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  • Charny Condemns Denial of Armenian Genocide in British Parliament

    Charny Condemns Denial of Armenian Genocide in British Parliament

    Dr. Israel Charny Condemns Denial of Armenian Genocide in British Parliament

    sassun-22

    By Harut Sassounian

    Publisher, The California Courier

    In an earlier column I wrote about the special conference held at the British Parliament on May 7, organized by the British-Armenian All-Party Parliamentary Group. Dr. Israel Charny and I were invited as guest speakers. I spoke about “The Armenian Genocide and Quest for Justice.” Dr. Charny could not attend due to illness, however, his prepared remarks were read by Peter Barker, a former broadcaster of BBC Radio.

    Dr. Charny is an internationally-known authority on the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. He is the Executive Director of the Jerusalem-based Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, past President of International Association of Genocide Scholars, Editor-in-Chief of Encyclopedia of Genocide, and author of several scholarly books. Dr. Charny’s lengthy paper was titled: “Confronting denials of the Armenian Genocide is not only honoring history, but a crucial policy position for confronting threats in our contemporary world.”

    In his remarks presented at the British Parliament, Dr. Charny described the conference on the Armenian Genocide he attended two years ago in Istanbul. He found “the prevailing discourse stilted, blocked and rigid with denials.” The overwhelming majority of the statements were “one-sided rehashes of Turkish denial propaganda; a basic intellectual failure since they did not even mention or refer to or in any way acknowledge any of the voluminous documentation and evidences of the Armenian Genocide that are now part of world culture; and a great number were emotional diatribes rather than ‘scientific’ or properly scholarly contributions.”

    In his paper, Charny singled out the presentation at the Istanbul conference of Prof. Yair Auron, his colleague from Israel, who spoke “in a strong resonant voice that there was no question but that the Armenians had suffered genocide at the hands of the Turks.”

    In his London remarks, Dr. Charny’s also discussed the “failure of the State of Israel, but not of Israelis, to recognize the Armenian Genocide,” expressing his “deep regret and shame” that Israel (where he lives) and the United States (where he was born), “have failed seriously in their moral responsibility towards the Armenian people.” He felt “particularly wounded as well as angry at such failures by my Jewish people when we too have known the worst horrors of being victims of a major genocide, and therefore we should be all the more at your side as deeply committed allies in all aspects of preserving and honoring the record of the Armenian Genocide.”

    Dr. Charny announced “the happy news [that] the battle for recognition and genuine respect for the memory of the Armenian Genocide [was won] on the level of everyday Israeli culture.” In great detail, he explained that “throughout the year there are major statements in our culture about the Armenian Genocide, including many full-length feature stories and interviews in all of our major newspapers and on our television. On April 24, there is powerful coverage, for example, this year on Roim Olam or Seeing the World, a major TV news magazine; there is an annual seminar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem at which this year the keynote speaker was Prof. James Russell of Harvard University, and it was my honor to be the keynoter the year before together with an influential member of the Knesset who was totally knowledgeable about the Genocide and totally clear about Israel’s error in not recognizing it; and there is of course an annual commemoration by the Armenian Community — it was there that the two ministers in the past announced their recognition of the Armenian genocide. During a too-brief period, we also had two ministers of the Israeli government who officially recognized the Genocide, and although the governments in question promptly disavowed these ministers’ statements as private and not speaking for the country, the records of those ministers honoring the Armenian Genocide on behalf of the State of Israel cannot be erased. I would say that both the everyday Israeli man on the street and the professional scholars of the Holocaust, such as Prof. Yehuda Bauer perhaps the ranking scholar of the Holocaust at Yad Vashem, are basically sympathetic and committed to paying homage to the Armenian Genocide. A few years ago four of us, including one of the above former ministers, Yossi Sarid, Prof. Bauer, Prof. Yair Auron, an indefatigable scholar of the Armenian Genocide and of Israel’s denials of same, and myself traveled together to Yerevan to lay a wreath at the Armenian Genocide Memorial.”

