Daily Archives: October 7, 2013

Gulf states to introduce medical testing on travellers to ‘detect’ gay people and stop them from entering the country

Posted on by
Reply

Kuwait

 

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to ‘detect’ homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country – or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), according to a Kuwaiti government official.

GCC member countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – already deem homosexual acts unlawful.

This controversial stance is being toughened, with members of the LGBT community stopped at the border and banned from entering the country, according to Yousouf Mindkar, the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry.

Those taking part in homosexual acts in Kuwait, if they’re under 21, can receive a jail sentence of up to 10 years.

Lightning strikes killed 32 people, including nine children, during weekend storms in India

Posted on by
Reply

կայծակ

Lightning strikes killed 32 people, including nine children, during storms at the weekend in India.

It is not rare for lightning to strike someone when it is monsoon season, but that the sheer number of the death toll is extremely rare.

The strikes killed people in the eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand.

Torrential rains accompanied by strong winds uprooted trees, damaged houses and brought down power cables across the region on Sunday night.

Villagers housed in bamboo-and-grass huts are generally most at risk.

 

Monster truck crash kills 8, injures dozens in Mexico

Posted on by
Reply

Mexico monster truck

 

A “monster truck” spun out of control and mowed down spectators at an event in northern Mexico, killing at least eight people, including four children, officials said.

The driver told authorities he passed out after hitting his head, a state prosecutor’s spokesman said.

State Gov. Cesar Duarte told reporters Sunday that it was possible the truck’s driver drank alcohol before Saturday’s deadly crash.

Blood tests were conducted and prosecutors will determine who was responsible, Duarte said.

The crash injured dozens of people, Duarte said. On Sunday, 28 of them remained hospitalized — 12 of whom were in critical condition.

According to the event’s website, the show included aerobatics, skydiving, hot air ballooning, motorcycles, fireworks and monster trucks.

 

ANCA EASTERN REGION ORGANIZES PETER KOUTOUJIAN PHONE BANK

Posted on by
Reply

PK_phone bankFranklin, MA — The Armenian National Committee of American Eastern Region (ANCA-ER) organized a phone bank for Congressional hopeful Peter Koutoujian at Camp Haiastan on Saturday, October 6, 2013.

Middlesex County Sheriff Peter Koutoujian is running for the vacant seat in Massachusetts’ 5th Congressional district, which includes Watertown, Belmont, Waltham, Lexington, Arlington, and many other towns heavily populated with Armenian Americans. The ANCA Eastern Massachusetts has been actively working on the campaign, volunteering at district phone banks and canvassing the district. Local Armenian youth have joined the local ANC and participated in this effort.

The ANCA-ER organized the phone bank at Camp Haiastan during the Armenian Youth Federation’s annual Senior Seminar, an educational event that attracted more than 85 Armenian youth from the East Coast, West Coast and Canada. ANCA-ER Executive Director Michelle Hagopian and ANCA National Board Member Steve Mesrobian instructed and helped the youth for an hour on Saturday. The group used the online system on www.koutoujianforcongress.com by doing a virtual phone bank, which allows individuals to make calls anywhere they have Internet access.

“The ANCA-ER strives to activate Armenian youth on all things important to the Armenian people. Volunteering with the ANCA-ER to phone bank for Peter is a privilege and the very least that Armenian youth can be doing,” said Hagopian.

The Special Primary Election for now Sen. Ed Markey’s old seat will take place on Tuesday, October 15, in Massachusetts’ 5th district. For more information on ANCA-endorsed Koutoujian and his campaign, visit www.koutoujianforcongress.comtoday.

European Court of Human Rights Provides More Options to Sue Turkey

Posted on by
Reply

ՄԻԵԴBy Harut Sassounian

Publisher, The California Courier

 While there is frequent talk about the pursuit of Armenian claims against Turkey in the International Court of Justice (World Court), the possibility of taking legal action in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is rarely mentioned, despite its distinct advantages.

The key difference between the two courts is that only governments can file lawsuits in the World Court, while any individual, group or state can take legal action in the ECHR, giving Armenians countless possibilities for lawsuits against the Turkish state. Litigants before ECHR must first exhaust all domestic remedies and be from one of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, which includes Armenia and Turkey.

It is not a coincidence that Turkey leads the list of countries being sued in ECHR, as in the last two and half years alone, over 20,000 cases have been filed against that country. Contrary to popular belief, Turkey has no choice but to comply with all ECHR judgments if it wants to maintain its membership in the Council of Europe. This explains why the Ankara government has diligently paid tens of millions of dollars to litigants after losing hundreds of ECHR judgments.

A case in point is ECHR’s October 1, 2013 decision against Turkey, in which the court awarded over 5 million euros (close to $7 million) to two Greek brothers, Ioannis Fokas and Evangelos Fokas, who live in Katerini, Greece. The Turkish courts had barred them from inheriting their sister Polikseni Pistika’s buildings in Turkey because of their Greek nationality.

In their lawsuit, the Fokas brothers claimed that “they had been deprived of the ownership and use of three immovable properties in the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, namely three buildings and land, which they were entitled to inherit from their sister.” The expropriated properties consisted of an eight-story building worth 3.3 million euros, a six-story building worth 1.4 million euros, and a four-story building worth 400,000 euros, based on the appraisal by an Istanbul real estate agency.

The ECHR found that the Turkish courts’ “refusal to recognize the applicants’ status as heirs constituted an interference with their right to peaceful enjoyment of their possessions and that such interference was incompatible with the principle of lawfulness…. Accordingly, recognition of the applicants as the heirs of Polikseni Pistika…would place them in the position they would have been in, had the State [Turkey] not expropriated the deceased’s property.… In those circumstances, an award of compensation for the pecuniary loss seems to be the most appropriate just satisfaction (see Nacaryan and Deryan vs. Turkey, no. 19558/02 and 27904/02, <<<<16-17, January 8, 2008). The Court considers that such an award principally corresponds to the amount that the applicants could legitimately expect to have obtained as compensation for the loss of their property, had there been a mechanism to request such compensation.”

Based on the above ruling, the European Court awarded the Greek brothers 5 million euros for their expropriated real estate, as well as compensating them for their “anguish and frustration which the applicants must have experienced over the years in not being able to use their properties.” The Court ordered the Turkish government to pay the amount of the award to the applicants within three months.

In the referenced Nacaryan and Deryan vs. Turkey case, ECHR found that the Turkish courts had also violated the rights of Yeran-Janet Nacaryan and Armen Deryan by claiming that as Greek citizens, they could not inherit the property of their deceased relative in Turkey “on the ground that the condition of reciprocity between Greece and Turkey had not been met.” ECHR declared Turkey guilty and awarded the two Greek-Armenian applicants a total of 500,000 euros.

At the international conference of Armenian lawyers held in Yerevan last July, Constitutional Court Chairman, Gagik Harutunyan, announced the formation of a committee of experts to study the legal merits of filing a lawsuit against Turkey to remedy the massive losses resulting from the Armenian Genocide.

Given the fact that ECHR provides for European Council litigants many more opportunities than the World Court, the recently-formed Armenian committee of legal experts should cast a wider net in considering the possibilities of filing lawsuits against Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights, as well as in national and international courts.