Genocide Archives

Clues pointing to the Gulen network in the Hrant Dink murder case?

January 19, 2017 By administrator

It has been ten years since the murder of Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink. Criminal proceedings against responsible officials are still ongoing. The public prosecutor believes there are links to the Gulen network.

Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot on January 19, 2007 on Istanbul’s streets. Dink was the editor of “Agos,” the only Armenian newspaper in Turkey. Investigations into his murder have been running since February 2008. An underage nationalist, Ogün Samast, was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 22 years in 2011. Another ultranationalist, Yasin Hayal, considered to have pulled the strings, was sentenced to life behind bars.

Then the trials began of public officials who were charged with instigating the murder, or at least not preventing it. In the early years, the Istanbul attorney general believed that the “Ergenekon” organization was behind the murder. This group was accused of plotting a 2003-04 coup, and was the subject of a major set of trials in Turkey in 2013.

Nationalists suspected first, but now it’s Gulen

But now, at least according to the public prosecutor’s office, all clues in the Dink case are pointing to the government’s latest internal foes, the Gulen movement.

Turkey’s government accuses the Gulen movement of organizing illegally within the police, army and the education and legal systems for years; it blames them for last year’s failed coup attempt. Ankara has been aggressively pursuing alleged members of the movement. However, at the time of Dink’s assassination, the Gulen movement was still a close ally of the ruling AK Party.

Ten years on, all eyes are now on the latest court cases with their 35 defendants. They include the former police chief in Istanbul and former secret service members.

Hakan Bakırcıoglu is one of Hrant Dink’s lawyers. He said in an interview with DW that the investigations into the public officials by the Istanbul justice department are believed to have turned up important findings. These suggest that the perpetrator, Ogün Samast, had help from third parties, including people connected to the Istanbul and Trabzon police forces. “We believe that it is important that the full truth is revealed. That is why we will press this case until our legal avenues are exhausted.”

In the coming days defense pleas will be finalized. On top of that, statements from 30 witnesses will be taken down. Then the public prosecutor will finalize the indictment.

‘We want to live up to Dink’s ideals’

At the same time, the Armenian-Turkish newspaper Agos, founded by Dink, has been trying to stay in business despite financial problems. Editor Yetvart Danzikyan told DW about the last decade at the embattled paper. ” From day one, we have been trying to do justice to the struggle Dink led for peace and open dialogue.”

Danzikyan goes on to say that despite the difficult circumstances under which Agos is published, the newspaper hopes to show to society and government the dark powers behind Dink’s death. “Agos is able to exist thanks to the Armenian community. We survive from funds raised through small advertisements or subscriptions. We are read by Armenians in Armenia and also those in the diaspora. Despite everything, we will continue to be the voice of the Armenian community.”

‘Armenian issue is being exploited‘

Danzikyan says that the Armenian issue remains a dangerous and divisive one in Turkey. One example was when a representative of the pro-Kurdish HDP was banned from three parliamentary sittings because he used the term “genocide” in parliament. Danzikyan points out that the ruling AKP, the nationalist MHP and the more liberal opposition CHP all agreed on this punishment.

“It was not the first time Garo Paylan had used the term ‘genocide’ at the lectern,” Danzikyan recalls. “He had said it before. But, as you can see, such reactions are a result of the way the general atmosphere is at the moment. It’s also hard to believe that the AKP is really on the level with its actions regarding Armenians. It wasn’t in the case of the Kurdish conflict. Just like the Kurdish conflict, the Armenian issue gets exploited by the AKP to fit the current mood.”

Covering Up Armenian Genocide

January 18, 2017 By administrator

Armenian civilians, escorted by Ottoman soldiers, marched through Harput to a prison in nearby Mezireh (present-day Elazig), April 1915. (Image source: American Red Cross/Wikimedia Commons)

by Uzay Bulut, a journalist born and raised a Muslim in Turkey, is currently based in Washington D.C.

