System of triumph down LYON CONCERT DEDICATED TO VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE

April 15, 2015 By administrator

LYON CONCERT DEDICATED TO VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE

System of a Down (SOAD) was full last night at the Halle Tony Garnier in Lyon, for his concert dedicated to the victims of the Armenian Genocide. The Californian metal band consisting of American Ameno give 7 concerts in Europe, the last will be held in Yerevan on April 23, on the occasion of the centenary of the extermination of the Armenians. Photo report of Jacques Avakian. Captions: Raphaële Tavernier.

Engaged, the four members of the metal quartet, all of Armenian descent, wanted to with this particular tour marking the centenary celebrations of the Armenian Genocide and also evoke the memory of the victims of 1915.

Make a strong political commitment, Lyon concert SOAD began so sensational via an animated video, recalled the Armenian Genocide.

The leader of System Of A Down, Serj Tankian,

The leader of System Of A Down, Serj Tankian, here on stage in Lyon, recently committed to maintaining recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the US House of Representatives.

The Californian metal band System Of A Down (SOAD) occurred this Tuesday, April 14, 2015 before thousands of fans, as part of his tour “Wake up The Souls” (waking souls).

Press Conference SOAD

“We are touched and honored to mark this solemn occasion by sharing our music with our French fans. The support we have received in France and throughout the world makes us hope that the international community will push the Turkish government to do what is right instead of what suits him politically. It is time for the truth and healing, not only for the millions of Armenians eager to justice, but also for the Greeks, Assyrians and other minorities who have also lost their lives. »

Wednesday, April 15, 2015,
Ara © armenews.com

Turkey in panic mode: Critical visit: Chavushoglu leaving for US amid genocide concerns

April 15, 2015 By administrator

Following Pope Francis’s statement on the Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s foreign minister is embarking on a trip to the United States for talks in an effort to prevent President Barack Obama from using ‘genocide’ in his April 24 address.

Commenting on Mehmet Chavushoglu’s plan, the Turkish Radikal describes it as a critical visit. The publication says that the Turkish official will invest his best efforts in preventing the US leader from repeating the Pope’s remark characterizing the 1915 killings of Armenians as genocide.

At meetings held earlier, the Turkish side warned of possible negative implications of the use of ‘genocide’ by President Obama.

The issue will now be on the agenda of Chavushoglu’s meetings with Susan Rice, a foreign policy advisor to Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Turkish publication has pointed to three possible scenarios that would cause new shifts in the US-Turkey relations.

1) The federal government’s opinion, which determines the US foreign policy, will become a powerful tool to rely on in the Genocide trials under way in the country’s courts;

2) Turkey will lose the restitution cases in case it the United States declares it a genocide perpetrator;

3) Obama’s move will serve as an example for other countries, pushing them to active efforts.

Recall of Turkish envoy widely publicized Pope’s affirmation of Armenian Genocide

April 15, 2015 By administrator

By Harut Sassounian
Publisher, The California Courier
TheCaliforniaCourier.com

Given the candidness of Pope Francis, it was not surprising that he clearly acknowledged the Armenian Genocide during the Pontifical Divine Liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on April 12.

The only person who was clueless about the Pope’s true intentions was Mehmet Pacaci, Turkey’s Ambassador to the Vatican, who had bragged to the Turkish press two weeks ago that he had convinced the Pope to reject all Armenian requests for the Genocide Centennial.

The Turkish Ambassador claimed that he had managed to:

— Cancel the Pope’s April 24 visit to Yerevan;

— Convince the Pope not to celebrate Mass at the Vatican on April 24;

— Eliminate the words ‘Armenian Genocide’ from the Pope’s address during the April 12 Vatican Mass.

The Turkish and Azerbaijani media reported Amb. Pacaci’s contentions as a major victory for Turkish diplomacy and a devastating defeat for Armenians.

Amb. Pacaci’s false claims were simply intended to impress his superiors in Ankara about his ‘good work.’ The truth is that the Pope had neither planned to visit Yerevan on April 24 nor celebrate Mass at the Vatican on that date. The Turkish Ambassador’s third claim that the Pope would not use the term ‘Armenian Genocide’ during his April 12 address, but would only offer “prayers for all those who lost their lives during the tragic events of 1915,” also turned out to be false!

