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Istanbul: ‘Recognize, Apologize, Compensate,” Say Turks During Istanbul Commemoration

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During a commemoration event in Istanbul Monday, participants called on Turkey to recognize the Genocide and apologize and make compensations for the crime.

ISTANBUL—During an event on Monday to commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum located in Sultanahmet district organized by Human Rights Association Commission against Racism and Discrimination, participants called on Turkey to recognize the Genocide and apologize and make compensations for the crime.

Organized by “April 24 Commemoration Platform,” the commemoration event was held with a poster reading “Armenian Genocide, recognize, apologize, compensate,” while participants carried carnations and photographs of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, reported the Istanbul-based Agos newspaper.

A group chanting “We are the soliders of Mustafa Kemal” and “We are the soldiers of Erdoğan,” attempted to interrupt the event but was prevented from provoking participats.

“We are trying to fight against the inherent hatred and vengeance of the state. We are talking about an annihilation that is going on for 102 years,” said Benjamin Abtan, Head of European Grassroots Antiracist Movement, during whose remarks the group attempted the interruption.

Abtan said that commemorating the victims of genocide is to defend democracy. “Fighting against denial of genocide and genocide itself are not peculiar to Turkey. That is why we, non-Armenians, are a part of this struggle.”

Following Abtan’s speech, Meral Cıldır, member of Human Rights Association Commission against Racism and Discrimination, read a written statement on behalf of April 24 Commemoration Platform, which also mentioned the Ottoman Turkish massacres of Syriacs and Pontus Greeks.

Below is the text of the statement:

“Today is April 24. The symbolic beginning of Armenian Genocide. We have to remind that Syriac people had been subjected to genocide in Asia Minor between 1914 and 1923, and Pontus Greeks were subjected to genocide both by Ottoman state and Kemalist movement.

Rule of darkness trivializes even the most horrific evils. It makes criminal actions and situations ordinary. People get used to the injustices to which they have to resist and they experience them as a part of daily life.

Talat Pasha planned Armenian Genocide with a cold-blooded precision; he executed the plan, followed its course and meticulously recorded its results. Today, Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha are buried in mausoleum. They are honored with the place that is given to them in Monument of Liberty.

We invite all people who object against genocide denial to protest the naming of schools after Talat Pasha and his grave in the Monument of Liberty. Anatolia is a land of genocide. Turkey is a land of genocide denial. Today, the mentality of genocide and denial still prevails.”

A second event, a silent vigil commemorating the victims of the Armenian Genocide, took place in Taksim Square and was attended by the Armenian member of the Turkish Parliament Garo Paylan and the parents of Sevag Balıkcı’s an Armenian soldier who was killed on April 24, 2011 in his barracks.

The event, which was organized by the Commemoration of Armenian Genocide Victims Committee, issued a statement, which was read by one of the group’s members Murat Celikkan.

Below is the statement, which did not use the word genocide but called on Turkish authorities to apologize for the crime and referenced Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan “condolence” message to “Ottoman Armenians.”

“We expect an apology, instead of condolence messages talking about the suffering of both sides. It’s been 102 years; don’t wait for 103rd year. Apologize!”

“While a people was annihilated with its entire culture, culture of coexistence was damaged fatally. Anatolia became barren without its cultures and peoples, making all of us, all people who lived in Anatolia for generations alone. This barrenness that influenced, surrounded and sickened all generations can only be ended with confrontation.”

Saying that “In fact, barrenness and loneliness is not the only problem,” Celikkan added: “Confronting the events of 1915 would contribute to adoption of the essence of democracy as the norm.”

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), of which Paylan is a member, also issued an announcement on the occasion of the 102nd anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Rights groups insist top media outlets apologize for Genocide-denying ads

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211647A coalition of 14 national anti-genocide and human rights groups, led by the Armenian National Committee of America Eastern Region (ANCA-ER), have called on The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, and The Philadelphia Inquirer to issue a formal apology for the placement of advertisements denying the Armenian Genocide in their publications and urged an advertisement policy review to prevent similar incidents in the future, ANCA said.

In letters sent to the publications this week, the coalition explains that “the website linked to in the advertisement clearly denies the Armenian Genocide in several ways, including by disputing the number of people killed, referring to the genocide as a “destructive conflict,” or the “1915 tragedy.” While the coded language used on the website may be unfamiliar to outsiders, we are all too familiar with the use of this language as a tool for denial.” The letters went on to note that “the advertisement was run by an organization called the Turkic Platform, a propaganda group that aims to distract conversation from Turkey’s role in the Armenian Genocide through the use of billboard and newspaper advertisements and other activities.”