    As he has done many times in the past, Dr. Charny expressed regret that “sadly and shamefully the pull of practical government politics still leads to official Israel cooperating with Turkey in gross denials of the Armenian Genocide. No less than the arch fighter for peace in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Shimon Peres, now President of Israel, then serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister, twice went notably out of his way to insult the history and memory of the Armenian Genocide.”

    In a scathing letter, Dr. Charny told Peres in 2001: “You have gone beyond a moral boundary that no Jew should allow himself to trespass…. As a Jew and an Israeli, I am ashamed of the extent to which you have now entered into the range of actual denial of the Armenian Genocide, comparable to denials of the Holocaust.”

    In response to a second “especially insulting” denial by Shimon Peres in 2002, Dr. Charny sent him one of my columns from The California Courier, with the following note: “I am enclosing with great concern for your attention an editorial in a leading US-Armenian newspaper calling on Armenia to expel the Israeli Ambassador. For your further information, the author of this editorial, who is the head of the United Armenian Fund in the US — comparable to our United Jewish Appeal — was for many years a delegate to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.”

    Dr. Charny concluded his London remarks: “I am happy to emphasize that the people and the culture [in Israel] very strongly recognize and honor the [Armenian] Genocide, and know how serious and important it is for us and the whole world.” He expressed his sincere hope that “some day we will succeed in changing the official Israeli government position.”

  • UK, Racism; From the streets to the courts

    UK, Racism; From the streets to the courts

    a6A mini-pogrom in Ulster has shocked Britain. But a legal battle with the far right is brewing on the mainland.

    RACIST bogeymen leered out of newspaper pages in both Britain and Northern Ireland this week. On the mainland, the far-right British National Party (BNP), which won its first two seats in the European Parliament earlier this month, was given an ultimatum by Britain’s equality watchdog to step in line with non-discrimination laws or face legal action. Separately, white thugs in Ulster hounded more than a hundred Romanian immigrants—mainly Roma gypsies—out of their homes and, in most cases it now seems, away from the province altogether.

    The attacks in south Belfast were of the sort that Northern Ireland hoped had died with the Troubles. Over several nights crowds stoned the homes of immigrant families, smashing windows and posting extracts of Mein Kampf through letterboxes. Tension between locals and east European immigrants had simmered since football hooligans clashed at a match between Poland and Northern Ireland in March. When the intimidation reached a peak on June 16th, the Romanians were moved to a church hall and then to a leisure centre. On June 23rd Northern Ireland’s government announced that most had decided to return to Romania.

    Northern Ireland elected no far-right politicians to the European Parliament in the polling on June 4th. Nonetheless, many in Britain reckon that their neighbours over the water are a more prejudiced bunch than they are themselves. Socially, Ulster leans to the right: civil partnerships, greeted with a shrug by most British Tories, attracted protests in Belfast when they were introduced in 2005; abortion is also more restricted than on the mainland.

    It may be that these conservative attitudes extend to scepticism about outsiders. A survey published on June 24th by Northern Ireland’s Equality Commission, a statutory watchdog, found that nearly a quarter of the population would be unhappy if a migrant worker moved in next-door. People were even more hostile to Irish travellers, sometimes called gypsies (and often confused with Roma). Just over half said they would mind having travellers living next to them.

    Comparing these results with the rest of Britain is hard because surveys produce different answers according to how a question is worded. Across the United Kingdom, less than a tenth of whites say they would mind having a black or Asian boss (though nearly a third admit to being at least “a little” racially prejudiced). But the trends on the mainland and in Ulster are in sharp contrast. British hang-ups about minorities have fallen pretty steadily over the past 20 years, according to the British Social Attitudes Survey, a big questionnaire. By contrast, Northern Irish dislike of travellers is up by a quarter from 2005.

    Yet sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland are relatively low. Only 6% now say they would mind having a neighbour of a different faith. One theory goes that the fizzling out of the old disputes has helped to stoke other ones. “The attitudes that facilitate sectarianism may find new outlets in new times,” suggested Bob Collins, the head of the commission. Immigrants are not the only victims: anti-gay sentiment, falling across Britain, has gone up by more than half in Northern Ireland since 2005.