Contrary to Amb. Pacaci’s real or imaginary pressures on the Vatican, the Pope made an explicit and lengthy reference to the Armenian Genocide at St. Peter’s Basilica on April 12 which was broadcast worldwide on TV networks, the radio, newspapers, and the internet. In attendance were Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan, Catholicos Karekin II, Catholicos Aram I, Patriarch of Armenian Catholics Nerses Bedros XIX, and thousands of worshippers from dozens of countries. Here are excerpts from the Pope’s remarks:

“In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th Century’, struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks. Bishops and priests, religious women and men, the elderly and even defenseless children and the sick were murdered. The other two were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism. And more recently, there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting an end to the shedding of innocent blood…. Dear Armenian Christians, today, with hearts filled with pain, but at the same time with great hope in the risen Lord, we recall the Centenary of that tragic event — that immense and senseless slaughter — whose cruelty your forefathers had to endure. It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honor their memory, for whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!”

Pope Francis had repeatedly spoken about the Armenian Genocide as a Cardinal in Argentina, and had included three references to that issue in his 2010 book, “On Heaven and Earth.” On June 3, 2013, shortly after his election, Pope Francis described the Armenian Genocide as “the first genocide of the 20th Century.”

The Vatican had first referred to the Armenian mass killings on Sept. 10, 1915, when Pope Benedict XV sent a letter to Sultan Mahomet V, asking him to stop the wholesale massacres of innocent Armenians. Twice, on Nov. 9, 2000, and Sept. 27, 2001, Pope John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin II issued joint statements acknowledging the Armenian Genocide.

Not surprisingly, the Turkish government reacted angrily to the Pope’s latest reference to the Armenian Genocide, and immediately recalled its Ambassador from the Vatican. Amb. Pacaci may now get fired for having falsely claimed that he had succeeded in silencing the Pope on the Armenian Genocide issue. Meanwhile, the Turkish government’s overreaction and the Pope’s refusal to apologize for his remarks made international headlines on TV networks, websites and newspapers around the world.

The long-planned Turkish efforts to undermine the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide have been drowned out by the extensive media attention to the Kardashians’ maiden visit to Armenia and the Pope’s courageous reaffirmation of the Armenian Genocide right before April 24.

WASHINGTON: Chairman Royce Makes Statement on Genocide Centennial

April 15, 2015 By administrator

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Rep. Ed Royce

WASHINGTON—On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued the following statement in advance of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

“One-hundred years ago, Ottoman authorities began their calculated attack on the Armenian community. The cold, systematic execution of so many people, and the subsequent indifference by the international community, set a chilling precedent for other genocidal leaders of the twentieth century. There is no statute of limitations for such horrors. The need to atone for these atrocities remains as strong today as it was in 1915. The 1.5 million innocent men, women, and children whose lives were taken demand recognition.

“I urge President Obama to acknowledge those tragic events for what they were – the first genocide of the twentieth century. I also call upon Turkey to come to terms with this dark moment in its history to heal lingering tensions among its people, improve relations with Armenia, and promote stability in the region.”

Chairman Royce is an active member of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian issues. Earlier this month, he co-signed a letter to President Obama urging him to acknowledge the Armenia genocide on its 100th anniversary. In April of last year, Royce led a bipartisan delegation to Armenia where the delegation commemorated the 99th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and placed a wreath at Dzidzernagapert, the national memorial to the Genocide.

Armenian FM comments on Turkey’s response to Pope Francis’ Genocide statement

April 14, 2015 By administrator

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian commented on Turkey’s recalling its ambassador to the Vatican in protest over Pope Francis using the word “genocide” to describe the mass killing of 1.5 million Armenian Christians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, CNN reports.

“We are in a situation in which Turkey speaks a different language from the rest of the international community and it seems that it doesn’t understand that it is speaking a different language,” Nalbandian told Italian News Agency Adnkronos.

“During these past days there have been several international organizations that adopt resolutions or issue statements that recognize the Armenian Genocide and that appeal to Turkey to make this step,” he added.

“The pope’s statement is this context of universal value. When Turkey is able to understand this, it will be able to understand what the International community and big personalities (or better translations ‘leaders’) are saying.”

Vatican Pope Francis calls Armenian slaughter ‘genocide’ (Video)

April 12, 2015 By administrator

Pope Francis calls Armenian massacre ‘genocide’

Pontiff’s comments are likely to anger Turkey, which denies that the killings 100 years ago during the fall of the Ottoman empire constituted genocide.

Pope Francis has described the mass killing of Armenians 100 years ago as a genocide, a politically explosive pronouncement that could damage diplomatic relations with Turkey.

During a special mass to mark the centenary of the mass killing, the pontiff referred to “three massive and unprecedented tragedies” of the past century. “The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the twentieth century, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, quoting a declaration signed in 2001 by Pope John Paul II and Kerekin II, leader of the Armenian church.

