Latest posts by Simon Maghakyan
Azerbaijan: Popular website back — minus forum
After several days of closure, the popular semi-independent Azerbaijani news and discussion website, Day.az, is back. However, raising additional questions about its brief disappearance, the site's forum — known for its open and somewhat democratic discussion — is not.
Armenia: Illegal hunting in nature reserve exposed
Illustrating how online activism could make a difference in Armenia, a YouTube video of a chief forester hunting wild boar at the Khosrov nature reserve has resulted in his dismissal.
Worldwide: 2,500 Languages Disappearing
An interactive map of endangered languages, showing 2,500 out of 6,000 tongues at risk, has been released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The international organization asks users to contribute comments to a project that has many bloggers worried about preserving cultures.
Indigenous Activists Seek New .indigi Domain
Marginalized and oppressed for centuries, indigenous peoples – native communities around the world often considered minorities by states – are seeking Internet autonomy. Encouraged by the opportunity to create new generic top level domains (gTLD), some activists want registration of their own Internet domain – [dot] indigi. But will they...
Armenia: Remembering the Budapest Murder
Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the murder of 26-year old Gurgen Margarian, an Armenian officer attending a NATO Partnership for Peace program in Budapest, Hungary. Killed in his sleep with an axe wielded by his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ramil Safarov, some Armenian bloggers made special posts to commemorate the day.
Armenia-Azerbaijan: High-profile assassinations
On 3 February, less than a month before the first anniversary of post-election violence in Yerevan, an Armenian Deputy Police Chief was gunned down. Eight days later, and five weeks before a constitutional referendum to eliminate presidential term limits, the head of the Azerbaijani Air Force was killed. Bloggers naturally wondered who was behind both assassinations.
USA: Native Americans, “Yes we can”
Kept invisible for centuries, Native Americans in the United States are increasingly using blogs and online citizen media to promote and preserve their rights and traditional ways of life. With the election of President Awe Kooda Bilaxpak Kuuxshish (Barack Obama’s adopted Crow Tribe name) indigenous peoples see new reasons to be optimistic.
Armenia: New and old traditions mix on St. Valentine's Day
Founded in 301 AD, Armenia’s longest surviving institution, the Apostolic Church, is considered the world’s oldest national Christian order. But, over 1,700 years years later, pagan traditions remain alive in the country even if now absorbed into the Christian calendar. While much of the world marked St. Valentine's day, Armenians also celebrated one such tradition -- Trndez.
Armenia: Tax Lottery
Unsuccessful with punitive measures to prevent widespread tax evasion, the government of ex-Soviet Armenia has introduced a monthly national lottery based on an 8-digit number found on the back of sale receipts. From increasing sales to encouraging male customers to hit on female shop assistants, bloggers think the initiative to make businesses accurately report sales and pay taxes has the potential to prove a win-win situation for everyone.
Turkey: Armenian “Martin Luther King Jr.” Commemorated
The second anniversary of a murdered journalist once again had the power to move mountains in strained relations between between Armenia and Turkey, two states separated by the biblical mount Ararat and an unholy history. Yesterday's commemoration might not have been on such a large scale, but newspaper articles, editorials, and reaction from bloggers show that the murder of a prominent member of Turkey’s dwindling Christian Armenian minority by a Turkish ultra-nationalist continues to shock the world.
Turkey: Apology Shakes Apologia over Armenian Genocide
Challenging 90 years of institutionalized denial of the massacre and deportation of the Ottoman Empire's indigenous Armenian community during WWI, tens of thousands of Turkish intellectuals, academics, writers, journalists and dissidents have apologized online for the "Great Catastrophe."
Azerbaijan: Destruction of Ancient Cemetery Commemorated
Three years after a cemetery dating back to the 9th Century was deliberately destroyed in the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, bloggers recall an ancient culture annihilated and condemn the world for closing its eyes to what many consider to be an official attempt to rewrite history.
Armenia: CNN Genocide Coverage Controversy
Too short for Armenians and too long for the Turkish government, a two-hour CNN documentary by Christiane Amanpour on genocide includes a 45-second mention of the WWI extermination of Ottoman Empire's indigenous Armenian population. Premiered on December 4, 2008, Scream Bloody Murder has made many Armenian bloggers angry.
Armenia: Bloggers Throw Funeral at Georgian Embassy
Carrying a black casket labeled “The Newborn Georgian Democracy,” a group of bloggers in Yerevan have marched toward the Georgian Embassy protesting what they call the destruction and desecration of Armenian cultural monuments in neighboring Georgia. Bloggers tell the story.
Armenia/Azerbaijan: Journalists Under Attack
Beaten in Armenia and imprisoned in Azerbaijan, journalists in the ex-Soviet South Caucasus know the price of freedom. Some of them are even fighting from prison cells, wrestling state persecution and challenging societal intolerance for dissent. Bloggers tell the story of free speech in the South Caucasus.
Armenia: Violence against Women
The world’s oldest Christian nation may have many things to be proud about, but when it comes to women’s rights the ex-Soviet Armenia is possibly in denial. With widespread human trafficking as its worst manifestation, violence against women in Armenia is alarming the world. Will a recent Amnesty International report detailing domestic abuse and government inaction bring about change? Bloggers react.