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France: The Armenian genocide taught in 3rd class

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arton116394-480x310The curriculum will integrate well the teaching of the Armenian Genocide. In the curriculum draft circulated by Le Monde yesterday, we read about the third class that will be addressed in the ongoing First World War. It is particularly indicated the following: “The third class gives students the keys to understanding the contemporary world. It allows to show the magnitude of the crisis that French companies, European and world have crossed, but also social and political changes it could engender. By mobilizing the civilian as well as military, the Great War is testing the cohesion of societies and sustained weakening of regimes in places. Combatants and civilians suffer extreme violence, which particularly reflects the genocide of Armenians in 1915 “.

Nothing seems to have to change at this level. On the contrary, since the genocide issue is clearly highlighted in the few lines devoted to the program of the First World War. It therefore appears that the Ministry of Education headed by Najat Vallaud-Belkacem has resisted lobbying Ankara and its loyal supporters, as the academician Pierre Nora, who had campaigned for the removal of the teaching of the Armenian Genocide on the grounds that “choosing to focus on the Armenian Genocide in the First World War to the dedicated program falls history of ideological and electoral choice.”

More on the link below, from page 95

Sunday, September 20, 2015,
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ECHR rejects Turkish appeal to ruling on compulsory religion classes

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Güven Özalp BRUSSELS

n_78508_1The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected Turkey’s appeal to a ruling that said high school students must be allowed to opt out of religious education classes, which are currently compulsory.

ECHR ruled on Sept. 16, 2014, that the Turkish education system was “still inadequately equipped to ensure respect for parents’ convictions” and violated the “right to education,” in a case stemming from Alevi complaints about mandatory religious classes.

In December 2014, Turkey appealed to the ECHR’s Grand Chamber, the court’s office of appeal, on the last day available to do so, requesting that the case be reviewed. The Grand Chamber, however, rejected Turkey’s appeal on Feb. 17, 2015, with no elaboration, rendering the decision as ultimate. report hurriyet

In 2011, applicants Mansur Yalçın, Yüksel Polat and Hasan Kılıç, who are adherents of the Alevi faith and whose children were at secondary school at the time in question, complained that the content of the compulsory classes in religion and ethics in schools was based exclusively on the Sunni understanding of Islam, claiming that Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights Protocol No. 1 (right to education) had been violated.

In its ruling, the court observed in particular that in the field of religious instruction, Turkey’s education system was still inadequately equipped to ensure respect for parents’ convictions.

“Turkey has to remedy the situation without delay, in particular by introducing a system whereby pupils could be exempted from religion and ethics classes without their parents having to disclose their own religious or philosophical convictions,” said the court.

According to the directive sent by the Education Ministry’s Religious Education Directorate to provincial officials on Feb. 3, the “religion” field of a child’s identity card will be checked to decide whether they are allowed to opt out of religious education classes. If the field is left empty, or if any religion other than Christianity and Judaism is written, then the student will be obliged to take the class.

Previously, Turkish authorities had considered it adequate for a student to opt out of the controversial classes if their father or mother is either Christian or Jewish. Other faiths, like Alevism, or a lack of faith, have never been recognized by Turkish authorities as a reason for exemption from the mandatory classes.