“In all of these operations children were part of the general population targeted for wholesale destruction. In many instances they were also subjected to separate and differential forms of mass murder.” — Professor Vahakn Dadrian, in Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case.
These forms of murder included methods such as mass drowning, mass burning, sexual assaults, and mutilations.
“In Ankara province, near the village of Bash Ayash, two rapist-killers — a brigand, Deli Hasan, and a gendarme, Ibrahim — raped twelve boys, aged 12-14, and subsequently killed them. Those who did not die instantly were tortured to death while crying ‘Mummy, Mummy.'” — Professor Vahakn Dadrian, in Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case.
“A female survivor from Giresun relates how in Agn (Egin), Harput province, some 500 Armenian orphans collected from all parts of that province were poisoned through the arrangement of the local pharmacist and physician.” — Leslie A Davis, U.S. Consul at Harput.
More than 100 years after the genocide, Turkey still denies it and Turkish history textbooks even blame the genocide on the Armenians themselves.
When experts deny the Armenian genocide and even try to prevent the U.S. government from officially recognizing it, they are killing the victims all over again.
“As long as the genocide remains unrecognized, justice will not be established. The curse of the genocide will not leave this land, and Turkey will never see the light of day. This is not a prediction, but a statement of fact.” — Turkey’s Human Rights Association, 2016.

U.S. President-Elect Donald J. Trump was recently called on to “guarantee” to Turkey that the Armenian genocide will not be properly acknowledged by the U.S. Congress, in a set of proposals regarding “U.S. Policy on Turkey”.

“The United States can quietly guarantee Turkey that the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress will not pass. This has always been critical in the relationship, and most Turks care deeply about the issue,” reads a part of the paper issued by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and authored by former U.S. ambassador to Ankara James F. Jeffrey and Turkish scholar Dr. Soner Cagaptay.

In the meantime, an Armenian protestant church in the Turkish city of Elazig (historic Kharpert/Harput) has been turned into a parking lot, the Dicle News Agency (DIHA) reported.

The walls of the church, which served as a place of worship for the Armenian and Assyrian communities alike, is now loaded with advertising boards, installed by the managers of the parking lot. Before that, the church was used as a flour plant, a marketplace and a livestock market.

The city of Elazig is located in the Armenian highland of eastern Turkey.

Professor Benjamin Lieberman in his book, Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe:

“Elazig is a small city in Eastern Turkey of several hundred thousand inhabitants, situated near a series of lakes created by a dam on the Euphrates River. Today its residents are mostly Turks and Kurds, but as late as the spring of 1915 it was also very much an Armenian town. In 1915, Armenians called it Kharpert while Turks referred to it as Harput. It had been an Armenian center for many centuries.”[1]

The historic town and citadel of Harput (also called Harpoot, Karpoot, and Kharperd) means “rock fortress” in Armenian. After the founding of the Turkish republic in 1923, the government changed the city’s name to “Elazig”.

According to professor Richard Hovannisian, the Armenian genocide was the “physical elimination of the Armenian people and most of the evidence of their ever having lived on the great highland called the Armenian Plateau, to which the perpetrator side soon assigned the new name of Eastern Anatolia”.[2]

No matter how much the Turkish government is trying to erase the Armenian heritage in Harput and the rest of Turkey, the Armenian roots of the region are undeniable. As a medieval town, Harput seems to have developed under the Byzantine rule (10^th and 11^th centuries – 938 onwards). According to the author T.A. Sinclair, “The Byzantines presumably valued the site for the powerful castle rock, but once a military base became established here a civilian population started to form. No doubt this population, ethnically Syrian and Armenian, came in part from the city of Arsamosata [a city in the Armenian Kingdom near the Euphrates] further east, which started to give way to Harput, as well as from nearby villages.”[3]

The Ottomans captured the region in 1515. Under the Ottoman administrative system, the province was called Mamuretul-aziz. But the Armenian presence in the city remained strong despite all of the massacres and pressures to which they were subject, such as forced conversions to Islam.

According to another author, George Aghjayan: “On the eve of the genocide… The figures as presented indicate that the Armenian population of Kharpert remained relatively static for almost a century, never deviating much from approximately 40,000.”