    Glass houses

    The election of a man with a conviction for inciting race hatred to represent northern England in the European Parliament spoils any pretty notion that all is well on the mainland. But the selection of Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, and his colleague Andrew Brons, a former National Front chairman, has provoked a legal challenge from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a mega-watchdog.

    The EHRC wrote to Mr Griffin on June 23rd that it believed the BNP fell foul of the law in its race-based membership policy, its hiring (which appears to be restricted to party members) and what the EHRC interpreted as hints that the party would not provide an equal service to constituents of all races. Unless the BNP changes its ways by July 20th, the watchdog will seek a court order to force it to; if the party held that in contempt it could face fines, imprisonment—and publicity.

    Why pounce now? First, the EHRC was born only in 2007. Its predecessor, the Commission for Racial Equality, lacked the power to pursue this sort of independent legal challenge. Second, the law has been clarified: the law lords ruled in November 2007 that certain functions of political parties are indeed subject to the Race Relations Act of 1976, which had been in doubt.

    Most obviously, the action was triggered by the electoral success of the BNP which, coupled with talk in Westminster about voting reform likely to benefit small parties, has made it harder to dismiss as a sideshow. Others have moved against the BNP since the election: the Royal British Legion, a veterans’ group, publicly called on Mr Griffin to stop wearing its poppy emblem; the government is pondering banning BNP members from teaching, just as they are already banned from the police and prison services. A forthcoming bill on equal opportunities is expected to include a clause explicitly to stop the BNP and its ilk from insisting on race-based membership.

    If the EHRC’s complaint goes to court, it will not be the first time a case against a political party has tested race-relations laws. The 1976 act followed a House of Lords ruling in 1973 upholding the right of East Ham South Conservative Club to ban a Sikh because of his race. And the 2007 Lords’ ruling that has clarified the grounds for the EHRC’s current case was over a complaint by a Pakistani man—upheld by their lordships—against the Labour Party.

    Economist

  • British Embassy staff arrested in Iran

    British Embassy staff arrested in Iran

    Iran has detained eight local staff at the British embassy in Tehran on accusations of having a role in post-election riots, local reports said.

    ukUK Foreign Secretary David Miliband demanded their release, saying the arrests were “quite unacceptable”.

    Relations between the countries are strained after Tehran accused the UK of stoking unrest, which London denies.

    Some 17 people are thought to have died in street protests after the disputed 12 June presidential poll.

    Tehran has expelled two British diplomats in the past week, and the UK has responded with a similar measure.

    The arrests were first reported by the semi-official Fars news agency.

    “Eight local employees at the British embassy who had a considerable role in recent unrest were taken into custody,” Fars said, without giving a source.

    UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband expressed “deep concern” over the arrest of local staff on Saturday.

    “This is harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable,” he told reporters at an international conference in Corfu. “We want to see (them) released unharmed.”

    He said the British government had made a strong protest and denied accusations that the UK was behind unrest in Iran.

    Poll verdict

    Meanwhile, Iran’s powerful Guardian Council was due to give its verdict on the result of the disputed presidential election, which handed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a decisive victory.

    But the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen in Tehran says there is much politicking taking place behind the scenes, and that the five-day deadline for the Guardian Council to return its verdict may be extended.

    Our correspondent says there is an attempt to form a committee – including the disappointed presidential candidates – to oversee the recount of 10% of the votes, a move which they are resisting.

    Another parliamentary committee is holding discussions with the grand ayatollahs in an attempt from pro-Ahmadinejad forces to put on a show of unity, he adds.

    But opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has not backed away from his claim that the election result was fraudulent, and has refused to support the Guardian Council’s plan for a partial recount.

    Mr Mousavi has been calling for a full re-run of the vote, but said on Saturday that he would accept a review by an independent body.

    However the Guardian Council has already defended President Ahmadinejad’s re-election, saying on Friday that the presidential poll was the “healthiest” since the Iranian revolution in 1979.

