Pasadena City Council Unanimously Approves Genocide Memorial Plans

September 11, 2013 By administrator

PASADENA—The Pasadena City Council voted unanimously to install an Armenian Genocide Memorial at Memorial Park on Monday at about 11 p.m. to a standing ovation in the packed chamber, reported Pasadena Now.

The installation of the statue in Memorial Park is scheduled to be completed by April 24, 2015, the 100th anniversary for of the genocide.

Seeing a mock up set up in the spot in Memorial Park last Wednesday sealed the decision for many of the council members who had previously been worried about its obtrusiveness there.

The majority of 36 people who spoke before the council during the meeting favored the installation, while 93 other people who attended showed support through a petition submitted to the council.

Former City of Pasadena Chief of Police Bernard Melekian, a member of the Pasadena Armenian Genocide Memorial Committee, said he is happy with the council’s decision.

“I am honored that the Council did this, that they recognized the importance of it and that it really is for the whole city, not just for a section of the city,” Melekian said. “This is really for my father and my grandparents whom I never even met.”

Judge Dickran Tevrizian, a former chair of the committee, said “the proposed memorial reflects global and international values of life, human rights, and deterrence of crime against humanity. It (the memorial) helps to promote peace and civility, and conforms to the shared values of members of the Pasadena community.”

The memorial, which is based on the design of the Art Center College of Design student Catherine Menard, will feature a carved-stone basin of water straddled by a tripod arrangement of three columns leaning into one another, where a single drop of water will fall from highest point every three seconds. Each “teardrop” will represent one life lost during the Armenian Genocide.

“I am still in disbelief. I am moved, I’m shocked, I’m elated, I know that the real work starts now. Right now I just want to hug and kiss everybody. I truly feel like I’ve been welcomed into this family,” Artist Catherine Menard said.

“The greater good prevailed and nothing’s ever perfect but I think it’s appropriate in the Memorial park,” Vice Mayor Jacque Robinson said, who had the strongest reservations about the location.

“As a community member, as a board member, as a kindred spirit of the recognition and growing up in New Jersey with the legacy of Woodrow Wilson and the Armenian Genocide.” said former State Assemblymember Anthony Portantino. “It’s just terrific for the Armenian American community and I think for the greater community to see such care give to the recognition to the loss of 1.5 million people. The design is dramatic and poignant so that it brings a tear to your eye and tonight is a celebration that brings a tear to your eye.”

Turkification of Armenian Orphans (Video)

September 10, 2013 By administrator

Article by Armen Manuk-Khaloyan

“‘Rescued and Safe:’ Armenian Orphans and the Experience of Genocide”

Turkification-of-Armenian-Orphans-2-568-x250

The decision taken by the Young Turk authorities in the spring of 1915 to expel the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire set into motion a state-sponsored plan that not only resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians. It completely eradicated the Armenian community from Anatolia.The seemingly endless columns of Armenian women and children, elderly Armenians, and weak oneswere deported to Syria. Along the way they were attacked by marauding Muslim bands, tribes, andvillagers as well as the

kilât-i Mahsusa

(Special Organization), which had been formed specifically toexterminate them. The gendarmes assigned to escort the deported Armenians did little in the way of preventing the attacks. In many cases they took part in the mass killings, rapes, and abductions.Children were perhaps

the most vulnerable of the Armenian deportees. Their parents andother family members had either been killed or succumbed to the horrendous conditions inflictedupon the deportees. Children were forcibly separated from their parents, young women andchildren were

kidnapped, sold, delivered to brothels or adopted into Muslim families. The trauma of these children did not lessen after they were torn from their families. They were often abused and madeto perform strenuous tasks by the families that had taken them in. The forced integration of thesechildren into Muslim households repressed or subsumed their Armenian identity within the dominantcultural and religious milieu. Those children who were orphaned at an especially early age would laterbe unable to recall any memories from their previous lives.

