recognize Archives

GERMANY Comedian January Böhmermann asks Erdogan to recognize Armenian Genocide

May 17, 2016 By administrator

arton126374-480x292 “Pervert, lousy and bestiality”: this is how the moderator of ZDF, Jan Böhmermann, described Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his talk show “Neo Magazin Royal” and today is it to be prosecuted for “insulting a representative of a foreign State” (art. 103 of the criminal code), an offense punishable by three years in prison and described by some crime of “treason”.

Asked by the German news weekly Die Zeit and Policy Analysis (Time) that appeared Thursday, May 12 on a possible meeting with Erdogan over a cup of tea in January Böhmermann replied: “If he releases all detained journalists and opposition, constantly seeking to resolve the Kurdish issue militarily, and admit openly and publicly the genocide of the Turks against the Armenians during the First World War. “

Tuesday, May 17, 2016,
Stéphane © armenews.com

West Virginia Becomes 44th State to Recognize Armenian Genocide

May 4, 2016 By administrator

West Virginia becomes 44th U.S. State to recognize the Armenian Genocide

CHARLESTON—West Virginia became the 44^th state to recognize the Armenian Genocide with Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s proclamation declaring April 2016 as “Genocide Awareness and Prevention Month” in the Mountain State, reported the Armenian National Committee of America Eastern Region (ANCA-ER).

Citing the murder over 1.5 million Armenians and one million Greeks and Assyrians from 1915-1923, and the ongoing genocide against Christians, Yezidis and other minorities in the Middle East, Governor Tomblin’s proclamation notes that “recognizing and consistently remembering the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, and all cases of past and ongoing genocide, we help protect historic memory, ensure that similar atrocities do not occur again, and remain vigilant against hatred, persecution and tyranny.”

Local ANCA advocates Hamparsum Kasparyan, Nancy J. Tolliver and Amy N Tolliver played an integral role in working with state officials in support of the proclamation. “In 1915, my grandfather, Hamparsum, a prosperous wheat broker in Ankara, Turkey, was pulled from his home in the middle of the night, and beheaded. The same happened to many of the more educated and prosperous Armenians in Turkey at the time,” explained Kasparyan. “My grandfather was a kind and very generous man. During a drought he opened his silos and fed 40 towns of people. I am hoping that this West Virginia proclamation recognizing the Armenian Genocide, will in some way assure that others do not go through the same horrible events.”

ANCA Eastern Region Chairman Stephen Mesrobian welcomed the proclamation, noting, “We applaud the Mountain State for officially memorializing the Armenian Genocide, thereby becoming the 44^th state in the Union to do so. This sends a strong signal to the international community and the Obama Administration that we cannot – and must not – kowtow to Turkey’s genocide denial campaign.”

To send a thank you note to Governor Tomblin, please visit: www.anca.org/tomblin

Full text of the proclamation can be accessed at:
https://anca.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/WV_Proclamation_2016.pdf

Obama will break Armenian genocide promise (again)

April 22, 2016 By administrator

Obama-Erdogan For the eighth and final time, President Obama this year will break his unambiguous 2008 campaign promise to declare that the mass killings of Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks in 1915 and 1916 amounted to “genocide,” a leading Armenian-American activist told Yahoo News on Thursday.

According to the U.S. Holocaust Museum, at least 664,000 and perhaps as many as 1.2 million Armenians “died in massacres, in individual killings, or as a consequence of systematic ill-treatment, exposure, starvation and disease.”

But officially designating the Ottoman Turks’ actions as “genocide” would have deeply angered Turkey, a NATO ally and a pivotal player in the coalition Obama has assembled to wage war on the Islamic State in neighboring Syria. Turkish governments have sharply disputed the figures of Armenian dead and categorically rejected the “genocide” label.

Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told Yahoo News shortly after a briefing from Obama aides at the White House that the president would once again stop short of using the term “genocide” in his annual statement about the tragedy.

“We took from today’s meeting at the White House that the president will end his tenure in office as he began it, caving in to Turkish pressure and betraying his own promise to properly recognize the Armenian genocide,” Hamparian said by telephone.