It was in 1915 that Armenians were exposed to what they often call “Medz Yeghern” or “the Great Disaster” when the leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre them.

The plan resulted in the systematic extermination of 1.5 million Armenians. Today, most historians call this event a genocide–a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people.

Professor Vahakn Dadrian, an expert on the Armenian Genocide, wrote in his article, “Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case”:

“In the provinces of Sivas, Harput, Trabzon, Erzurum, Diyarbekir, as well as the independent sanjaks of Urfa and Maras the genocide was earned out in part through deportations and in part through massacres… In all of these operations children were part of the general population targeted for wholesale destruction. In many instances they were also subjected to separate and differential forms of mass murder.”[4]

These forms of murder included methods such as mass drowning, mass burning, sexual assaults, and mutilations.

“[O]rphanages in which Armenian children were gathered after the liquidation of their families served as transit camps for subsequent annihilation through drowning.”

U.S. Consul at Harput, Leslie A Davis, described a horrendous scene of butchering around Lake Goeljuk [Golcuk/Hazar Lake] near Harput:

“In the mass burning of Armenian orphans, plain sadistic fiendishness was mostly at work. After eliminating the rest of the Armenian population, these remnants had become a nuisance to the perpetrators. In several regards it was deemed most economical to end their misery by torching them en masse. In four provinces, Diyarbakir, Harput, Bitlis, and Aleppo, this method was applied with special ferocity.”

After describing the gaping bayonet wounds on most of the naked bodies, usually in the abdomen or chest, sometimes in the throat with the victims showing “signs of barbarous mutilation,” Consul Davis declared:

“That which took place around beautiful Lake Goeljuk in the summer of 1915 is almost inconceivable. Thousands and thousands of Armenians, mostly innocent and helpless women and children, were butchered on its shores and barbarously mutilated.”

Mass poisoning and rapes of children were also widespread.

“An Armenian boy, adopted by a Turkish family in Mezre, Harput province, related a graphic description of rapes committed regularly by a Turkish man with the full knowledge of his wife in that household. The other modality involves rape before murder. In Ankara province, near the village of Bash Ayash, two rapist-killers — a brigand, Deli Hasan, and a gendarme, Ibrahim — raped twelve boys, aged 12-14, and subsequently killed them. Those who did not die instantly were tortured to death while crying ‘Mummy, Mummy’.

“A female survivor from Giresun relates how in Agn (Egin), Harput province, some 500 Armenian orphans collected from all parts of that province were poisoned through the arrangement of the local pharmacist and physician.”

According to the author Deirdre Holding, Davis sent a letter to his boss, the American ambassador at Constantinople, on 24 July 1915. It reads in part,

“I do not believe that there has ever been a massacre in the history of the world so general and thorough as that which is now being perpetrated in this region, or that a more fiendish, diabolical scheme has ever been conceived in the mind of man.”[5]

More than 100 years after the genocide, Turkey still denies it, and Turkish history textbooks even blame the genocide on the Armenians themselves.

Turkey’s persistent denial is a known fact but much of the world has also failed to recognize the genocide and sufficiently support the survivors. Today, similar crimes are committed by other criminal governments or organizations such as the Islamic State (ISIS), AL-Qaeda and Boko Haram.

When experts such as Amb. James F. Jeffrey and Soner Cagaptay deny the Armenian genocide and even try to prevent the U.S. government from officially recognizing it, they are not only killing the victims all over again but are also preventing Turks from learning historical truths that they need to learn in order to take the necessary steps to democratize their country.

However, there are also a few very courageous voices in Turkey who are trying to challenge the denial perpetrated by the government and much of the public. Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD), for example, declared in a statement last year:

“Genocide denial perpetuates genocide. Denial is the exculpation of the perpetrator and the criminalization of the victim. From course books to special publications, from newspapers to television programs, Armenians have been represented as those who deserve genocide. Since the foundation of the Republic, the Armenians of Turkey have been living to this day in a society that remains hostile to them and in close quarters with the grandchildren of perpetrators who think exactly the way their predecessors did.

