Protest Infront of UNESCO and Azerbaijani Embassy....

So after about a week of preparations the time had finally come to go to Ottawa…Busses left at around 6:30 am from the Armenian Community Center. The event was organized by the newly formed Armen Karo Student Organization, and the ARF Youth Organization of Canada. When we first arrived in Ottawa, we began our protest in front of the UNESCO building with about 100 of us from Toronto, Montreal, Cambridge and Ottawa, demanding that the UNESCO interfere and condemn the barbaric destruction of the Armenian “Khachkars” in Nakhijevan. Although we tried presenting the UNESCO representative with a letter, they denied our entrance into the building. The letter was later read out loud in both English and French by Lori Janbazian and Harout Bakarian. Ung. Mher Karakashian spoke on behalf of the ARF Central Committee, saying that UNESCO’s stance is unacceptable and shouldn’t be tolerated by anyone…The protest later was lead to the Azerbaijani Embassy, along with the “Khatchkar”, the signs, and the Azerbaijani dummy we had made. Ung. Raffi Sarkissian later spoke in front of the Embassy presenting our rage against Azerbaijan’s policy of cultural genocide.


Overall, I believe that the protest went by really well, however, the lack of media was really noticeable by the protestors. I believe we could have made even more noise if we had media attention…It’s alright though...We are definately making a difference, and we can now learn to make future events even better!

thanks to Talar S. for the pictures....Janbaz loves you!