It was extremely difficult to watch Ms. Lena Nazaryan’s interview with Petros Ghazaryan last night (November 25, 2020) because I expected Ms. Nazaryan, the vice president of the National Assembly (Parliament) and one of the leading figures of My Step, to have more logical and adequate answers to the questions posed by Mr. Ghazaryan and a more accurate assessment of the current situation in our homeland and Diaspora.
Taking into account her misguided perception of the current realities in Armenia, I felt compelled to remind Prime Minister Pashinyan, My Step and Ms. Nazaryan of the political process which lead…
A few months ago, a former volunteer of Aleppo Compatriotic Charitable Organization (Aleppo-NGO) from Minnesota and a current Harvard law student started a fundraiser on his Facebook profile to support a Syrian refugee who needed an urgent heart surgery in Armenia. After reviewing his fundraiser and US banking information for two days, Facebook approved his campaign which went public and helped raise more than $1,300. Then, without any warning or explanation, Facebook decided to cancel the campaign and returned the funds to the donors.
Fortunately for that refugee, Aleppo-NGO was able to raise the required $10,000 to facilitate the successful…
Special for the Armenian Weekly
When I came across the joint crowdfunding campaign by The HALO Trust and ONE Armenia (1A) to remove landmines from 31,839m² of land in the Lachin corridor, the first image that crossed my mind was not Princess Diana’s 1997 walk through the minefields of Angola, but my encounter with “Selma,” her daughter “Mariam,” and the dozens of Syrian refugees that were fleeing ISIS’s invasion of Kobani, in 2014, only to fall victim to landmines at the Turkish-Syrian border.
Landmines, the ghost bombs, are “explosive devices designed to be detonated by the presence, proximity or…
Sarkis Balkhian
Syrian human rights activist & Exec. Director of Aleppo-NGO in Yerevan. Previously worked at Human Rights Watch, Armenian Weekly, USA for UNHCR. @SarkisBalkhian
