Ria Taza (newspaper)


Rya Teze, formerly written as Rja Ţəzə and Р’йа т'әзә, was a Kurdish language newspaper published from Yerevan, Armenia. The newspaper was founded in March 1930. It was the organ of the Kurdish section of the Communist Party of Armenia. At the time, it was a four-page newspaper, published every two weeks and with a circulation of six hundred copies. The editor at the time was Cerdoyê Genco. Publication was discontinued in 1937.
In 1955 publication of Rya Teze was resumed with Miroyi Asad as its editor. As of the early 1970s it was published semiweekly and had a circulation of 2,800. By 1976 circulation reached 5,000.
As of the 1980s Rya Teze had a weekly circulation of 4,000 and was read by Kurds across the Soviet Union; a smaller number of readers existed among the Kurds in Europe, who sometimes adopted material from it in their own publications published in Germany and Sweden. In 1989 Tital Muradov took over as editor, and in 1991 the editorship was handed over to Emirike Serdar.
Following the disintegration of the Soviet Union the newspaper faced financial difficulties as it no longer received state support. It survived, however. It was converted into a monthly with a circulation of five hundred. In 2000 the script was changed back to Latin alphabet. The newspaper was shut down in 2003 due to economic problems. All in all 4,800 issues of Rya Teze were published between 1930 and 2003.