EDITORIAL COMMENT

Archbishop Haigazoun Najarian has released a second statement in response to the wave of community criticism of his interview on a Diasporan internet television program, where he characterised the founders of the Armenian-Australian community as an “unfortunately uneducated” flock from the Middle East, who only arrived to these shores because their limitations couldn't earn them visas to the United States, Canada and Europe.

At the time, Armenia Media represented the sentiments of our community with an EDITORIAL (click here to read), demanding "a public correction" of the statement that has caused great offence.

The Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Australia and New Zealand has now released two statements – one on 12 June which can be found by clicking here, and the other is below this Editorial Comment.

Through these two statements, Archbishop Najarian explained what he in fact meant when he spoke the words that caused such great offence to the community. He also expressed his regret that the words used caused such offence and accepted he could have chosen other words, although he stopped short of apologising for speaking the words. Finally, he affirmed that he respects the Armenian-Australian community, and particularly our founder generation, who were inaccurately characterised in the original interview.

We are pleased that the Archbishop has issued a public correction of the above.

We at Armenia Media will continue to hold to account any individual or group that offends our community – in part or whole, whether that offence is caused from within our community or outside. And if we directly see or hear such offensive comments or actions, it means they happened. Therefore we don’t need clarification, we need rectification.