VARTAN ESTUKYAN

Papa Stratis from Kallonili Village of Lesbos Island turned Lesbos into a home for refugees with the contributions he made. Papa Stratis passed away on September 2; the same day that Aylan passed away, who put the refugee problem into world’s agenda again with the photograph of his dead body lying on the shore.

21 years old law student Claudia Brounsouzian first went to Mersin with her mother. Then, she went to Cyprus and tried to go to Europe from there. However, she couldn’t have managed to go to Southern Cyprus and because of that, she returned to Turkey; but this time, she went to İzmir. We talked to Brounsouzian about her story of migration from Aleppo to Turkey.

I should have guessed we had to walk a kilometer once I heard an attendant repeat every five seconds, “The rally venue is 100 metres ahead, on the left”. You would think we were re-conquering the city, as we walked on and on but felt like we were in the same place. In the meantime, I observed the middle-aged men, whose commercial acumen I greatly admired, selling scarves, caps, sandwiches, bottled water, flags and plaques.

An investigation has been launched against the web site www. askeregitmeyin .com (don’t do your military service) on charges of ‘alienating the public from military service, and there are reports that the 381 people who contributed to the book are also being investigated.

A new library in Bitlis will be named after William Saroyan. Journalist Ahmet Tulgar, who came up with the idea, reports that he met with Bitlis Co-Mayor Hüseyin Olan and discussed the idea for a library.

Although there are Armenian churches in Diyarbakır, Van and Kayseri, regular mass cannot be held because religious clergy is not appointed by the Patriarchate. There are no permanent religious officials in churches in Turkey apart from the churches in Istanbul and the church in İskenderun.

Scholar and editor of the Armenian Review Asbed Kotchikian: “Although the stubborn refusal to use the term ‘Genocide’ continues, I observe a more genuine effort to normalize relations with Armenians and Armenia.”