    BBC

  • BBC’s Mark Thompson claimed £2,000 to fly family home during Sachsgate

    BBC’s Mark Thompson claimed £2,000 to fly family home during Sachsgate

    Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, used more than £2,000 of licence fee-payers’ money to fly his family home from holiday after the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand row.

    thompson

    He cut short his family holiday to return to the UK as public anger grew over the lewd messages left by Brand and Ross on the answering machine of Andrew Sachs, the Fawlty Towers actor.

    The cost of flying his family home – £2,236.90 to be exact – was met by the BBC with the approval of the chairman of the corporation’s audit committee.

    Expenses claims made by the corporation’s board were published on Thursday in what Mr Thompson, who earns £ 816,000 a year, described as a “significant advance in openness at the BBC”, although full details of top stars’ salaries are to remain confidential.

    Notes on the claim for flying Mr Thompson’s family home read: “The chairman of the audit committee of the executive board agreed that the expense of cutting a family holiday short would be met by the BBC in advance of the claim being made.

    “The chairman of the BBC Trust was also informed.”

    On the same day as his family’s flight back to the UK, October 30 last year, Mr Thompson also claimed £500 for hotel rooms in the towns of Siracusa and Ragusa in Sicily, where he is believed to have been spending his holiday, and a further £206 for what is described in the accompanying notes as “holiday cut short”.

    In 2004 Mr Thompson put the £1,277.71 cost of chartering a private plane on expenses, again because he had to curtail a family holiday to deal with an “urgent staff issue” in London.

    He claimed £99.99 last year for a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvee champagne – an 80th birthday gift for entertainer Bruce Forsyth – and spent £500 on a Christmas dinner for BBC executives in 2007.

    Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, holding creative control of the corporation’s television output, claimed £500 for the theft of her handbag while on official business.

    Notes on the claim said: “The BBC decided to pay half the cost of replacing the property and cash stolen.”

    She also charged £35 to have her hair styled for a TV interview and nearly £190 for vaccinations ahead of a trip overseas.

    On a trip to meet studio bosses in Los Angeles in May 2007, Ms Bennett claimed more than £1,300 for a stay at the luxury Raffles l’Ermitage hotel in Beverly Hills.

    Her attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2008 cost more than £1,100 in hotel bills.

    In May 2007 Ms Bennett spent more than £2,000 hosting a “talent” dinner with 22 attendees.

    In July 2007 she claimed £1,500 for a leaving party for Jay Hunt, who is now BBC1 controller.

    Ms Bennett also spent £400 on a cake to celebrate the end of the BBC’s series Any Dream Will Do, for a party for contestants’ families.

    She also claimed various sums of around £30 a time for “talent gifts” such as bouquets of flowers.

    Ms Bennett also spent £5 on a taxi “while carrying confidential documents” and £25 on a taxi when she “needed to make urgent phonecalls, carrying papers”.

    The expenses list also showed that in May 2007 Ashley Highfield, who was the BBC’s director of future media and technology, spent more than £450 under the heading “external hospitality” while attending the Edinburgh festival.

    He also claimed 54p in mileage for a meeting about the charity Comic Relief with Richard Curtis in September 2007.

    Mr Highfield also spent more than £200 on a new Apple iPod in the same month “for testing with BBC services”.

    In November 2007, chief operating officer Caroline Thomson spent £33.20 on hospitality for a “confidential discussion” before a meeting.

    In September 2007 she claimed £135 in “celebratory drinks” for an awards bash. The same month saw her spend a total of more than £200 for a leaving do held at her house – as it was “cheaper than a restaurant”.

    Jenny Abramsky, who was the BBC’s director of audio and music, spent nearly £550 in December 2007 on an internal Christmas lunch.

    Mark Byford, the deputy director general, spent £60 in May 2007 on “discussing 2012”.

    Mr Thompson spent £73.69 in September 2007 on a business lunch with Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell.