“Bishops and priests, religious women and men, the elderly and even defenceless children and the infirm were murdered,” the pope said.

Historians estimate that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a wave of violence that accompanied the fall of the Ottoman empire. Despite the massacre being formally recognised as a genocide by Italy and a number of other countries, Turkey refuses to accept it as such.

Reports in Turkey on Sunday said the Vatican’s ambassador to Ankara had been summoned to the foreign ministry to explain the pope’s remarks.

Although the pope chose to quote a predecessor rather than speak in his own words, he told Armenians there was a duty to remember to killings.

“We recall the centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless slaughter whose cruelty your forebears had to endure. It is necessary, and indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for whenever memory fades, it means that evil allows wounds to fester,” he said in St Peter’s Basilica.

During the mass Pope Francis also declared a 10th-century Armenian monk, St Gregory of Narek, a “doctor of the church”. The mystic and poet is celebrated for his writings, some of which are still recited each Sunday in Armenian churches.

The pope was joined at the Vatican by a number of Armenian dignitaries, including the president, Serž Sargsyan, and the head of the Armenian Apostolic church, Karekin II.

Theo van Lint, a Calouste Gulbenkian professor of Armenian studies at the University of Oxford, said allowing Armenian leaders to speak in St Peter’s Basilica was a strategic move.

“I think it’s very important to realise he gave space to the leaders, the heads of the Armenian church and Armenian Catholics, to fully give their view of events. It’s very clear that the pope accepts that it is a genocide,” van Lint told the Guardian.

He said the pontiff’s decision to refer to the mass killing of Armenians along with crimes perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism gave the Vatican’s “highest sanction” to genocide recognition.

Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, a researcher on Armenian history and culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, said the ceremony demonstrated the pope’s efforts to put periphery Christian groups at the centre of the Catholic church.

“This is the first time that Armenia is the centre of attention of Catholic life and the Christian world. It’s meant to draw attention to the Christian east,” he said.

Francis’s use of the word “genocide” was unlikely to change relations between Armenia and Turkey, Dorfmann-Lazarev said, although it would raise diplomatic concerns at the Vatican.

Istanbul: Depo invites audience to think about Turkey’s Armenians, past and present

April 11, 2015 By administrator

BY RUMEYSA KIGER / ISTANBUL

100 Ottoman Armenian intellectuals who were arrested

This is a segment from a collection of portraits by artist Nalan Yırtmaç of 100 Ottoman Armenian intellectuals who were arrested and taken to concentration camps on April 24, 1915, created for the exhibition “Without knowing where we are headed…” Report ZAMAN

A new exhibition at the Depo art and culture center in İstanbul by artists Nalan Yırtmaç and Anti-Pop points a finger at the brutality experienced by Armenian people living in the Ottoman Empire and in Turkey.

On display since April 4 on the first floor of Depo in the Tophane neighborhood, “Without knowing where we are headed…” invites the audience to reflect on both the past and the present day.

The exhibition is made up of portraits of 100 Armenian intellectuals who were among the more than 200 significant figures from the Armenian community who were arrested on April 24, 1915, upon the order of Talat Pasha, the interior minister of the time.

These intellectuals, most of whom were arrested in İstanbul one day before the Allied landings in Çanakkale (Gallipoli), were taken to two concentration camps in Çankırı and Ayaş, near Ankara.

According to the exhibition catalogue, “These arrests constitute the first step of the Committee of Union and Progress government’s decision of deportation, which soon evolved into genocide. Following the arrest of approximately 250 people [starting] the night of the April 23 and lasting through April 24, a massive police operation was set in motion targeting 2,500 people over the course of a couple of days.”

Yırtmaç picked 100 of these opinion leaders and made new portraits of them. “This work pulls them out from under the generic heading of ‘arrested and cast-out Armenians‘ and turns them into people with familiar names and faces, the active participants of the cosmopolitan Ottoman intellectual milieu,” she explains in the catalogue.

She produced the portraits in her own language based on photographs from the few publications that have survived to present day.

On the wall right across from the portraits, another powerful work by Anti-Pop links these killings with a recent one, the assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink in 2007.

“The work created by Anti-Pop immediately after the assassination of Hrant Dink on Jan. 19, 2007 is exhibited alongside these portraits, drawing attention to the agonizing continuity between 1915 and the massacre of Dink. On one side there are intellectuals arrested and killed 100 years ago, and on the other a revolutionary who paid with his life only a few years ago for believing that Turks and Armenians would reconstruct their own identities on healthy grounds and live in equality and freedom,” the artists explain.