This essay aims to introduce its readers tothe plight of the Armenian orphans and touch, very briefly, upon the international rescue movementthat was born in the midst of the Genocide.Although circumstances differed from case to case, the similarities of the orphans’ experiencesduring the war are striking. In order to gain a better understanding of the ordeals they underwent onecan turn to a variety of sources. One source is the oral testimonies of the survivors, collected largelydecades after the Genocide. In one such collection, we can read stories like Anaguel’s. She was seven oreight in 1915 and her family was killed on the deportation route from her native Mezre. Left alone shehad to beg for food, and survived because of the generosity of several Turks she encountered along her

1- For studies on orphans during the genocide, see especially Keith David Watenpaugh, “The League of Nations’Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920-1927,”

AmericanHistorical Review

115 (December 2010): 1315-39; Ara Sarafian, “The Absorption of Armenian Women and Childreninto Muslim Households as a Structural Component of the Armenian Genocide,” in

In God’s Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century

, eds. Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack (New York: Berghan, 2001), 209-21.

Lawyer claims MİT gave order to kill Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Cyrillic

September 10, 2013 By administrator

9 September 2013 /TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

Fethiye Çetin, one of the lawyers of the family of murdered Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, claimed in her newly published book that the order to kill Dink

was given by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) via an encrypted message written in Cyrillic, the Milliyet daily reported on Monday.

Çetin based her claims on explanations and documents from Ramazan Dündar, a cryptology expert at MİT.

The late editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, Dink was shot dead in broad daylight on Jan. 19, 2007, by an ultranationalist teenager outside the offices of his newspaper in İstanbul. The gunman, Ogün Samast, and 18 others were brought to trial. The investigation into his murder was stalled but the suspected perpetrator and his accomplices were put on trial. However, the final ruling issued by the İstanbul 14th High Criminal Court last year failed to appease those expecting justice to be served.

In her book, titled “Utanç Duyuyorum-Hrant Dink Cinayeti’nin Yargısı” (I am ashamed — Trial of Hrant Dink’s Murder), Çetin says she received a phone call on March 16, 2010, from a man who called himself “Ramazan” and said he works as a cryptology expert at MİT’s East Anatolia regional office. He said he had an important document regarding Dink’s murder and would give the document to Çetin if she went to the French Consulate in Aleppo to collect it.

Çetin said her friend in Gaziantep agreed to go to Aleppo on her behalf to collect the document. In the meantime, she said she continued to communicate with Ramazan over Skype and the man showed her some encrypted documents about Dink’s murder.

“I did not understand anything. I asked the man what those documents had to do with Dink’s murder,” Çetin said.

In response, Ramazan said: “The documents that I have are encrypted. In correspondence, no state office says, ‘Go and kill Dink’.”

Çetin said the encrypted messages were deciphered with the help of Dündar to reveal the execution order given by MİT for Dink.

In her book, Çetin also included MİT’s response to her allegation. She said she went to the prosecutor’s office and asked several questions that were directed at MİT. In response, MİT denied the allegations of giving an execution order for Dink, saying that MİT does not have an employee named Ramazan Dündar and that the document provided by Dündar does not belong to MİT.

Editor of Lemkin Autobiography to Speak at NAASR

September 6, 2013 By administrator

BELMONT, Mass.—On Thurs., Sept. 19, Dr. Donna-Lee Frieze, a genocide scholar and editor of the newly published autobiography of Raphael Lemkin, will give a lecture entitled “Raphael Lemkin: The Armenian Genocide and the Autobiography of the ‘Insistent Prophet’” at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) in Belmont. The lecture will be co-sponsored by Facing History and Ourselves of Brookline, and NAASR.

When Lemkin collapsed at a bus stop on 42nd Street in New York City on Aug. 29, 1959, he had either just visited the Curtis Brown Publishing Agency on Madison Avenue or was on his way there to discuss his autobiography, Totally Unofficial. He left behind a near-complete autobiography, which was eventually donated to the New York Public Library 23 years after his death, in August 1982, by Alexander Gabriel from the Transradio News Agency, UN Bureau.

In June 2013, Yale University Press published Totally Unofficial, in which Lemkin highlights the Armenian Genocide to articulate his conceptual understanding of the meaning of genocide. Lemkin’s autobiography clearly underscores the lawyer’s detailed analysis of the crime. It is argued that the events of 1915 provided the framework for Lemkin’s understanding of genocide as a crime of intended group destruction, and not necessarily as mass killing. The long-awaited publication of Lemkin’s autobiography is a watershed event in the ongoing reassessment of his seminal work on genocide.