Hamparian told Yahoo that Obama’s annual statement, usually issued on April 24, was not finished yet but that the officials were very clear that it would not deviate from past years in which he has shunned the term “genocide.” White House officials declined to comment.

Hamparian said this year’s decision carried a special sting because the Obama administration recently applied the “genocide” label to atrocities carried out by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

“There’s absolutely no excuse” to withhold the same designation in the Armenian case, he said.

As a senator, Obama supported but did not co-sponsor a 2007 resolution calling for the use of the term “genocide” when discussing the Armenian tragedy. (Hillary Clinton, then a senator, co-sponsored the measure. As secretary of state, however, she did not use the term. Aides to her presidential campaign did not return emails seeking her current position.)

And when he was running for the presidency in 2008, Obama could hardly have been clearer.

“My firmly held conviction [is] that the Armenian genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence,” he said in a statement. “As president I will recognize the Armenian genocide.”

Once in office, however, Obama’s grip on that conviction apparently loosened, and he joined other presidents like George W. Bush in saying one thing during the campaign and another from the Oval Office.

In 2015, the 100^th anniversary of the tragic events, Obama’s statement referred to “Meds Yeghern,” Armenian for “the great calamity.” He also included a reference to Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” during World War II.

Pope Francis referred to the same events as “the first genocide of the 20^th century.” In 1981, then president Ronald Reagan referred to “the genocide of the Armenians.”

Forty-three U.S. states have recognized the Armenian genocide. Twenty-four countries and the European Parliament have done so as well.

France Valérie Boyer: “We must now recognize Nagorno-Karabakh”

April 6, 2016 By administrator

arton124343-480x321 In the first night of the April 2, Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive against the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh. This irrational attack occurred while the day before, President Ilham Aliyev gave in Washington fallacious pledges of good will to John Kerry, US Secretary of State.

For the first time since the cease-fire of 1994, the attack of Azerbaijan has mobilized assaults tanks, combat helicopters, drones and even Grad missiles that targeted the cities of Nagorno-Karabakh and caused casualties among civilians, including children. The attack has been contained and even pushed back so that the dictator Baku accepted the principle of a cease-fire that contrasts with his previous statements and martial that sounds like an admission of defeat. With more than 200 dead, about twenty tanks destroyed and no territorial gain, this inept offensive has indeed shown especially military weakness of Azerbaijan.

Wednesday, April 6, 2016,
Jean Eckian © armenews.com

State of Hawaii recognizes Nagorno Karabakh Republic

March 30, 2016 By administrator

209153 The House of Representatives of the U.S. State of Hawaii unanimously passed a resolution recognizing the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Armenian Embassy in the U.S. said in a Facebook Post.

The Resolution expressed its solidarity with the people of Nagorno Karabakh encouraging the international community to recognize the Republic as a free, independent and sovereign democracy.

The House will transmit a certified copy of the document to the President of the United States, and the majority leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Hawaii became the seventh state to recognize the independence of Nagorno Karabakh along with Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Maine, California and Georgia.

Hawaii1

Embassy of Armenia to the United States

US State of Georgia senate recognizes Armenian Genocide

March 10, 2016 By administrator

state of Georgia WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Georgia State Senate adopted SR 991, a resolution “Recognizing the month of April, 2016, as Genocide Prevention and Awareness Month” in this US state, reported the Armenian Assembly of America (Assembly).

The resolution states that “when coining the term ‘genocide,’ Raphael Lemkin was moved to investigate the forced assimilation, deportation, and near eradication of the Armenian population and other Christian communities, beginning in April, 1915, prompting Adolf Hitler to remark in 1939, ‘Who after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’”

“The resolution had bipartisan support and we will continue our efforts to broaden genocide recognition and human rights education in our school curriculum,” stated Dr. Vahan Kassabian, Armenian Assembly Georgia State Chair, who was present at the capitol to witness the bill’s passage.

The resolution goes on to reference the Holocaust of European Jews during World War II, as well as the genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan, and the current brutality of the Islamic State (aka ISIS/ISIL/Daesh) in Syria and Iraq as outstanding examples.