The show aims at coming to terms with the great catastrophe experienced in the Ottoman state and Turkey, “to bow our heads and mourn together,” they say.

A letter dated May 30, 1915 written by an Armenian prisoner at the Ayaş camp, Sımpas Pürad, is also featured in the show’s catalogue. It reads: “Last week, from among us, Agnuni, Khajag, Zartaryan, Cangülyan, Dağavaryan and Sarkis Minasyan were summoned by Ankara and they set on the road. We do not know their whereabouts now. I grieve, because although we suffered so much hardship under the autocratic regime, we are still being unjustly persecuted in this era of freedom and constitutionalism. Was this the fortune to befall those who suffered and toiled for the sake of the motherland all those years?”

Journalist, political activist and educator Karekin Khajag also wrote to her wife and family: “My Dear, They’re sending me far, so far away from you, towards Dikranagert [Diyarbakır]. With me, are the following prisoners of Ayaş: Agnuni, Zartar, Sarkis Minasyan, Dr. Dağavaryan and Cihangül. At the Ereğli train station, I met an Armenian who promised me to deliver this letter to you. Look after yourself and my girls Nunus and Alos well. We don’t know why they brought us here, but I have great hope that we will see each other once again. So, goodbye, I’m kissing you and my sweet girls. Yours, K. Khajag.”

“Without knowing where we are headed…” will continue until April 26 at Depo. For more information, visit www.depoistanbul.net, www.anti-pop.com and nalanyirtmac.blogspot.com.tr.

NEW ZEALAND: A leader Iwi Maori calls to boycott Memorial Day Dardanelles support for Armenians

April 8, 2015 By administrator

David Rankin clan chief and researcher Ngapuhi Maori called to boycott the centenary celebrations of the ANZAC (battles of the Dardanelles) this year “because the Turkish government used the event to distract the Armenian Genocide in which more than a million indigenous Armenians were killed by the Turks. ”

“The Armenian holocaust began April 24, 1915, so what better way for Turkey to hide than putting all the attention on ANZAC Day,” said Mr. Rankin. “The indigenous Armenian population was killed by the colonizers Turks and our involvement in the centenary of the Gallipoli ANZAC supports the genocide of the colonizer. Indigenous peoples must stand up and fight the oppressor ”

“Turkey was the Islamic State of his day,” said Mr. Rankin. “It killed nearly a million and a half Armenians because they were Christians and that they were the territories that the Turks wanted to colonize. We effectively support by going to the commemorations that are orchestrated at Gallipoli. This is a diversionary tactic. ”

Mr. Rankin has written to the Turkish ambassador in New Zealand about it in January, but has not received a response. “This shows me that their attitude towards indigenous peoples has not changed in a hundred years. We can still be ignored and treated like crap, “said Mr. Rankin.

Mr. Rankin called Maori and other indigenous groups to boycott the events of the ANZAC Memorial Day this year and as a sign of solidarity with the indigenous Armenians, to stop wearing poppies this year.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015,
Stéphane © armenews.com

USA Vermont lawmakers acknowledge Armenian genocide

April 1, 2015 By administrator

By Paris Achen, Free Press Staff Writer,

MONTPELIER – On the same day the Vermont Legislature for first time officially recognized the 1915 Armenian genocide, the Council of Turkic American Associations held a cultural event in the Statehouse. Report burlingtonfreepress.com

Organizers of the Turkish cultural event and the Statehouse sergeant of arms said the scheduling snafu was unintentional.

“The booking was not made with any other intention than serving the public and the Vermont Legislature, as we already do,” said Janet Miller, Statehouse sergeant-of-arms.

The House and Senate unanimously passed resolutions Tuesday morning recognizing the systematic killing of about 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire and commemorating the 100th anniversary this year. The Turkish government continues to deny the genocide.

Vermont band Lokum played Armenian instrumental devotional songs in the House chamber Tuesday and received a standing ovation.

Two Vermonters, Chris Bohjalian and Jessica Oski, who are descendants of Armenian genocide survivors, suggested the resolution to Rep. Joan Lenes, D-Shelburne, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the genocide. The official Armenian Remembrance Day is April 24.

Bohjalian is an author and columnist for the Burlington Free Press; Oski is a lobbyist.

Lenes descends from Assyrian immigrants from Persia, who also were persecuted by the Ottoman Empire.