“As long as the genocide remains unrecognized, justice will not be established. The curse of the genocide will not leave this land, and Turkey will never see the light of day. This is not a prediction, but a statement of fact.”

Uzay Bulut, a journalist born and raised a Muslim in Turkey, is currently based in Washington D.C.

Turkish-Armenian reconciliation elusive decade after journalist murder

January 17, 2017 By administrator

© AFP / by Stuart WILLIAMS | People hold placards reading “we all are Hrant, we all are Armenians – For Justy, For Hrant” during a demonstration in front of the Caglayan Law Court in Istanbul, on January 16, 2017

ISTANBUL (AFP) –

Ten years after campaigning Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot dead in Istanbul, Armenians and Turks have still not achieved the reconciliation of which he dreamt.

The murder of Dink by a teenage gunman on January 19, 2007, near the offices of the Agos newspaper which he founded, sent shockwaves through Turkey

Thousands of Turks flooded onto the streets after Dink’s death declaring “We are all Armenians” in an unprecedented show of solidarity.

“Hrant made two great endeavours. To encourage dialogue between Turkey and Armenia. And to tell Turkish society about the Armenian issue in Turkey,” said Yetvart Danzikyan, who holds Dink’s former job of Agos editor-in-chief.

But the dark ages of history cast a long shadow.

Relations between Turks and Armenians are dominated by a century-old episode in history — the massacres and deportations from 1915 of the Ottoman Empire’s Armenians in Anatolia during the peak of World War 1.

Armenians consider the killings to be a genocide. But for Ankara the word is an anathema, especially as the Ottoman Empire, with the sultan by then a figurehead, was then run by a trio of pashas still regarded by many in Turkey as heroes.

The events of 1915 all but ended the presence of Armenians in Anatolia and the modern Turkish state has a population of just a few tens of thousand Armenians who are Turkish citizens.

Due to the dispute over 1915, it also has closed borders and no diplomatic relations with the neighbouring post-Soviet state of Armenia.

– ‘The peril of normalisation’ –

Born in the Anatolian city of Malatya — which once had a large Armenian population but now almost none — Dink moved to Istanbul and in 1996 sprung to prominence by founding Agos.

Agos was not the first or only Armenian newspaper in Turkey but it was the first to be published in Turkish as well as Armenian, allowing a debate of issues that had long remained taboo.

“Hrant Dink gave the chance of telling Turkish society of the major problems of Armenians stemming from 1915,” said Agos’ Armenian language chief editor Pakrat Estukyan who knew Dink.

“”He made huge contribution and, unfortunately, paid for it with his life.”

Dink’s death became a symbol of the peril of such moves. The photograph of his corpse covered by a sheet, with just the soles of his shoes complete with a hole showing, underlined the tragedy.

And although his assassin, just 17 at the time, was rapidly arrested and sentenced, the trial into the killing still grinds on with Dink’s supporters losing confidence on its ability to shed light on the plot.

In subsequent years, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought to build bridges with Armenia, a reconciliation process encouraged by the United States.

But that process hit the buffers due to the simmering row over 1915, although analysts have long called for the historical dispute to be decoupled from more practical issues like border opening and trade.

– Taboos remain unbroken –

The atmosphere became all the more poisonous during the 2015 100th anniversary, with Turkey cranking up the nationalist rhetoric in an election year and making clear it would never acknowledge genocide.

“With his murder, he (Dink) also came to represent the peril of the process of normalisation,” Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center (RSC) independent think tank in Yerevan, told AFP.

Underlining the acute sensitivity, an Armenian lawmaker for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Garo Paylan, was suspended from the Turkish parliament last week for declaring in a debate the events of 1915 were “genocide”.

Dink’s assassin, Ogun Samast, is still behind bars but the trial into dozens of police accused of covering up the plot rumbles on.

The police on trial have been linked to Erdogan’s arch enemy, the US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.

Anger was caused by a video that emerged showing Samast bantering with police officers after his arrest and even holding up a Turkish flag.

“After 10 years, this court has still not shed light on the murder. We don’t have expectations from this process,” said Estukyan.