SR 991 was sponsored by State Senators Elena Parent (D-GA), David Shafer (R-GA-), Renee Unterman (R-GA), Joshua McKoon (R-GA), Nan Orrock (D-GA), and Harold Jones II (D-GA).

“The Assembly appreciates the work of the Georgia State Senate, particularly Senators Parent, Shafer, Unterman, McKoon, Orrock, and Jones, as well as our state chair Dr. Vahan Kassabian,” stated Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny. “These anti-genocide activists in Georgia and across the U.S. are playing a major role in advancing human rights education and we look forward to the day when all 50 states incorporate the teaching of the Holocaust and Armenian Genocide in our schools.”

To note, 43 of 50 US states have formally recognized the Armenian Genocide.

History The first country to recognize the Armenian Genocide was Turkey – 1918

March 4, 2016 By administrator

By Harut Sassounian The California Courier editor

The Armenian Genocide is discussed in the Turkish parliament rarely, and fewer still there are calls for its recognition.

On 14 January 2016, two of the three Armenian members recently elected to the Turkish Parliament have simply dared to raise the issue of the Armenian Genocide in their speeches in the Assembly.

Selina Dogan, representing the opposition party Kemalist CHP (Republican People’s Party), had made the following statement in Parliament: “Since this issue concerns not only Armenians but also Turkey, and therefore it should involve the Turkish parliament and not the other parliaments. Otherwise, every April 24 will continue to make statements always the same and we will promptly quickly cast it on our minds; I am convinced that none of us has any interest in doing so. I must remind you that during a public event in 2015 in Erzurum, the Prime Minister made it clear that deportation is a crime against humanity. “

Garo Paylan, representing the Kurdish opposition party HDP, then mounted the rostrum and also spoke of the Armenian Genocide. “One hundred years the Armenian people have been uprooted and destroyed by order of the state. My family – my grandfather and his family – has suffered also during these events. My grandfather lost both parents and became thereby orphan. I am a descendant of a generation of orphans and survivors of the sword, that live on these lands. My race was massacred. “

While Paylan spoke, several members of parliament shouted to express their disapproval. Baki Shimshek, member of the ultra-nationalist opposition party MHP, shouted in a threatening tone: “We are here in the Turkish National Assembly. Nobody can say that genocide was committed. Such behavior is unacceptable! “.

Despite the unusual nature of this debate is not the first time that statements on the Armenian Genocide were made in the Turkish parliament.

3 Armenian MPs: Selina Dogan, Markar Yesayan, Garo Paylan

In November 2014, Sebahat Tuncel HDP party proposed a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide. Tuncel Erdogan asked insistently come before parliament to recognize the genocide and other massacres and ask forgiveness. The text of the resolution also asked Erdogan publicly reiterated his apology on one of the sites of the massacres, and he declares April 24 day official mourning. In addition, parliament should undertake to establish a Truth Commission that would make public all the public archives documents relating to the massacres. Finally, the proposed resolution addressed the issue of moral and material compensation for the descendants of victims. As expected, the resolution Tuncel was quickly removed to never see the day.

As I reported it a year ago, the proposed Tuncel was not the first resolution submitted to the Turkish parliament for recognition of the Armenian Genocide. On 4 November 1918, the new Ottoman Turkish parliament discussed at length the crimes committed by the Turkish government Young, after the presentation of a motion stating: “A population of a million people guilty of nothing except their belonging to the Armenian nation were massacred and exterminated, including women and children. “ In response, Interior Minister Fethi Okyar said: “The government’s intention is to repair all the injustices until now, within our means, to make possible the return home of those who were exiled, and to compensate them for their material losses as much as it can. “

As a result of this motion, a parliamentary commission of inquiry was created to gather all documents relating to the actions of those responsible for what was called “deportations and massacres of Armenians”. The proofs were delivered to the Turkish Military Tribunal and those who were found guilty were hanged or sentenced to long prison terms.

In addition to this parliamentary motion, we must remember the words of Kemal Ataturk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey, quoted in the Los Angeles examinator of August 1, 1926 to have said: “These survivors of the former party Youth Turkish expected accountable for the death of millions of our Christian subjects, brutally driven from their homes and massacred en masse “.