Donna-Lee Frieze is a Prins Senior Fellow at the Center for Jewish History in New York City and a Visiting Fellow at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. She taught a graduate unit, “Genocide,” for more than 10 years at Deakin University, Melbourne, and has published widely on the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Bosnian Genocide in relation to testimony, film, and philosophy. She was the editor and transcriber of Lemkin’s autobiography Totally Unofficial and the first vice-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

The lecture begins at 7:30 p.m. at NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont. The NAASR Bookstore will open at 7 p.m. the night of the lecture. Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin will be available for purchase the night of the lecture. For more information, call (617) 489-1610 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (617) 489-1610 FREE end_of_the_skype_highlighting or e-mail hq@naasr.org.

Source: The Armenian weekly

Notorious Genocide Denier Doug Frantz Named State Dept. Spokesman

September 6, 2013 By administrator

WASHINGTON—Doug Frantz, the notorious Genocide denier and former Los Angeles Times managing editor who lost his job when he blocked the publication of an article about the Armenian Genocide penned by journalist Mark Arax has been appointed the new spokesperson of the US State Department, a White House memo reported.

Frantz’s stint as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the State Department will not be his first with Secretary of State John Kerry. He worked as an investigation for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Kerry was chairman.

The Armenian-American community came to know Frantz when in April 2007, as LA Times managing editor, he killed the publication of a front-page story penned by Armenian-American journalist Mark Arax about the Armenian Genocide resolution pending in Congress at the time. In a memo to Arax, Frantz said the author’s ethnicity posed a conflict of interest.

This sparked a controversy and prompted the Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region and other community leaders to launch a grassroots campaign against Frantz and the LA Times demanding an explanation and his resignation from his top post at the newspaper.

After an overwhelming response from the Armenian community and numerous meetings by Armenian leaders with LA Times top brass at the time, Frantz resigned in June 2007 and went to Istanbul.

Frantz has had long-standing ties to Turkey. He was stationed in Istanbul for several years, first as bureau chief for The New York Times and then as investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He had developed close contacts with various Turkish officials, including the Turkish Consul General in Los Angeles who boasted in a taped interview with Arax at the time about his special relationship with Frantz who in May 2007 went to Istanbul to moderate a panel that included a notorious genocide denier.

Turkey’s Kurds Seek Forgiveness For 1915 Armenian Tragedy

September 4, 2013 By administrator

Orobik Eminian, 98, who was the only member of her family to escape the World War I killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, joins others in commemorating the 95th anniversary of the killings and a call for it to be termed a genocide in New York City, April 25, 2010. (photo by REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi)

By: Amberin Zaman for Al-Monitor

“The Armenian population is melting.”

This bleak assessment was pronounced by Sahak Mashalyan, an Armenian Orthodox priest, during a recent Sunday mass at the Asdvadzadzin church in Istanbul. Reeling off the statistics: 482 funerals, 236 baptisms and 191 weddings, the black-robed cleric solemnly intoned, “These figures point to a community … that is dying.”

Little over a century ago, the Armenian Patriarchate put Anatolia’s Armenian population at more than two million. In 1915, tragedy struck. Estimated figures vary, but between 800,000 and a million Armenians are thought to have been slaughtered by Ottoman forces and their Kurdish allies in what many respected historians call the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey vehemently denies any genocidal intent. The official line is that most of the Armenians died from hunger and disease, as they were forcibly deported to the deserts of Syria amid the upheaval of the collapsing empire.

The ruling Islamic Justice and Development Party has done more than any of its pro-secular predecessors to improve the lot of Christian minorities and to encourage freer debate of the horrors that befell them. Yet it has also showered millions of dollars on international lobbying firms in a vain effort to peddle the official version of events. A steady trickle of nations continue to recognize the events of 1915 as genocide. Turkey’s biggest worry is that on the centenary in 2015, the United States will risk wrecking relations and follow suit.

In Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeastern province of Diyarbakir, global diplomacy does not figure in the calculations of Abdullah Demirbas, the mayor of the city’s ancient Sur district. A maze of narrow cobbled streets lined with decrepit stone houses, Sur used to be known as the “neighborhood of the infidels” because of the large number of Armenians, Syrian Orthodox Christians and Jews who once lived there. Since being twice elected to office on the ticket of Turkey’s largest pro-Kurdish party, Peace and Democracy (BDP), Demirbas, a stocky former schoolteacher with an easy smile, has thrown himself wholeheartedly into making amends for the past.