Yet the taboos that Dink smashed remain broken. A few years before it would have been inconceivable to even have an Armenian in the Turkish parliament, let alone even utter the word “genocide”.

Analysts hope that reconciliation is still possible.

“The man may be gone, but his mission continues and his spirit lives on, inspiring a new generation to look forward,” said Giragosian.

by Stuart WILLIAMS

Source: http://www.france24.com/en/20170117-turkish-armenian-reconciliation-elusive-decade-after-journalist-murder

Turkish parliamentarian plans to sue Garo Paylan over Armenian Genocide remarks

January 17, 2017 By administrator

Member of Turkey’s Great Union Party (BBP) Arif Kyoroghlu has appealed to the prosecutor’s office for opening a case against Armenian member of Turkish Parliament Garo Paylan of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Citing “Beyaz Gazetesi” Turkish news website, Ermenihaber reports, Kyoroghlu has referred to Paylan’s remarks over the Armenian Genocide during deliberations held on January 13 on proposed changes to the country’s constitution.

In an interview with reporters, Kyoroghlu has accused Paylan for what he believed to be ‘incitement to revenge and enmity.’

The Turkish parliamentarian claimed the use of the Genocide word in the Turkish parliament is ‘humiliating’ for the Turkish Republic, people, and the legislative body.

“Our state has opened all the archives over the topic to the world,” the Turkish deputy has argued, adding Paylan’s statement should be qualified as crime made use of his parliamentarian immunity.

Kyoroghlu has argued that Armenians and other minorities residing in Turkey ‘have lived in peace and harmony’ since the establishment of the Turkish Republic.

To remind, Garo Paylan was temporarily banned from parliamentary sessions after referring to the Armenian Genocide in Turkish Mejlis. In his speech Paylan said four communities – Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Jews – had been ‘lost’ and ‘driven from these lands in large massacres (and) genocides.”

“We used to account for 40 percent [of the country’s population]. Now we are barely one out of a 1,000. It seems likely that something happened to us. I define this as a genocide,” Paylan said in his speech.
According to some sources, the part of the speech was removed from the parliamentary minutes.

Pasadena: Today January 16, Screening Documentary Armenian “Havresc” Sponsored by Knights of Vartan.

January 16, 2017 By administrator

ARMENIAN CILICIA EVANGELICAL CHURCH
339 S. Santa Anita Ave.
Sponsored by Knights of Vartan.

Monday, January 16, 2017 screening of HAVRESC STAND ON COURAGE in Pasadena, CA. – please come and learn about the Brave Armenian Village in Iraq.

Filmmaker David Ritter has shot a documentary about a remarkable Armenian village somewhere in Iraq with about 200 to 500 people. It is surviving through courage, faith, fortitude and about 22 dedicated men against the massive force of the Islamic State group. Its name, Havresc, translates to big revenge, and its history dates back to 1915, when survivors of the Genocide constructed it, The Armenian Mirror-Spectator reports.

On December 8, the Zohrab Information Center hosted Ritter, who has spent months in the village, who presented his documentary titled, “Havresc, Stand on Courage”, to a large audience, detailing the daily struggles of Armenian and Assyrian Christian Iraqis and the village they have built on the edge of IS-controlled territory.

Ritter was introduced by the Zohrab Center’s executive director, the Very Rev. Daniel Findikyan, who related that this issue “transcends ethnic interests. One doesn’t have to be Armenian to care about others.”

Before showing the film, Ritter who is not Armenian, commented that he was “filled with rage at the plight of the Christians, not about ethnicity,” he said, and praised the leader of the 22 soldiers, Murad Vartanian, whom he called “one of the most amazing men I have ever met, a man of conviction, courage, tenacity, and also a poet and an artist, a natural born leader.”

The documentary detailed the history of the Genocide with disturbing graphic images of death and destruction. It was a group of survivors from that tragedy that went to Iraq and built villages, including the mostly agricultural village of Havresc. In time, other persecuted Christians – Assyrians and Yezidis – also settled there. In 1975, many Christian villages were destroyed, including Havresc, with the villagers fleeing. One of the only buildings that remained were the ruins of the original school.