Together, the motion of the 1918 parliament, convictions by the Turkish Military Tribunals and the words of President Kemal Ataturk on the responsibility of the Turkish government of the time, characterize the genocide and make Turkey the first state to have recognized the Armenian Genocide!

Therefore, rather than wanting Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide, Armenians should reclaim their lands as his interior minister Fethi Okyar promised 98 years ago!

Gilbert Béguian translation for Armenews

Fethi Okyar was military attaché in Paris at the age of 29, from 1909 to 1911

Friday, March 4, 2016,
Jean Eckian © armenews.com

Gülten Kaya: Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide

January 28, 2016 By administrator

Gülten Kaya is a Turkish music producer and an actress

By Hambersom Aghbashian,

Gülten Kaya is a Turkish music producer and an actress well known for (Yusuf ile Kenan -1979), (Memnu meyva -1979) and (Aklin durur -1975). She is the widow of late Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya ( born in 1957 in Malatya, Turkey – died in 2000 in his de facto exile in Paris). Gülten Kaya is a political activist and a member of “The Friends of Hrant Dink organization.”

Gülten Kaya was one of the main speakers during “The Friends of Hrant Dink organization” gathering to mark the seventh anniversary of the killing of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink on January 19, 2014, where tens of thousands gathered in Istanbul and marched from Taksim Square to Agos newspaper’s office building in the Pangalti neighborhood of Sisli. In her speech, Gülten Kaya, commemorated not only Dink, but also those who were killed during the Gezi Park Resistance last year. “We are here not only to remember Hrant, but also Ethem [Sarisülük], Abdullah [Cömert], Medeni [Yildirim], Ahmet [Atakan] and those who

died in the Gezi protests,” Kaya said. “You have left mothers and fathers devoid of their children. Sons of this country were shot with treacherous bullets. How can we forget how many homes were broken?” she said. “What is your truth? This is 2014: You are carrying guns in your trucks instead of peace, democracy and human rights,” Kaya added, addressing Turkey’s security forces. ⁽¹⁾

“Taraf” Newspaper wrote on 20th April 2010, “ The anniversary of the 1915s events, this year will be remembered in Turkey, too. The commemoration organized by the “Say Stop!” Group. A group of intellectuals, for the first time in Turkey will commemorate this year on 24 April as the anniversary of the events of 1915. Under the leader-ship of “Say Stop!” group, the commemoration will start in front of the tram station in Taksim Square.

The text of the commemoration activity is as follows: “This pain is OUR pain. This mourning is for ALL of US. In 1915, when our population was just 13 million, in these lands were living from 1,5 to 2 million Armenians. In Thrace, in the Aegean, in Adana, Malatya, Van, Kars … Samatya, in Sisli, Galata … Our neighborhood grocery men, our dressmakers, our jewelers, our carpenters, our shoemakers, our classmates, our teachers, our officers, our orderlies, our deputies, our historians, our composers …They were our Friends. In April 24 1915 it was started “to send them”. We lost them. They are no longer available. The vast majority are no more between us. They have not even graves. But, the “Great Pain” of the “Great Disaster” , with its utmost gravity EXISTS in our conscience. It is growing since 95 years. We are calling all the people of Turkey, who [the people] feel in their hearts this “Great Pain”, to respectfully prostrate in front of the 1915s victims’ remembrance. In black dresses, silently.Lightening candles for their souls, bearing flowers .Because this pain is OUR pain. This mourning is for ALL of US. “⁽²⁾ Gülten Kaya was one of the prominent intellectuals who participated in the commemoration.