“As Kurds, we also bear responsibility for the suffering of the Armenians,” he told Al-Monitor over glasses of ruby-red tea. “We are sorry, and we need to prove it.” As a first step, Demirbas launched free Armenian-language classes two years ago at the municipality offices. “They were an instant hit,” Demirbas said. Many of those who enrolled were thought to be “hidden Armenians” or the descendants of those who converted to Islam to survive.

One such “hidden Armenian,” a gnarled octogenarian called Ismail, confided to Al-Monitor that his father’s real name was Leon.

“They wiped out his entire family, out in the fields,” he said as he awaited an audience with Demirbas. The old man’s voice cracked with emotion. “My father was rescued by a Turkish officer and became a Muslim. But though, praise God, I am a good Muslim too, praying five times a day, I know I am not accepted,” he added. “In their minds, I am always the son of the unbeliever.”

The Kurds’ role in the killings has been well documented, increasingly now by the Kurds themselves.

Egged on by their Ottoman rulers, Kurdish tribal chieftains raped, murdered and pillaged their way through the southeast provinces where for centuries they had co-existed, if uneasily, with the Armenians and other non-Muslims. Henry Morgenthau, who served as US ambassador in Constantinople at the height of the bloodshed, described the Kurds’ complicity in his chilling 1918 memoir Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story thusly:

“The Kurds would sweep down from their mountain homes. Rushing up to the young girls, they would lift their veils and carry the pretty ones off to the hills. They would steal such children as pleased their fancy and mercilessly rob all the rest of the throng. … While they were committing these depredations, the Kurds would freely massacre, and the screams of women and old men would add to the general horror.”

Osman Koker, a Turkish historian who has chronicled Armenian life through a rich collection of postcards and photographs predating 1915, reckons more than half of Diyarbakir’s population was non-Muslim before the violence began.

“Most of them were Armenians, now there are none,” Koker told Al-Monitor in an interview. Hashim Hashimi, a former member of parliament and a Sunni Muslim spiritual leader with a robust following, told Al-Monitor, “Sadly, many imams were convincing people that if they killed an infidel they would find their place in heaven and be rewarded with beautiful girls.” This meant that thousands of Syrian Orthodox and other Christians were not spared, either.

In 2009 Demirbas and Osman Baydemir, a fellow BDP politician and the mayor of Greater Diyarbakir, decided to help with the restoration of an Armenian Orthodox church that had lay in ruins for decades in Sur. Baydemir donated a third of the costs of restoring Surp Giragos to its former magnificence. In 2011 the church, said to be the largest Armenian church in the Middle East, opened its doors as a fully functioning house of worship.

Ergun Ayik, an Armenian entrepreneur and philanthropist who runs the Surp Giragos Foundation, told Al-Monitor that the BDP mayors “went out of their way to help us,” even providing the church with free utilities and security guards. A new museum of Armenian culture that is due to open by the end of 2013 within the Surp Giragos complex under the sponsorship of the Greater Diyarbakir municipality should also help draw tourists, not to mention thousands of “hidden Armenians” thought to be scattered across the southeast.

Silva Ozyerli, an Armenian activist from Diyarbakir who left for Istanbul in the 1970s, has agreed to donate some family treasures, including a silk nightshirt, several finely embroidered tablecloths and a pair of engraved copper bowls to the museum. Ozyerli voiced her enthusiasm for the project in an interview with Al-Monitor.

“You know why it is dear to me?” she asked a tinge of defiance creeping into her voice. “It is because everything in that museum will show people that not too long ago, Diyarbakir was every bit as Armenian as it was Kurdish, if not more so.”

Amberin Zaman is an Istanbul-based writer who has covered Turkey for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Voice of America. A frequent commentator on Turkish television, she is currently Turkey correspondent for The Economist, a position she has retained since 1999. On Twitter: @amberinzaman

Japan and Turkey: On ‘Comfort Women’ and Genocide

September 4, 2013 By administrator

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier

The sleepy town of Glendale became the center of a major international controversy on July 9, when the City Council approved a memorial to ‘comfort women’ — a euphemism to describe up to 200,000 young females who were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese army during its occupation of Korea and neighboring countries before and during World War II.

The City Council, after hearing conflicting testimonies from members of the local Japanese and Korean communities, approved with a 4 to 1 vote the installation of a monument in Glendale in honor of ‘comfort women.’ At the unveiling ceremony of the monument, council members Ara Najarian and Zareh Sinanyan expressed sympathy for the plight of “comfort women,’ as their own Armenian ancestors had suffered from mass atrocities in Turkey.