    In October 2007 he splashed out more than £1,800 on flights for a business trip to New Delhi and in December that year he spent more than £600 on the office Christmas party.

    Even charitable efforts clocked up significant expenses.

    Tim Davie, director of audio and music, spent nearly £130 on a discussion on Sport Relief and also charged £407.25 for a “Children in Need business discussion”.

    In September 2007 chief financial officer Zarin Patel claimed £700 for a “thank you” to Deloitte for work on a business plan.

    Earlier, Mr Thompson announced that in future the BBC would release expenses claims made by the corporation’s 50 highest-earning executives and its leading decision makers every quarter.

    Erik Huggers, the corporation’s director of future media and technology, claimed more than £2,500 for a three-day trip to Las Vegas in January which included a stay at the five-star Bellagio Hotel.

    Leading stars at the BBC face substantial pay cuts due to the recession.

    Those on large contracts include Jonathan Ross, said to be on £6 million a year; Graham Norton, who is believed to earn £ 2.5 million a year; Jeremy Paxman, reported to be paid £1 million, and Fiona Bruce, thought to earn £ 800,000 a year.

    For some highly paid stars, the salary reduction could reportedly be as much as 40 per cent.

    A hard-hitting MPs’ report also said recently that confidentiality agreements between the BBC and top radio stars were preventing full scrutiny of the way the corporation spent public money.

    The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said the BBC appeared to be paying some of its radio presenters more than twice what commercial stations paid theirs.

    The BBC refused to give the National Audit Office (NAO), the public spending watchdog, a breakdown of presenters’ salaries for a selection of radio shows unless the NAO signed a non-disclosure agreement, the committee said.

    Edward Leigh MP, the chairman of the committee, said it was “disgraceful” that the BBC could dictate what the NAO could inspect when public money was at stake.

    Telegraph

  • GCHQ needs “ultra, ultra criminals”

    GCHQ needs “ultra, ultra criminals”

    a5Britons face a growing online threat from criminals, terrorists and hostile states, according to the UK’s first cyber security strategy.

    Businesses, government and ordinary people are all at risk, it says.

    The strategy has been published alongside an updated, wider National Security Strategy.

    Its publication is a sign of the growing recognition within government of the need to bolster defences against a growing threat.

    In line with a wider focus within the National Security Strategy on not just protecting the state but also citizens, the cyber-strategy encompasses protecting individuals from forms of fraud, identity theft and e-crime committed using technology as well as defending government secrets and businesses.

    ‘Attack capability’

    Launching the strategy, security minister Lord West said: “We know that various state actors are very interested in cyber warfare. The terrorist aspect of this is the least (concern), but it is developing.”

    He warned that future targets could include key businesses, the national power grid, financial markets and Whitehall departments.

    He said: “We know terrorists use the internet for radicalisation and things like that at the moment, but there is a fear they will move down that path (of cyber attacks).

    “As their ability to use the web and the net grows, there will be more opportunity for these attacks.”

    He confirmed that the UK government has already faced cyber attacks from foreign states such as Russia and China.

    But he denied that hackers had successfully broken into government systems and stolen secret information.

    He also said he could not deny that the government had its own online attack capability, but he refused to say whether it had ever been used.

    “It would be silly to say that we don’t have any capability to do offensive work from Cheltenham, and I don’t think I should say any more than that.”

    ‘Naughty boys’

    Among those the government has turned to for help on cyber crime are former illegal hackers, Lord West added.

    He said the government listening post GCHQ at Cheltenham had not employed any “ultra, ultra criminals” but needed the expertise of former “naughty boys” he said.

    “You need youngsters who are deep into this stuff… If they have been slightly naughty boys, very often they really enjoy stopping other naughty boys,” he said.

    Officials said e-crime crime is estimated to costs the UK several billion pounds a year.

    Two new bodies will be established in the coming months as part of the strategy.

    A dedicated Office of Cyber Security in the Cabinet Office will co-ordinate policy across government and look at legal and ethical issues as well as relations with other countries.

    The second body will be a new Cyber Security Operations Centre (CSOC) based at GCHQ.