In 2006, many of the people of Havresc returned, and decided to rebuild their homes, churches and schools. Armenians also came from abroad and helped in the construction. Vartanian, who was originally born in the village, led the effort, and with other villagers created a communal system where goods are shared. They also erected a monument to the victims of the Genocide.

Today, it is 22 young and old men led by Vartanian, who protect the village 24 hours a day against ISIS. Kurdish militias are also helping these 22 soldiers. The film showed Murad’s home which is the headquarters of the militia, and houses an armory of weapons. Also seen are the villagers tending to their flocks of sheep and peacefully farming the land. In the future, a small airport will be built.

Shortly after the film was completed, Vartanian was shot by IS. He is now recovering, and has said, “Even trees need water to live. We are like these old trees. We never give up. Let us live like lions, and if need be, die like lions.”

Ritter was born to a Roman Catholic family in Haiti. He is a documentarian who has gone to areas of the world where Christian communities are in danger, and filmed their struggles. He is currently traveling to Armenian communities and showing this documentary of Havresc . He announced that 30 percent of the proceeds of the DVD will go back to Havresc. Already, he said, $2,000 has been raised.

Source: https://zohrabcenter.org/2016/11/22/havresc-an-armenian-christian-village-in-northern-iraq-standing-down-isis/

Video: Garo Paylan Criminal mindset responsible for genocide, not Turkish people

January 15, 2017 By administrator

When HDP MP Garo Paylan started to talk about the genocides and massacres that oppressed peoples of Turkey have been subjected to, Parliamentary Deputy Speaker Ahmet Aydın interrupted Paylan’s speech. During the session, three parties, AKP, CHP and MHP, condemned the speech. Garo Paylan is excluded from the parliament for 3 sessions and the word “genocide” is removed from the minutes.

HDP Istanbul MP Garo Paylan took the floor during the discussion concerning 11th article of the proposed constitutional amendments. Stating that ignored ones either lapsed into silence or revolted in the history of Turkey, Paylan said: “Between 1913 and 1923, Armenians, Syriacs, Greeks and Jews had been lost. They were either exiled with genocides and major massacres or subjected to population exchange.”

The moment Paylan used the word “genocide”, AKP MPs started to yell and stood up. Addressing to Paylan, Parliamentary Deputy Speaker Ahmet Aydın said, “Watch your manner,” and asked him to take what he said back.

Paylan: “Let’s face it together”

Continuing to speak, Paylan said: “Once we were 40% and now we are just one per thousand. This means that something had happened to us… I call it genocide and you may call it whatever you want. Let’s agree on a name together and move forward. Armenian people know what happened to them very well. I know what happened to my ancestors, my grandfather very well. Come on, you name it and let’s face it together. We are null and void now, we are just one per thousand.”

While AKP MPs were reacting against Paylan, AKP Istabnul MP Metin Külünk shouted, “That word of genocide must be corrected.” Some AKP MPs tried to walk up to Paylan. Session was recessed because of the tension.

Exclusion from the parliament for 3 sessions

After the break, a decision that will put its stamp on the history of the parliament was made. Speaking on behalf of AKP, CHP and MHP, MPs condemned Paylan’s statements.

Garo Paylan is excluded from the parliament for 3 sessions because he used the word “genocide”. It was also stated that Paylan’s statements will be removed from the parliamentary minutes. After the decision was declared, HDP MPs left with Paylan.

Paylan: there was a lynch atmosphere in the parliament

Paylan told about what happened in the parliament in “Radyo Agos” program of Açık Radyo:

“After my statements, AKP MPs started to yell. There was a break for more than one hour. During the break, MHP and AKP MPs came together. They turned the situation into a crisis. MHP said that it won’t be supporting the amendments if I am not punished. Since AKP leans on MHP now, it hasn’t risen to the challenge. Now, I am excluded from the parliament for 3 sessions.”

“The worst part was that AKP, MHP and CHP MPs made contemptible remarks stating that I cannot use the word genocide. It was like peer pressure; other MPs enthusiastically clapped for showing their support. There was a lynch atmosphere. We left the parliament with my friends, after my punishment was declared.”