Concerned by the parallels drawn between the genocide of Armenians by Turkey during World War I and the Japanese military’s sexual enslavement of ‘comfort women’ during World War II, the Consulate of Japan in Los Angeles sought a meeting with the Armenian National Committee of America to present its government’s position on this issue.

During Deputy Consul General Masahiro Suga’s meeting with ANCA, it became evident that the Japanese government had been far more forthcoming regarding the crimes committed by the imperial Japanese army than the Turkish government was on the Armenian Genocide. Mr. Suga explained that Japan had recognized its responsibility for violating the rights of ‘comfort women’ by issuing an apology, and offering compensation to the victims.

Nevertheless, the ‘comfort women’ remain dissatisfied with Japan’s acts of “atonement,” accusing Japanese officials of making conflicting announcements on this issue. Most ‘comfort women’ have also rejected the offered financial compensation, claiming that it was partially provided by private sources and not the government of Japan. In 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives adopted a resolution in support of ‘comfort women,’ urging the Japanese government to “formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Forces’ coercion of young women into sexual slavery.”

To find out how Japan’s reaction to the issue of ‘comfort women’ differed from the Turkish government’s denialist stand on the Armenian Genocide, I interviewed Jun Niimi, the Consul General of Japan in Los Angeles. He fondly spoke about his “affinity” toward Armenians developed during his 1995-98 service at the Japanese Embassy in Tehran, and his subsequent visits to Armenia, while stationed at the Embassy of Japan in Moscow.

Regarding the Japanese government’s position on ‘comfort women,’ Mr. Niimi explained that Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama issued a statement in 1995, expressing “deep remorse” and “heartfelt apology.” Japan also “provided atonement through the Asian Women’s Fund.”

Turning to the differences in the reaction of Turkey to the Armenian Genocide and Japan’s to the abuse of ‘comfort women,’ Consul General Niimi made three points:

“The government of Japan is well aware of the tragedy of the Armenian people at the beginning of last century. We would like to express our deepest condolences and sympathy to the victims. It is our strong belief that this kind of tragedy should never be repeated. The second point is regarding the position of the Turkish government. This is about another country’s position. Even though we are aware of that atrocity, yet, we are not in a position to grasp the details of precisely what happened a century ago in that area. So we cannot make a comment on the Turkish government’s position. But, I would like to repeat that we are aware of the tragedy and would like to express our sympathy and condolences. And the third point is that, regardless of the position of the Turkish government, the Japanese government’s position on the issue of ‘comfort women’ is that it expressed apology and remorse and made efforts to extend support to former ‘comfort women.’”

I informed the Consul General that Japan’s position on the Armenian Genocide is not much different from that of Turkey. I asked Mr. Niimi to relay to his country’s Foreign Ministry that Japan’s lack of acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide reinforces the skepticism of those who question the Japanese government’s sincerity in dealing fairly with the issue of ‘comfort women.’

In response, the Consul General of Japan expressed his understanding that “the word tragedy doesn’t sound good to you, because it’s genocide.” He promised to convey to his government “the sentiments of the Armenian community” on this issue.

Toronto hosts Genocide and Human Rights University Program

September 3, 2013 By administrator

September 3, 2013 – 15:21 AMT

The Zoryan Institute’s twelfth annual Genocide and Human Rights University Program (GHRUP) was held in Toronto, Canada, in August, amid atrocities and human rights violations in Syria, Egypt, and several countries in the Middle East and Africa.

According to gagrule.net, this year, 22 students from ten countries met to study with ten distinguished genocide scholars. Many of the students come from backgrounds where gross violations of human rights and genocide are part of their national or personal experience, such as Kurds, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Armenians and Jews.

The Course Director, Prof. Joyce Apsel of New York University, noted, “Several students who are teachers commented on how much they learned from watching the pedagogy of different instructors, as well as from the course content. Other students consulted me and other instructors about which directions and schools to pursue for graduate education. They proved to be an outstanding group of students, and it was a privilege to have two weeks in and out of the classroom to exchange ideas and interests.”