“I want us to remember so we don’t repeat, and we are still repeating,” Lenes said. “Being an Assyrian I feel a camaraderie with Armenians.”

After passage of the resolution, Bohjalian and Armenian-American Dana Walrath, a medical anthropologist at the University of Vermont, gave a talk in Room 10 of the Statehouse about their personal journeys discovering their family history against the haunting backdrop of the genocide. Both of the speakers have written historical novels about the genocide.

Nicole Kennedy of Hinesburg attended a presentation on the genocide in Armenia at the Statehouse in Montpelier on Tuesday. April marks the centennial of the start of the Armenian genocide. (Photo:

GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

Bohjalian recalled visiting Turkey’s Dudan Crevasse, where 10,000 Armenians were marched to a ravine, shot or bayoneted to death and thrown into the crevasse at the bottom of a ravine.

In the 1914 Armenian census, there were 124,000 Armenians living in the Diyarbakir Province, where the crevasse is located. By 1922, only 3,000 remained, Bohjalian said.

Walrath said there are eight stages of genocide, and the eighth stage is denial.

“This genocide is still ongoing because there is still denial,” Walrath said.

Anna Kelliher of New Zealand and her distant cousin, Nicole Kennedy of Hinesburg, attended Tuesday’s talk. They said they could relate to the authors’ personal journeys trying to piece together their past.

Kelliher and Kennedy are descendants of Holocaust survivors. They met through a Holocaust survivor resource center, which helps connect families that were split apart by the Holocaust, and found out their grandfathers were first cousins. Kelliher and Kennedy have been communicating online since 2011 but just met in person for the first time this month.

“Genocide is kind of ongoing even after the killing ends,” Kelliher said. “Look at us. We are still dealing with. Our families were pulled apart, and we have been trying to put them back together.”

Three hours after the talk, the Turkish Cultural Center Vermont — part of the Council of Turkic American Associations — welcomed lawmakers to its cultural event in the Statehouse’s Cedar Creek Room.

Yusuf Demir, vice president of the Turkish Cultural Center Vermont, said the cultural association is unaffiliated with the Turkish government and takes no stance on the Armenian genocide. He said Armenians were welcome at the event.

“We are Turkic people living in Vermont,” Demir said. “These centers are funded by Turkish-Americans. We don’t have a political agenda.”

Lenette Peterson, executive assistant at the Turkish Cultural Center Vermont, said she booked the Cedar Creek Room for the event four months ago. Tuesday was the association’s fourth annual cultural event at the Statehouse.

“Reservations are made through this office based on availability in as equitable a way as possible,” said Miller, Statehouse sergeant-of-arms. “We don’t keep track of what was booked first and don’t look to see if there is a conflict of interest.”

Asmik Bagramian, an Armenian-American from Essex, said she was oblivious of the scheduling issue.

“I primarily was there for the Armenian cause regardless of what else was going on,” Bagramian said. “I’m very happy I was part of the resolution commemorating the centennial of the Armenian genocide.”

Armenian diaspora calls on Turkey to open border and archives

March 31, 2015 By administrator

Delegates of the 4th Congress of Western Armenians released a list of demands from the Turkish Republic in Paris on Sunday, including the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border and providing unlimited access to historical archives.

The descendants of Armenians who were living and persecuted during the Ottoman Empire have made the following demands of the Turkish government: “Open the Turkish border with the Republic of Armenia immediately and without preconditions and initiate a number of steps for the establishment of interstate confidence and friendly relations with the authorities and population of the Armenian state, among whom live hundreds of thousands of descendants of Western Armenians.”

The delegation also called for unlimited access to historical archives from the Ottoman Empire, stating this is “necessary for the re-establishment of the rights of Western Armenians. This should include all cadastre and civil state archives, in addition to all information related to our moral and material losses (damages incurred whether pecuniary or non-pecuniary) and relevant rights.”

On March 19, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan slammed the Armenian diaspora, saying: “Oh, Armenian diaspora, oh, Armenian administration, our archives are here. We have hundreds of thousands of documents, over a million documents. How many documents do you have? Bring your documents, and we will task the historians, our historians, political scientists, even archeologists and lawyers [with studying them]… let’s seek the truth here,” he said, adding that “anti-Turkey campaigns carried out by paying money and forming lobbies will not earn you anything.”

The memorandum published by the Armenian congress also called for the recognition of the National Congress of Western Armenians as a legal entity in Turkey, and that it is the indisputable right for the Armenian ethnic entity to return to their homeland and rehabilitate all community properties such as schools and churches.