“I just said, “100 years ago, the ones who said ‘the constitution of Turks’ caused the destruction of peoples. If you say it again today, the ignored ones will either lapse into silence or revolt. It will do harm us all.” I tried to tell it with reference to the events happened 100 years ago. I talked about the disaster that befell us. I said that we shouldn’t be preoccupied with the naming; I said, ‘I call it genocide and you may call it whatever you want.’ I didn’t mean to provoke anything. Unfortunately, this is just the zeitgeist, I guess. Other countries had gone through such dark times; now we are going through dark times.”

Commemorating Hrant Dink Event schedule World wide

January 15, 2017 By administrator

Hrant Dink

Hrant Dink, the founder of our newspaper, will be commemorated in Istanbul and various cities in the world on the 10th anniversary of his passing away.

ANKARA

On Thursday, January 19, Hrant Dink will be commemorated in Ankara. Organized by “Ankara Initiative for Commemorating Hrant Dink”, the program will start at 3 pm in Yüksek Street.

ISTANBUL

On January 14-15, “Freedom of Expression Conference” will be held in memories of Hrant Dink, Uğur Mumcu and Metin Göktepe. Organized by Penal Law Association and Istanbul Bar Association, the conference will start at 10 am.
Hrant Dink will be commemorated where he was shot, in front of Agos. Friends of Hrant invites people to old building of Agos on January 19 at 2.30 pm.
GERMANY
- In Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, a commemoration event titled “Commemorating and Understanding Hrant Dink” will be held on January 19. In the event, Can Dündar will read selections from writings of Dink. After the reading, Collectif Medz Bazaar will perform.
In addition to reading that will start at 7.30 pm, two more events will be held in the same place. Miraz Bezar’s play “Reflections” will be performed in Studio Я (at 7, 8.30 and 10.30 pm) and Osman Okkan’s documentary “Hrant Dink murder case – Armenians in Turkey” will be screened (at 6 pm).

Click here for the event
- At Kottbusser Tor station in Berlin, the group called “Hrant Dink’s Friends” will commemorate Dink on January 19 at 6 pm.
Click here for the event

FRANCE
- In Lyon, Hrant Dink will be commemorated on January 19. Organized by Mayor of Lyon Gérard Collomb and Media Club of Lyon, the event will start at 11 am in Hrant Dink Street.
- In Bouc-Bel-Air city in southern France, Dink will be commemorated. Hosted by municipal council and Mayor Richard Maliié, the event will start at 11 am in Rond-point Hrant Dink.
- In Paris, a reading event will be held in memory of Hrant Dink. Prof. Dr. Ronald Grigor Suny and Prof. Dr. Hamit Bozaraslan will attend the event. After the reading performance by Selin Altıparmak and Rostom Hanedanian, there will be a performance by Yeghso, İlker Çakal, Mahmut Demir, Ela Nuroğlu, Ruşen Ozan Filiztek and Shushan Kerovpyan. The event that will be held on January 17 at 8.30 pm is free.
  Click here for the event
CANADA
- In Toronto, an event titled “Tribute to Hrant Dink” will be held on January 22. Co-chair of German Green Party Cem Özdemir, who played an important part in the issuing of Bundestag’s Armenian Genocide resolution, will speak at the event. Organized by 8 Armenian associations in the city, the event will start at 8 pm at Armenian Community Center.
In the event, there will be a presentation which was prepared by Zoryan Institute and covers the historical context of the murder of Hrant Dink. Pianist Rafi Bedrosyan is the keynote speaker.
- There is another commemoration event in Ottowa. Voices in Dialogue (ViD) initiative, which was founded in 2007 with the purpose of forming dialog between Armenian, Turkish and Kurdish people, will hold an open course by Prof. Dr. Ariel Salzmann. After that, Nare Mkrtchyan’s documentary “The Other Side of Home” will be screened. The event will be held in Ottowa Library Oditorium and start at 2 pm.
- Click here for the event
ENGLAND
- In St. Sarkis Church in Kensington, Hrant Dink will be commemorated with words, music and visual materials. Excerpts from Hrant Dink’s biography written by Tuba Çandar will be read. Musicians from Armenia, Turkey and England like Aygül Erce, Olcay Bayır, Anais Heghoyan, Aris Nadirian and Djanan Turan will perform. The event will start at 7.30 pm on January 19.
  Click here for the event