“It was remarkable to see descendants of perpetrator and victim groups in the Armenian Genocide —students of Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish backgrounds — find common interests with each other, and within the academic environment of the program and, based on historical facts, explore issues of stereotypes, memory, denial and reconciliation together, seeing each other through the prism of humanity,” said a statement from the Zoryan Institute.

Realizing that there was a significant gap in the university curriculum concerning genocide, the Zoryan Institute began planning for a unique course entitled “The Genocide and Human Rights University Program” in the summer of 2001.

The course ran successfully in Toronto in August 2002 as a pilot project under the directorship of Lorne Shirinian. It attracted students from Armenia, Australia, Canada, England, France, Japan and the United States. The participants finished the course with a strong commitment to the ideals of human rights, and the desire to pursue genocide studies at an advanced academic level. Three students who attended the pilot course made presentations at the prestigious Biennial Conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) in Galway, Ireland following the course.

The Zoryan Institute and its subsidiary, the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, is the first non-profit, international center devoted to the research and documentation of contemporary issues with a focus on genocide, diaspora and Armenia.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, the Italian Chamber of Deputies, majority of U.S. states, parliaments of Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Belgium and Wales, National Council of Switzerland, Chamber of Commons of Canada, Polish Sejm, Vatican, European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.

Diyarbakir is Kurds’ and Armenians’ city – mayor

September 2, 2013 By administrator

September 02, 2013 | 10:01

The Armenians and the Assyrians living in Austria organized a dinner reception for Osman Baydemir, mayor of Turkey’s Diyarbakir city, who had arrived in Vienna.

During the event, the Kurdish mayor recalled that Diyarbakir is as much the city of the Armenians and the Assyrians as it is of the Kurds.

At the reception, the Austrian-Armenian community representatives thanked Baydemir for the restoration of the Saint Giragos Armenian Church in Diyarbakir, the Turkish ILKA news agency reports.

In turn the mayor of Diyarbakir invited the Armenians to the city. Baydemir also noted that a museum is being created on one side of the church, and the cultural heritage of Diyarbakir Armenians will be displayed in this museum.

Zoryan Hosts 22 Students to Study Genocide

August 30, 2013 By administrator

TORONTO—The Zoryan Institute’s twelfth annual Genocide and Human Rights University Program (GHRUP) commences at a fitting time as atrocities and human rights violations unfold in Syria, Egypt, and several countries in the Middle East and Africa.

This year, 22 students from ten countries arrived in Toronto to meet and study with ten distinguished genocide scholars. Many of the students come from backgrounds where gross violations of human rights and genocide are part of their national or personal experience, such as Kurds, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Armenians, Jews, Muslims, and Christians. There are several students who work to provide aid to affected communities, like those of Guatemala and Sudan. Perhaps even more remarkable is the number of students who do not have a direct connection, yet are deeply motivated to understand human rights violations and genocide and how to raise awareness to prevent them around the world.

Indeed, the students brought many diverse experiences to the classroom. One student who is a journalist by trade, described to the class, based on a personal visit to North Korea, the importance of maintaining a critical perspective on decades-old yet still ongoing human rights abuses there. Another student presented the current and historical human rights abuses of disabled peoples affected by policies of eugenics in the USA, a group she works with in her field of Social Work and Disability Studies. Yet another brought the class to tears by discussing her own family’s history of having suffered chemical attacks in the Halabja massacre of March 16, 1988. The GHRUP provides students the opportunity to voice these stories, to analyze comparatively how genocides unfold, their immediate and trans-generational effects on people, and to explore how we can stop them.

“It was remarkable to see descendants of perpetrator and victim groups in the Armenian Genocide—students of Armenian, Kurdish and Turkish backgrounds—find common interests with each other, and within the academic environment of the program and, based on historical facts, explore issues of stereotypes, memory, denial and reconciliation together, seeing each other through the prism of humanity,” says a statement from the Zoryan Institute.

One student from Pakistan, currently a member of the UNAMID effort in Darfur, Sudan, brought to the course the perspective and the dedication of those who work to prevent genocide in the field.

The sentiments of all the students who attended the course are perhaps best captured in their own words. Explaining the programs strengths, one student commented, “I think the GHRUP does an amazing job of providing an incredibly comprehensive course in such a short period of time. The quality of the scholars and students, and the incredible range of experiences and backgrounds are unparalleled.”

Another student wrote that “This program is life- and career-changing. It focuses on the history of genocide, the patterns of genocide, the denial and prevention of genocide.”