Big protest march against the British Encyclopedia

On December 15, at 12.00 am, a protest march will be held against the encyclopedias published by the British ‘’Macmillan children’s books’’ and the Russian «Махаон» publishing houses.

Hundreds of marchers, carrying posters with the slogans ‘’Deny the Falsification’’, ‘’Don’t Distort the Truth’’, ‘’The Main Language in Armenia is Armenain’’, proceeded to the Embassy of Russia in Armenia and the British Embassy passing the letters to the Ambassadors. By this the initiators of the protest will appeal the Ambassadors against the false information about Armenia, demanding their interference in denying the false information and in preventing the further dissemination of the same falsification.

As it was mentioned by Ani Gasparyan, the ‘’Ankakh’’ journalist, as well as the coordinator of the initiative ‘’Against Encyclopedic Fraud’’, a letter with a request of denial had previously been addressed to these publishing houses.

‘’The editor-in-chief of the British publishing house didn’t  accept the mistakes made by them and refused to make any changes in the publication. As for the Russian publishers, they interpreted the mistakes as results of technical disorder, mentioning that they have prepared a newly edited version’’, she said.

According to edgar Hovhannisyan, the head of the Ideological-propagandistic committee of the youth board of the RPA, they are not inclined to believe that all this is done intentionally, that it is a propaganda against Armenia, but rather a misprint or a misunderstanding.

‘’Publishing Houses are private companies. Perhaps the embassies are not entitled to be engaged with such problems. However, we do hope that they will confirm that these facts do not correspond with reality and will take measures to regulate this issue’’, he mentioned. It should be mentioned that in the section about Armenia the encyclopedia says:

• the main languages are Armenian and Azerbaijani
• the main religions are Orthodox (Armenian Apostolic Church), and Islam (Shias)

The Encyclopedia also says that there was an armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan because of the status of Nagorno Karabakh, the latter being presented as ‘’an Azerbaijani region mostly inhabited by Armenians’’.

The initiative ‘’Against Encyclopedic Fraud’’ was launched with the aim of denying the false information about Armenai published in the British Encyclopedia.

At present the initiative group includes the Student Union and Youth Union ARF “Nikol Aghbalyan, the Youth Committee of the party ‘’Prosperous Armenia’’, the youth NGO  called ”Let’s Go Together“, the youth movement  ”Together“, the youth movement ‘’For Armenia’’, ”Advocacy Coalition of NGOs “,  the NGO “Sardarapat’’, the student union ‘’Hayk” from the ‘’Heritage Party’’, the State Engineering University Students’ Council, the weekly ‘’Ankakh’’, the NGO coalition of ‘’Interest Defence’’, ‘’Armat’’ press club, the youth union ‘’Hayazn’’ and other organizations and groups.