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Come Celebrate the New Year and Armenian Christmas with AGLA NY at our Annual Armenian Christmas Party
Friday January 8th, 8PM – 12PM
104 Green Street, #2
(Greenpoint) Brooklyn, NY 11222
(view map)
Please bring what you would like to drink 
Please RSVP on Facebook or email us at info@aglany.org to let us know if you’re coming!
Via Pink Armenia we have learned that IGLA-Europe is reporting that Paata Sabelashvili, board member of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Board and a leader of the Inclusive Foundation in Georgia, has been released and is now recovering after nearly two weeks detention.
Martin K.I. Christensen, Co-Chairs of ILGA-Europe’s Executive Boards, said:
“There are a few questions still to be answered by the Georgian authorities. We are concerned that the raid on the office of the Inclusive Foundation which took place on 15 December 2009 was disproportionate and humiliating. We are very concerned with the way the police forces treated the staff of the Inclusive Foundation and with the damage they cause to the office. The other worry is that Georgian police still monitors the office and that other leaders of the Inclusive Foundation, Tinatin Japaridze and Eka Agdgomelashvili, continue to be under police surveillance. We call on the Georgian authorities to immediately end intimidation and any surveillance of the Inclusive Foundation office and its staff.”
The Armenian Gay and Lesbian Association of New York (AGLA NY) is very troubled by the news that Georgian Police have attacked the office of the Georgian LGBT group Inclusive Foundation and arrested the head of the organization, Paata Sabelashvilli (pictured left).
Dedicated to establishing a democratic Georgia, “where sexual orientation and gender self-expression would not be the ground for discrimination,” the Inclusive Foundation is an important voice in the Caucasus, which is still plagued by homophobic public policies and severe brutality against LGBT people in general.
In a statement issued today, ILGA-Europe said it was “shocked” by the conduct of the Georgian police, “which had clearly homophobic motives.” The group called for the immediate release of Mr. Sabelashvili. AGLA NY joins its voice in the international call for the release of the LGBT leader.
ILGA-Europe continues:
“The information we have received from Georgia indicates that the police acted disproportionately and completely ignored basic rule of law. Moreover, we are extremely concerned about the safety of Paata Sabelashvili, who is not allowed any contact with the outside world.”
The following is Inclusive-Foundation’s appeal to the Georgian government and all international organizations. Please circulate this letter to everyone you know.
Affiliated with the Women’s Resource Center (WReC) in Yerevan, Armenia, the Women-Oriented Women’s (WOW) collective—a group of Armenian queer and straight artists, writers, and activists—is planning the publication of two years of its online electronic correspondence, beginning from its inception in 2007.
The correspondence includes original emails (in Armenian and in English) written by members of WOW discussing the foundation of the collective, the conceptual details and debates about outreach, awareness, art projects such as “Coming To You To Not Be With You” (August 3-4, 2008), and other important conversations on LGBT issues in Armenia. Some discussion threads include the translation and coining of new phrases in Armenian regarding gender and sexuality, accounts of coming out to self and family, and arguments on the goals of a feminist art collective to present radical views on gender. The book is scheduled for publication in August 2010.
The Armenian Gay & Lesbian Association of NY is proud to be helping the Women-Oriented Women’s Collective in Armenia raise funds to publish this important book. For more information on The WOW Collective and to help fund this project, please visit the project page on Kickstarter.com
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/aglany/two-years-in-correspondence-from-the-wow-collect
LGBT Community Services Center – Room 410
208 W. 13th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues)
New York, NY 10011
212 620-7310 / http://www.gaycenter.org
Subways: ACE, 1239 to 14th Street
Suggested Donation $5
RSVP and get more information on the Facebook Event Page
Readings by:
David Ciminello
Amy Ouzoonian
Aaron Poochigian
Margarita Shalina
Hrag Vartanian
More about the writers after the jump.
