijani embassy, where they protested the destruction of the cross-stones as well as the [...] {1988} massacre of ethnic Armenians in Sumgait, near the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, and threats by the Azerbaijani government of breaking the 1994 cease-fire with the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno Karabakh, a similar ethnic Armenian territory which rebelled against Azeri rule in 1988. Again the embassy was not available for comment.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 7:19 AM
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