“Today Zaman”, wrote on April 20, 2011, “Armenians who lost their lives in the Armenian displacement that took place in 1915, during the final days of the Ottoman Empire, will be commemorated through a variety of events for a second time this year. This year’s commemoration ceremonies will be held in İstanbul’s Taksim Square, Ankara, İzmir, Diyarbakır and Bodrum. A statement with the headline, “This pain is ours,” has been opened up for signatures. More than 100 people including intellectuals, writers and journalists including Ahmet İnsel, Ali Bayramoğlu, Alper Görmüş, Bekir Berat Özipek, Cafer Solgun, Ferhat Kentel, Gülten Kaya, Leyla İpekçi, Mehmet Bekaroğlu, Oral Çalışlar, Orhan Miroğlu, Oya Baydar, Şebnem Korur Fincancı and Ümit Kardaş have already signed the statement. Deputies from the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and independent candidates supported by the party will be supporting the commemoration ceremony to be held in Diyarbak?r.” ⁽³⁾

In response to official statements that the Royal Library of Denmark has agreed “to balance” an Armenian Genocide exhibition by allowing the Turkish government to mount its own “alternative” exhibit, a group of Turkish citizens–including academics, writers, former members of parliament, and mayors–have signed an open letter to the Royal Library,where they said ” It is incorrect to suggest that two different views of what happened in 1915 are possible. Over 1 million Ottoman-Armenian citizens were forced out of their homes and annihilated in furtherance of an intentional state policy. What exists today is nothing other than the blatant denial of this reality by the Turkish government.” They added “ Don’t Stand Against Turkey’s Democratization and Confrontation with its History!” Gülten Kaya (music producer) is one of the intellectuals who signed the petition. ⁽⁴⁾

According to “TodayZaman,” September 26, 2014, “A group of academics, journalists, artists and intellectuals have released a statement condemning in the harshest terms what they define as expressions that include “open hatred and hostility” towards Armenians in Turkish schoolbooks, which were recently exposed by the newspapers Agos and Taraf.” Gülten Kaya was one of the intellectuals who signed the petition. ⁽⁵⁾

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1- www.mirrorspectator.com/pdf/012514.pdf

2- http://www.taraf.com.tr/haber/ 48851.htm

3- http://www.todayszaman.com/news-241521-1915-tragedy-to-be-commemorated-for-second-time-in-turkey.html

4- http://armenianweekly.com/2012/12/18/turkish-citizens-sign-petition-against-denialist-exhibit-in-denmark/

5- http://www.todayszaman.com/anasayfa_group-of-intellectuals-condemn-anti-armenian-statements-in-textbooks_359935.html

Neşe Düzel : Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide

December 30, 2015 By administrator

Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide
Neşe Düzel

By Hambersom Aghbashian,

Nese Duzel (born in Aydin-Turkey) is a Turkish writer and journalist, very well known for her interviews with outstanding intellectuals and political activists. Nese Duzel is a graduate of Izmir’s Ege University and started to work in journalism in 1979 . She was a reporter and writer for Milliyet and Hurriyet newspapers and for Taraf. On 14 December 2012, she followed the founding editor-in-chief of daily “Taraf” Ahmet Altan, his assistant editor Yasemin Çongar, columnists Murat Belge, and stepped down from her post at the newspaper*. Taraf patron Başar Arslan appointed the former managing editor Markar Esayan “temporarily” to take over its editorial chair. On February 1, 2013, Oral Çalışlar was appointed as editor-in-Chief, but he also resigned and Nese Duzel became the new editor-in- chief . Nese Duzel published many books among them “Deleted to a desired memory Pursuit” (sells Books/2012), where she compiled her interviews, “Fearless History” (Alkim Publications/2011) and “Turkey’s Hidden Face” (Communication Publications/2002).

According to “Radikal newspaper, Istanbul, June 30, 2000,” Nese Duzel interviewed Professor Halil Berktay, a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Turkey, who has taught at Birmingham University (UK), Harvard, Middle East Technical University (Ankara), and Bogazici University (Istanbul), and currently is a member of the faculty at Sabanci University (Istanbul). Nese Duzel, through her questions about the Armenian genocide, the history of it, the reasons, the execution, the consequences and many other aspects, could reveal lot of facts concerning the Armenian Genocide, an issue which was a taboo in Turkey at that time, but professor Berktay explained, analyzed and unfolded the files of 1915 Armenian Genocide. ₍₁₎

