Forum German-Armenian Journalist Exchange 2019

by Isabella Iskra Introduction On April 5, 2019, for the first time in Armenian history, a transgender woman delivered a speech in the Armenian Parliament. Afterwards, Naira Zohrabyan, Chair of the Parliament’s Human Rights Committee, explained that she didn't have the right to raise any question on the LGBT community, as it wasn’t on the [...]

by Aren Melikyan Berin, Westend. The silence of a quiet German street is regularly interrupted by greetings in Armenian. The Embassy of Armenia in Germany is located here, in a three-store house-like building. In front of the Armenian Consulate, a group of Armenians are waiting in the queue to be called from inside. These people [...]

by Daniel Kopp Mount Ararat and the Ararat Valley, photo: Daniel Kopp The landlocked country in the Caucasus has a huge potential — and multi-layered interest — to accelerate its green energy transition. Armen Kirakosyan sits at his desk in the small backyard office in the northern outskirts of Yerevan,  surrounded by shelves stuffed with [...]

by Arshaluys Mgdesyan The European Union is one of Armenia's largest trade and economic partners. The EU offers a Generalized System of Preferences Plus (GSP+) preferential trade regime, but not all Armenian manufacturers have the capacity to export goods to the EU in general, let alone benefitting from the GSP+. In addition to the difficulty of meeting the [...]

by Anne Frieda Müller “I don’t trust the media. When a newspaper or a blog publishes breaking news about the government, I immediately check the Prime Minster’s Facebook page.” Words Araksya, a linguistics student, and most of Armenians tend to say. But how did it come that far, and what role does Facebook play in [...]

by Ani Minasyan  Poverty in Germany has many faces: there are people who live on the streets, those who can’t pay for their housing and end up in special care homes, people who can't afford to travel for their holidays because of low wages, those who can't afford a hot meal on a daily basis, [...]

by Max Kuball Every year thousands of Armenians with illegally obtained tourist visas travel to Germany to apply for asylum. These people, however, are not escaping political persecution: most of them are seriously ill and are looking for life-saving medical measures. After successful treatment, many return to their country - and dream of a life [...]

by Harutyun Tsatryan When it comes to the dissemination of fake news and fact-checking related skills, younger audiences are different from older groups not just in what they do before consuming the news, but in their core attitudes in terms of what they want from the news. We tried to find some young voices from [...]

by Sophia Stahl After years of persecution, fear and suffering Christianity was adopted as state religion in Armenia. Only two percent of the society in Armenia is of a different religion, and Yezidis are the largest minority with about 40.000 representatives in the country. Some of them still live in Yezidi-populated villages far away from [...]