    This will bring people together from across government and from outside to get a better handle on cyber security issues and work out how to better protect the country, providing advice and information about the risks.

    “CSOC’s aim will be to identify in real time what type of cyber attacks are taking place, where they come from and what can be done to stop them”, according to a Whitehall security official.

    Experts say the “forensics” of detecting who is behind a cyber attack and attributing responsibility remains extremely difficult.

    Officials said it would require input from those who had their own expertise in hackers. “We need youngsters,” an official said.

    The range of potentially hostile cyber activity – from other states seeking to carry out espionage through criminal gangs to terrorists – is daunting.

    Critical information

    At one end of the spectrum, military operations – such as Russia’s conflict with Georgia last year – are now accompanied by attacks on computer systems.

    The UK’s critical national infrastructure is also more reliant on technology than it was even five years ago and terrorists who have used the internet for fundraising and propaganda are also believed to have the intent – if not yet the capability- to carry out their own cyber-attacks.

    Officials declined to give a figure of how many attacks on government computer networks take place each day.

    In a speech in 2007, the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, explicitly mentioned Russia and China in the context of a warning that that “a number of countries continue to devote considerable time and energy trying to steal our sensitive technology on civilian and military projects, and trying to obtain political and economic intelligence at our expense. They do not only use traditional methods to collect intelligence but increasingly deploy sophisticated technical attacks, using the internet to penetrate computer networks.”

    Officials said they were not aware of any “key pieces of information” that had gone missing yet but said that British companies had lost critical information.

    The new Cyber Security Operations Centre will work closely with the designated parts of the critical national infrastructure and wider industry and officials say that business are keen for the government to take a lead but also share as much information as possible.

    US President Barack Obama has been carrying out a similar re-organisation for defending US computer networks and British officials said the two countries were co-ordinating closely not least because of the intimate relationship between GCHQ and its US equivalent.

    British officials believe that their government systems may also have fewer vulnerabilities than their US counterparts partly because they moved online later and have fewer connections between the internal government system and the rest of cyberspace to monitor.

    Officials in the US and UK are also thought to be working on forms of offensive cyber-warfare capability but officials are unwilling to go into any details of what this might involve.

    Some Comments:

    CSOC’s aim will be to identify in real time what type of cyber attacks are taking place, where they come from and what can be done to stop them
    Whitehall security official
    It would be silly to say that we don’t have any capability to do offensive work from Cheltenham, and I don’t think I should say any more than that
    Lord West, security minister
    BBC
  • Fears over terrorist cyber attacks in UK

    Fears over terrorist cyber attacks in UK

    aAl Qaida is intent on using the internet to launch a cyber-warfare campaign against the UK, ministers have revealed.

    Terrorist groups, which already use the internet for recruitment, propaganda and communication purposes, want to turn it into a dangerous weapon.

    Security Minister Lord West issued the warning as he published the Government’s new Cyber Security Strategy aimed at heading off online threats.

    As well as potential cyber-attacks from terrorists, the UK faces a real and growing threat from foreign governments such as China and Russia, and from organised criminal gangs, he said. Targets include key businesses, the national power grid, financial markets and Whitehall departments.

    As part of attempts to beef up defences, a new Office for Cyber Security will be set up to co-ordinate Government policy.

    Another new development will see the creation of a “cyber-forensics” team based at GCHQ, the Government’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. The Cyber Security Operations Centre will constantly monitor, analyse and counter cyber attacks as they happen.

    Lord West said the terrorists’ capability to launch attacks was something he believed “will develop” in future.

    “We know terrorists use the internet for radicalisation and things like that at the moment, but there is a fear they will move down that path (of cyber attacks). As their ability to use the web and the net grows, there will be more opportunity for these attacks.

    He confirmed that the UK Government has already faced cyber attacks from foreign states such as Russia and China. But he denied that hackers had successfully broken into Government systems and stolen secret information.

    He also said he could not deny that the Government has its own online attack capability, but he refused to say whether it had ever been used.

    Press Association