Washington Armenian Genocide again victim of Jewish lobbyist Near East Policy (WINEP)

January 14, 2017 By administrator

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has called on United States President-Elect Donald J. Trump to “guarantee” to Turkey that the Armenian Genocide will not be properly acknowledged by the U.S. Congress, in a recently published set of proposals regarding “U.S. Policy on Turkey,” The Armenian Weekly reports.

“The United States can quietly guarantee Turkey that the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress will not pass. This has always been critical in the relationship, and most Turks care deeply about the issue,” reads a part of the paper authored by former U.S. ambassador to Ankara James F. Jeffrey and Turkish scholar Dr. Soner Cagaptay.

The paper on U.S.-Turkey relations is the first in a series of WINEP presidential transition papers addressing key policy challenges across the Middle East. In it, the two authors argue that the Trump administration should “revamp policy toward Turkey to emphasize a transactional approach to critical bilateral issues.”

A new approach to Turkey, Jeffrey and Cagaptay suggest, would restore focus to each side’s most important interests. “For Turkey, this includes the extradition of reputed coup plotter Fethullah Gulen; increased engagement on issues from Cyprus to Israel; and closer attention to Turkish equities in the Syria conflict. For the United States, a new approach would entail a stronger commitment to fighting the Islamic State; a return to peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); closer cooperation on military moves, especially in Syria; and renewed respect for democratic freedoms,” reads a part of a statement released by the Washington Institute about its first “Transition 2017” paper.

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reacted to the news of the publication via social media and other channels. “Why is [the Washington Institute] providing a platform for calls to block remembrance of a known case of genocide?” asked the ANCA in a tweet to Washington Institute Executive Director Robert Satloff.

Armenian MP banned from Turkey parliament after Genocide remark

January 14, 2017 By administrator

Garo Paylan, a Turkish lawmaker of Armenian origin from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) was banned from Parliament for the next three sessions after he mentioned the Armenian Genocide during his speech on Friday, January 13.

“We used to account for 40 percent [of the population]. Now we are barely one per thousand. It seems likely that something happened to us. I define this as genocide,” Paylan said.

The abovementioned part of the deputy’s speech was removed from parliamentary minutes, Turkey Purge reports.

Paylan has on numerous occasions raised the problems Armenians face in Turkey.

Turkey Purge. Turkish-Armenian deputy temporarily banned from Parliament for using word ‘genocide’

Turks visit the last Armenian family of Derik on the occasion of the Holy Nativity

January 13, 2017 By administrator

In Derik is a town and a district of the province of Mardin in the south-east of Turkey, a group of inhabitants visited the only Armenian family in the region, on the occasion of the Nativity. According to the Turkish site Mardinlife, among the group of people who visited Derik’s only Armenian family, the writer Eyoub Gyuven said that the Armenians are among the peoples originating from the region and it is to congratulate the birth of Christ, the group visited with gifts to the last Armenian family that of Nayif Demirdji.

“The fact that Armenians have left this region is of great problem, but we remember them and bring them our congratulations on the occasion of the Holy Nativity” said Eyoub Gyuven. Recall that the Armenians did not leave the region of Mardin of their own free will. As on all the Ottoman Empire they were victims of the genocide between 1915 and 1923. Armenians who were massacred, died on the road of exile or who fled so as not to suffer the death programmed by the Turkish authorities.

Krikor Amirzayan

ARMENIAN CILICIA EVANGELICAL CHURCH 339 S. Santa Anita Ave. Sponsored by Knights of Vartan.

ARMENIAN CILICIA EVANGELICAL CHURCH
339 S. Santa Anita Ave.
Sponsored by Knights of Vartan.