Neşe Düzel interviewed late Hrant Dink ,(Radikal, 23 may 2005), where she reminded him asking in an interview before years “What happened to the civilization, the wealth, created by thousands of years old society, i.e. the Armenians? And asked him to whom did it go? Dink explained whom did it go and continued “….Because a law called ‘Abounded Properties’ was issued, a dead line was given to the Armenians. It was said ‘let them come; we will give them their goods’. The goods of Armenians who didn’t come within the prescribed period of time went to the Treasury.” Hrant Dink was assassinated on January 19, 2007, and after 10 years from the interview , in 2015, Tanier Akcam and Umit Kurt published a book titled “The Spirit of the Laws: The Plunder of Wealth in the Armenian Genocide”, they said” We only cracked the door open slightly with the hope of making small contribution to the shock and transformation, which was awaited, predicted, and hoped for…” ₍₂₎

The “I Apologize Campaign” is an initiative that was launched in December 2008 in Turkey by numerous journalists, politicians, and professors that calls for an apology for what they considered as the “Great Catastrophe that Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915”, through a form of a signature campaign.That which is an expression used to avoid using “Armenian Genocide” and the consequences of using it. The stated “My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them.” The campaign was signed by 30,000 signatories by January 2009. The campaign, which some interpreted as in direct reference to the Armenian Genocide, created widespread outrage in Turkish society. Neşe Düzel was one of the notable signatories. ₍₃₎

Taraf Newspaper wrote on 20th April 2010 “A group of intellectuals, among them Ali Bayramoğlu, Ferhat Kentel, Neşe Düzel, Perihan Mağden and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, for the first time in Turkey, will commemorate this year on 24 April as the anniversary of the events of 1915, under the leader-ship of “Say Stop!” group. The commemoration will start in front of the tram station in Taksim Square. The following abstracts are from the text of the commemoration activity, “This pain is OUR pain. This mourning is for ALL of US. In 1915, when our population was just 13 million, 1,5 to 2 million Armenians were living in these lands…. In April 24, 1915 they started “to send them”. We lost them. They are no longer available. They have not even graves. But the “Great Pain” of the “Great Disaster”, with its utmost gravity EXISTS in our pain”. Ümit Kıvanç was one of the intellectuals who signed the text. ₍₄₎

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* Daily Taraf, was the source of the many agenda-setting reports in recent Turkish history, and it also became the first Turkish partner of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, joining internationally known publications in signing a contract to publish the site’s leaked documents firsthand. The daily published a series of highly controversial stories that revealed the involvement of the Turkish military in daily political affairs. In his well-honed daily columns, Altan attacked Erdogan as a “hollow bully,” ready to adopt ultranationalist policies to further his own ambitions. The prime minister won a libel suit against Altan for calling him “arrogant, uninformed, and uninterested.”

1- http://www.atour.com/~aahgn/news/20010105d.html

2- https://books.google.com/books?id=os2dBAAAQBAJ&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=Nese+duzel+and+the+armenian+genocide

3- http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-ozyurek5-2009jan05-story.html

4- http://setasarmenian.blogspot.com/2010/04/good-thoughtful-and-ugly-from-turks-on.html

Aslı Erdoğan Turkish Intellectuals Who Have Recognized The Armenian Genocide

December 17, 2015 By administrator

Aslı Erdoğan Turkish Intellectuals

By: Hambersom Aghbashian,

Aslı Erdoğan (born 1967) is a prize-winning Turkish writer, human rights activist and former columnist for Radikal newspaper. Born in Istanbul, she graduated from Robert College in 1983 and the Computer Engineering Department of Boğaziçi University in 1988. She worked at CERN* as a particle physicist from 1991 to 1993 and received an MS in physics from Boğaziçi University. She began research for a PhD in physics in Rio de Janeiro before returning to Turkey to become a full-time writer in 1996. Her first story “The Final Farewell Note” won third prize in the 1990 Yunus Nadi Writing Competition. Her first novel, Kabuk Adam (Crust Man), was published in 1994 and was followed by” Mucizevi Mandarin” (Miraculous Mandarin) a series of interconnected short stories in 1996. Her short story Wooden Birds received first prize from Deutsche Welle radio in a 1997 competition and her second novel “Kirmizi Pelerinli Kent” (The City in Crimson Cloak), received numerous accolades abroad and has been published in English Language translation. Aslı Erdoğan was the Turkish representative of International PEN‘s** Writers in Prison Committee from 1998 to 2000. She is widely traveled and has an interest in anthropology and Native American culture. From December 2011 to May 2012, at the invitation of the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation, Erdoğan was Zurich’s “writer in residence”. ⁽¹⁾