The letters outline three concrete requests:

A formal apology to readers for running the ad, including to those who are victims or descendants of victims of the Armenian Genocide;

A policy review to ensure the newspaper will no longer accept advertisements which promote hate speech and genocide denial; and

A meeting with senior staff of the newspaper’s advertising department to better understand the policy under which the newspaper accepted the ad.

On April 20, the Istanbul-based Turkic Platform began a U.S.–wide advertisement blitz denying the Armenian Genocide, spending millions on full page print newspaper ads, online news site ads and billboards. Backlash from the ad campaign has been significant with grassroots action leading to ClearChannel Outdoor first pulling its billboards in Boston, Chicago and San Francisco and then stopping the campaign nationwide. Some newspapers, including the San Jose Mercury News, issued apologies and pledged a full review of their ad placement policy.

Turkey: HDP Co-Chair: We Apologize to the Armenian People

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HDP-YuksekdagISTANBUL (Agos)—Turkey’s Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair, Figen Yüksekdağ, during a group meeting, discussed the Armenian Genocide. Yüksekdağ said, “On 101st anniversary of the genocide, we apologize to Armenian people. We apologize to Aunt Elizabeth, to Uncle Krikor. We apologize to our friends, comrade Garo and to our sister Roza.”

Yüksekdağ started the meeting by saying, “I would like to begin by commemorating the Armenians, Syriac and Chaldean people who were exiled and killed 101 years ago.”

She continued by saying “The mentality that led to the genocide avoids recognition today. However, recognition doesn’t demean a state, it only relieves pain. These lands will eventually spill out the bloodshed, regardless of your [the Turkish governments’] wishes. Our history is a history of massacres. Recognizing the massacres is a historical responsibility.”

“The ones who withhold their apologies have the same mentality. They use “Armenian” as an insult. This means that the genocidal mentality is still alive. We apologize to Armenian people. As I said, the mentality that led to death and destruction in the past is still active today.”

Turkish lawyers apologize to Armenians for Genocide

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f55267c31ef7fe_55267c31ef835.thumbA scheduled conference devoted to the denial of the Armenian Genocide has angered several Turkish lawyers from Izmir.

The local branch of the Association of Modern Lawyers has issued a statement, apologizing to the Armenians.

The association says that an alliance of lawyers responsible for establishing justice in Turkey is sure that what happened in the Ottoman Empire in the World War II era was a crime of Genocide committed under the  pretext of displacement.

The authors of the statement noted that among the Armenians arrested and exiled to death on April 24, 1915, there were also lawyers and advocates.

“We, as lawyers from Izmir, will not allow that the crimes and the genocide committed against the Armenians be consigned to oblivion. We apologize to the Armenian people on behalf of the organization we are members of,” reads the statement.

Turkish Mayor Apologizing to the ARMENIANS, Assyrians, Yezidis

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December 16, 2014

 Ahmet-TurkDuring an event held in Sweden, the mayor of the Turkish city of Mardin,  Ahmet Turk apologize to the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Yezidies for the fact that certain Kurdish ahirets had been accomplices during the Genocide of 1915, report the Turkish Demokrathaber.net report “Armenpress”.

“Unfortunately, the Kurds, who implemented and executed the government’s decision taken in 1914-1915, were overtly used under the name of Islam. We now feel the bitterness about the participation of our fathers and forefathers in those Massacres as their children and grandchildren,” Ahmet Turk mentioned, adding that the Kurds will never forget the pain that those nations experienced, “We as Armenians and Assyrians and our Yezidi brothers to forgive us, “the Mayor of Mardin Said.

Armenian Genocide

In 1915, leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. Though reports vary, most sources agree that there were about 2 million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire at the time of the massacre. By the early 1920s, when the massacres and deportations finally ended, some 1.5 million of Turkey’s Armenians were dead, with many more forcibly removed from the country. Today, most historians call this event a genocide–a premeditated and systematic campaign to exterminate an entire people. However, the Turkish government does not acknowledge the enormity or scope of these events. Despite pressure from Armenians and social justice advocates throughout the world, it is still illegal in Turkey to talk about what happened to Armenians during this era.

THE ROOTS OF GENOCIDE: THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The Armenian people have made their home in the Caucasus region of Eurasia for some 3,000 years. For some of that time, the kingdom of Armenia was an independent entity–at the beginning of the 4th century AD, for instance, it became the first nation in the world to make Christianity its official religion–but for the most part, control of the region shifted from one empire to another. During the 15th century, Armenia was absorbed into the mighty Ottoman Empire.