Says Gevorg Grigoryan: ‘They [gays] should be burnt.’ There should be total mobilisation to “fight fag*ots”. ‘We should not let them procreate’. Calls for beating, physical violence against gays and ultimately killing, as per Facebook screenshots of his comments (below, in Armenian).
“I will always be the one who will fight against homosexuals” [using derogatory Armenian word to refer to gays], calling LGBT people and their allies “grant seeking animals”, while the organisation he is heading aims at getting grants from international organisations ["- Միջազգային կազմակերպությունների կողմից առաջարված գրանտային ծրագրերի մասնակցություն"].
In a screenshot above, he confirms his anti-gay comments saying he is “proud” that he is against “perverse” people and “does not regret” what he said.
The Armenian Association of Young Doctors he is heading is holding a conference (6-7 November 2015, Yerevan, Armenia) re “health related quality of life”, and the conference is sponsored by number of organisations and pharma companies, including Bayer Healthcare. [other sponsors listed are Unipharm, Prom-Test Laboratories, Recordati]
I want to believe that they are not aware of the views of the president of the organisation they are sponsoring. Well, now they know.
I expect immediate actions from sponsors, and particularly Bayer Healthcare, by distancing themselves from this group, and withdrawing sponsorship.
Ethics Code of Recordati group offers “equal employment opportunities without discriminating on the basis of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, physical or mental handicaps, nationality, faith, politics or trade union membership”.
Bayer specifically stresses that they will not fund “organisations that discriminate on bases of race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation or national origin”.
Time to amend mistakes in relation to this Armenian organisation.
And in future, I call international medical, healthcare organisations, pharma companies, health/medical related groups and individuals in Armenia, Diaspora and elsewhere to boycott this and similar groups.
Not only Gevorg’s comments are in contradiction with all possible ethical and professional norms that any doctor should uphold, but they border with criminal activity as clearly contain hate speech and calls for physical violence.
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6 comments:
Bravo Doc
Very sad! :( A doctor full of hate :(
Bayer Healthcare distances itself from homophobic head of the Armenian Association of Young Doctors, avoids making public statement
Disgraceful ..especially for a doctor.
Extract from Open Democracy investigation:
Revealed: US-funded website spreading COVID misinformation in Armenia.
“US taxpayer money has funded a controversial health news website in Armenia that is spreading “incredibly dangerous” COVID-19 misinformation, openDemocracy can reveal.
Public health experts in the US and Armenia denounced this content – which includes claims that vaccines currently being developed are actually “biological weapons”.
The website, Medmedia.am, was launched in 2019 – amid a mushrooming of new ultra-conservative groups following Armenia’s 2018 ‘velvet revolution’ – by an NGO led by a locally well-known doctor with anti-LGBT views and far-right connections.”
“The NGO that received the US embassy grant, and launched Medmedia.am, is called the Armenian Association of Young Doctors. It was founded by a young urologist, Gevorg Grigoryan.
Last year, he claimed, incorrectly, that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine (which, among other things, protects women from cervical cancer) is intended for gay people – and that its side effects are riskier than cancer rates.
On social media, he has also previously said that “gays should be burnt and in a public place” and that he will “always be one of those who fight against homosexuality”.
Grigoryan is connected to local far-right activists too. Recently, he launched a new NGO whose co-founders include a member of the far-right movement VETO that was established last year following the 2018 ‘velvet revolution’.
In 2019, Grigoryan also founded the Armenian National Health Council, which has also campaigned against the HPV vaccine and appealed to citizens to oppose its “spread”.
This council has benefited from foreign funding as well. It was set up with money from a European Union-funded project that said it aimed to unite Armenian civil society organisations and enhance their influence over the public policy process.”
The Guardian also reflected the above investigation, below is an extract re his anti-LGBT comments:
US government is funding website spreading Covid-19 disinformation.
“Grigoryan said his past anti-LGBT statements, including one that said he would “always fight against gays,” had been misinterpreted and were prompted by specific cases of “anti-social behaviour.” Asked about a Facebook post from 2014 in which he wrote that “gays should be burnt and in a public place”, he said that the post was a reference to the film Pulp Fiction and was meant as a joke.”
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