Catholicos Garegin II Faces Prosecution In Turkey For Urging Genocide Recognition

"Turkish prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into Catholicos Garegin II’s calls for Turkey to recognize the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, it emerged on Thursday. Ending a five-day visit to Istanbul on Sunday, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church said the Armenian genocide is a fact that can not be disputed by the Turkish government and scholars. “For our people, the Genocide is not a matter for research – it is a reality of fact that happened, which must be recognized,” he told a news conferencethere. “That (recognition) is naturally the desired option, but a negative position can also be taken on this issue.” The Turkish Cihan news agency reported that the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul believes that Garegin thereby “denigrated Turkishness” and are considering bringing relevant criminal charges against him. It said the inquiry was launched after a written complaint lodged by an association of Turkish nationalist lawyers. Members of the association were reportedly among a small number of people who staged daily protests last week against Garegin’s presence in Istanbul."

BBC and the Armenian Genocide: not enough time

Despite memorial events across the world on April 24 to commemorate the Armenian Genocide the BBC has failed to air a single mention of the Genocide before, on or after 24 April 2006. An official complaint to the BBC Information received a standard reply alleging lack of time and resources to cover all worthy events. We beg to differ. The complaint was raised to the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU), however the reply from the ECU made it clear that the issue in question is outside their responsibility. We intend to take this complaint further to the Executive Board and if necessary the Board of Governors to ensure that a massacre of over one million human beings less than a century ago is recognised by the Corporation as worthy of remembrance.

A matter of viewpoint or a matter of humanity?

In response to the letter to the president of the Historical Association (HA) regarding the position on the Armenian Genocide, Nicolas Kinloch, deputy president of the Association recently wrote: "I do not think that most members of [the HA] would have any reaction to the events of 1915 other than that they were an appalling example of modern genocide. However, the Association itself does not have a view of the genocide, nor of any other historical event. It is generally opposed to the idea that there should be any such thing as an 'official' view of the past." We thank Mr Kinloch for his recognition of this historical event - sadly the corpses in the Syrian desert won't be able to present their viewpoint any time soon.

Early Day Motion for recognition of the Armenian and Assyrian Genocides

Stephen Pound, MP, has proposed the following Early Day Motion in the House of Commons: "That this House is appalled by the genocide committed against the Assyrians in 1915 in their ancestral homeland by the then ruling government of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the Committee for Union and Progress, a genocide which led to the mass exodus of the Assyrians from their millennia-old native soil and resulted in the deaths of approximately two-thirds of the Assyrian population and one and a half million Armenians and the destruction of many Assyrian and Armenian villages and national and religious institutions; recognises the suffering of the Assyrian and Armenian people during the genocide of 1915, and accepts that the suffering of victims of genocide is augmented and perpetuated by indifference and denial, and that genocide prevention can only by achieved by learning from history and recognising and condemning previous acts of genocide; calls upon the UK and Turkish governments publicly and officially to recognise the Assyrian and Armenian genocide of 1915, and encourage other members of the international community to take similar steps, thereby fulfilling the obligation of international co-operation enshrined in the preamble to the 1948 Genocide Convention; and urges the UK Government to call on the European Union to make official Turkish recognition of the 1915 Assyrian and Armenian genocide one of the pre-conditions for Turkey's membership of the EU." The motion is signed by 58 members of parliament as of 21 June 2006.

Resolutions, laws, and declarations recognising the Armenian Genocide

The Armenian National Institute in the United States maintains a list of Resolutions, Laws, and Declarations by states and organisations around the world recognising the Armenian Genocide. The list can be viewed at the following web page: http://www.armenian-genocide.org

Prime Minister of Canada recognizes the Armenian Genocide

The Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, made a clear statement recognizing the historical fact of the Armenian Genocide. In response to a reporter's question regarding the Armenian Genocide, the Prime Minister said: "That was a vote held in the last Parliament [Motion M-380 - April 21, 2004]. As you recall, Parliament passed that resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Our party supported that resolution and we continue to recognize that parliamentary resolution". Dr. Vagharch Ehramdjian, Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC), thanked the Prime Minister Harper, on behalf of the Canadian Armenian Community, for his historic statement. "The Right Honorable Stephen Harper's principled and righteous stand in recognizing the Armenian Genocide will finally bring closure to the Canadian-Armenian Community,'' said the Chairman of the ANC.

Robert Fisk: You're talking nonsense, Mr Ambassador

"A letter from the Turkish Ambassador to the Court of Saint James arrived for me a few days ago, one of those missives that send a shudder through the human soul. "You allege that an 'Armenian genocide' took place in Eastern Anatolia in 1915," His Excellency Mr Akin Alptuna told me. "I believe you have some misconceptions about those events ..." Oh indeedy doody, I have. I am under the totally mistaken conception that one and a half million Armenians were cruelly and deliberately done to death by their Turkish Ottoman masters in 1915, that the men were shot and knifed while their womenfolk were raped and eviscerated and cremated and starved on death marches and their children butchered. I have met a few of the survivors - liars to a man and woman, if the Turkish ambassador to Britain is to be believed - and I have seen the photographs taken of the victims by a brave German photographer called Armen Wegner whose pictures must now, I suppose, be consigned to the waste bins. So must the archives of all those diplomats who courageously catalogued the mass murders inflicted upon Turkey's Christian population on the orders of the gang of nationalists who ran the Ottoman government in 1915." Read more

Armenian Genocide Trust of Great Britain now online

The web site of the Armenian Genocide Trust is now online and will support the mission objective of the Trust - promoting greater public awareness of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.