Motion 797 on the Armenian Genocide by Andrew Dismore MP

The following early day motion was introduced in the House of Commons by Andrew Dismore MP following the desecration of the Armenian Genocide Monument in Cardiff:

That this House unreservedly condemns the desecration of the Armenian Genocide Monument in Cardiff on Holocaust Memorial Day 2008; congratulates all bodies which have recognised the truth of the Armenian Genocide including The International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, The Aegis Trust, The European Parliament, The National Assembly of Wales, The Edinburgh, Ealing and Gwynedd Councils, The United Nations Association Wales, The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, and the Kurdish parliament in exile; and calls upon the UK Government formally to recognise the 1915 genocide of Armenians and Assyrians.

Armenian Genocide Monument in Cardiff desecrated on Holocaust Memorial Day

The new Armenian Genocide Monument which was recently erected in Cardiff was desecrated in the early hours of the morning before important ceremonies were held today to commemmorate the Holocaust, and to remember Hrant Dink, Turkish-Armenian journalist murdered by a Turkish nationalist a year ago. The ornate Armenian Cross on the monument was smashed to bits by persons unknown using a hammer, which was left at the scene of the crime. One of the Welsh Armenians said of this act of vandalism: "This is our holiest shrine. Our grandparents who perished in the Genocide do not have marked graves. This is where we remember them." Eilian Williams of Wales-Armenia Solidarity said that he blamed the so-called "Committee for the Protection of Turkish Rights" under the leadership of Hal Savas for the crime. The police is investigating. He continued: "I call on Armenians and supporters of justice throughout the world to send messages of support to Wales-Armenia Solidarity (eilian@nant.wanadoo.co.uk) which we will forward to the First Minister of the National Assembly of Wales. We shall repair the cross again and again no matter how often it is desecrated. We also challenge the UK government and the Turkish Embassy to condemn this racist attack".

Another prosecution against Agos journalists

Reporters Without Borders condemns the charges that have been brought against the owner of the Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos, Serkis Seropyan, and its new editor, Aris Nalci, because of a 9 November editorial criticising the one-year suspended prison sentences passed the previous month on Seropyan, former editor Arat Dink, and two other journalists, Aydin Engin and Karin Karakashli.

According to a press report on 16 January, Seropyan and Nalci were summoned by an Istanbul prosecutor and ordered to pay a fine of 23,500 euros because of the editorial. When they refused, the prosecutor said they would be tried for “attempted obstruction of justice” under article 288 of the criminal code, which carries a maximum penalty of four a half years in prison.

Reporters Without Borders regards this prosecution as yet another case of improper use of the press law.

The one-year suspended sentence was imposed on the four journalists for reprinting an interview that Dink’s father, then Agos editor Hrant Dink, gave to Reuters in 2006 in which he said the massacres of Armenians from 1915 to 1917 constituted genocide. Hrant Dink was murdered in January 2007.

Linguistic analysis of Prime Minister's Office response to petition to recognise the Armenian Genocide

"The British Government acknowledges and regrets the terrible events that afflicted the Ottoman Armenian population at the beginning of the last century, when over a million ethnic Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were killed. Many were massacred; some were victims of civil strife, starvation and disease, which ravaged the whole population of Eastern Anatolia during the First World War."

Use of the verb "afflict", which is usually used to refer to a problem or an illness is quite interesting. Considering that the genocide was not an illness caused by unknown virii or bacteria, it is difficult to see why the Armenian population is characterised as being "afflicted" by the genocide. One of the possibilities that suggests itself might be the desire to anonymise the well defined and known perpetrators of this crime - many of whom were tried by Ottoman courts martial and condemned for their crimes shortly after they were committed. The next expression which merits consideration is "ravaged the whole population of Eastern Anatolia". This passage is intended, without doubt, to convey the message that it is not only the Armenians that have suffered, and in this sense it is of course completely true - huge numbers of Greeks, Assyrians and other Christian minorities were massacred as well. However no ethnic or religious group was massacred at the scale of the Armenians, and no other nation was robbed of its homeland of over two thousand years as a result of these massacres.

"The massacres were an appalling tragedy, which the British Government of the day condemned. We fully endorse that view. However, neither this Government nor previous British Governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorised as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, a convention which is, in any event, not retrospective in application."

The keywords to be analysed in this paragraph are "judged", "evidence", "sufficiently unequivocal", "persuade", and "in any event not retrospective". Let us deal with these key words in sequence. "Judged", "evidence" and "sufficiently unequivocal" suggest a legal process, where a suspect is brought before a judge and evidence is presented but is not found "sufficiently unequivocal". We are not told why it should be unequivocal and just how unequivocal it should be to be sufficient? However what is crucial is that it is the event, rather than the perpetrators, that is judged, and there is no mention of standard of proof. This begs the question, just how unequivocal should evidence of the crime which almost annihilated a whole nation be to be sufficiently unequivocal? Next keyword which merits our attention is "persuade" - use of this word suggests that one party is trying, is ought to or needs to persuade another (in this case the British Government). The effect of this word is that an objective historical fact is reduced to an arguable point, of which some may be persuaded (perhaps by improper means or due to their gullibility) while others stay steadfast (like the British Government) in not being "persuaded" - and thus staying above the whole artificially created argument. Needless to say, the British Government of the day could not call these massacres "genocide" simply because the word "genocide" did not exist at the time when it was committed. The government called them "crimes against humanity", which is the same category of crime. Finally, the paragraph includes a "grace clause", which seems to say that even if it was a genocide, no legal consequences would ensue. There are two problems with this approach. A crime is a crime regardless of what you call it. A word is used to refer to a concept, it does not create it. The word "genocide" was defined recently, not so the concept or practice of "genocide". As to the applicability of the UN Genocide Convention opinions differ on whether this particular legal instrument - unlike the definition of genocide itself - applies. However, once it is established that the events constitute genocide, the words speak for themselves.

Thousands To Rally In Istanbul On Dink Murder Anniversary

By Nicolas Cheviron, AFP

Thousands are expected to gather in Istanbul Saturday in memory of Armenian-Turk campaigning editor Hrant Dink, on the first anniversary of his hate-slaying outside his weekly newspaper's offices.

The grassroots tribute to the Agos founder, gunned down by an unemployed ultra-nationalist on January 19, 2007, comes days before Turkish parliament reform of a controversial law against insulting 'Turkishness' that some hold responsible for his murder.

Already the subject of a series of prosecutions, Dink was given a six-month suspended sentence in October 2005 after a court ruled that one of his pieces described Turkish blood as dirty. An appeal was also rejected.

He had called on Armenians to reject symbolically "the tainted part of their Turkish blood" and "turn now towards the new blood of an independent Armenia, the only thing capable of freeing them from the weight of the diaspora".

Armenia through the eyes of photographers at the House of Commons

"Armenia through the eyes of photographers"

Upper Waiting Hall of the House of Commons, London

Monday 14th January 2pm to 6pm, and every day until Thursday 17th January 11am to 6pm

Admission free. Organised by the British-Armenian All-Party Parliamentary Group (BAAPPG). Entrance is by St Stephen's Gate. The exhibition was applied for by Mike Hancock MP and organised by the BAAPPG.

The Foreign Press Association will also hold a press conference together with the BAAPPG for Ragip Zarakolu.