On Feb. 2, 2007, “www.icorn.org” wrote: ” The Turkish writer Asli Erdogan was a friend of Hrant Dink and, deeply affected by his murder, she wrote to her friends, . . . today my name was listed on the death list because I sold Agos newspaper on the streets with a handful of intellectuals, but it is more important for my voice to be heard.” ICORN also published Asli Erdogan’s letter entitled ” We left a deep, invisible mark behind us” where she wrote” … It was a long, silent walk. Thousands and thousands of people were slowly walking, side by side, under an unexpected winter sun, a luminous sky, reminiscent of spring. A compact, homogeneous crowd was filling the avenues, the streets, the squares. There were blood-red carnations. Black signs spelling out the same message in three different languages.’ We are all Hrant, we are all Armenians.’ Hrant’s face emerges above arms, above heads, an intact face, bearing no signs of aging, with his gentle, comforting smile… Thousands of people, in mourning, heartbroken, intently turned to that face with a sense of loss even deeper than if he had been one of them. ⁽²⁾

In December 2008, two hundred prominent Turkish intellectuals released an apology for the “great catastrophe of 1915”. This was a clear reference to the Armenian Genocide, a term still too sensitive to use so openly. The signatories also announced a website related to this apology, and called on others to visit the site and sign the apology as well. This is the complete, brief text of the apology: My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers and sisters. I apologize to them. Aslı Erdoğan was one of the Turkish intellectuals who signed the apology.⁽³⁾

According to http://setasarmenian.blogspot.com, under the title “24 April, the anniversary of the 1915s events, will be remembered this year in Turkey, too.”, Taraf Newspaper of 20th April 2010 wrote ” A group of intellectuals as Ali Bayramoğlu, Ferhat Kentel, Neşe Düzel, Perihan Mağden, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, for the first time in Turkey, will commemorate this year on 24 April as the anniversary of the events of 1915, under the leader-ship of “Say Stop!” group. The commemoration will start in front of the tram station in Taksim Square. The group will be dressing in black and carry photos of massacred Armenian intellectuals who were deported from that station.” the following abstracts are from the text of the commemoration activity, “This pain is OUR pain. This mourning is for ALL of US. In 1915, when our population was just 13 million, 1,5 to 2 million Armenians were living in these lands…. In April 24, 1915 it was started “to send them”. We lost them. They are no longer available. They have not even graves. But the “Great Pain” of the “Great Disaster” , with its utmost gravity EXISTS in our pain”. Aslı Erdoğan, was one of the Turkish intellectuals who signed the text. ⁽⁴⁾

Asli Erdogan was invited to Yerevan-Armenia to give readings from her work . She was chosen as the first Turkish writer to be invited by the Armenian Writers for a conference. ⁽⁵⁾

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*CERN: The name CERN is derived from the acronym for the French “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire”, or European Council for Nuclear Research, a provisional body founded in 1952 with the mandate of establishing a world-class fundamental physics research organization in Europe. Today, CERN is often referred to as the European Laboratory for Particle Physics.

**PEN: PEN International promotes literature and freedom of expression. It is a forum where writers meet freely to discuss their work; it is also a voice speaking out for writers silenced in their own countries.

1- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asl%C4%B1_Erdo%C4%9Fan

2- http://www.icorn.org/articles.php?var=56

3- http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=200_prominent_Turks_apologize_for_great

4- http://setasarmenian.blogspot.com/2010/04/good-thoughtful-and-ugly-from-turks-on.html

5- http://aslierdogan.com/haberler.asp?ssid=162