Flash Mob organized by the Toronto Armenian dance groups – Hamazkayin Toronto Dance Academy and Erepuni Dance Ensemble and the Holy Trinity Armenian Church Sassoun Dance Ensemble
Canadian politician: Armenian Genocide was a dark moment in human history
Toronto, Canada
Several thousand Armenians of Canada gathered in Toronto on Sunday to mark centenary of the Armenian Genocide.
The action brought together Armenian-Canadians, Armenian Ambassador to Canada Armen Yeganyan, famous director Atom Egoyan. Defense Minister Jason Kenney, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and Toronto Mayor John Tory, appeared to support the event, ctvnews.ca reported.
“The Armenian genocide was a dark moment in human history and the passage of a century has not diminished the horror of those events. Nor has it diminished the importance of recognizing the atrocity in Armenia as genocide,” Kathleen Wynne said.
The action also brought together representatives of other communities whose ancestors survived mass atrocities during the last century.
A small group of Turkish Canadians, many waving Turkish flags, staged a counter-action a short distance from the Queen’s Park.
Photos from Twitter of Kathleen Wynne and Robin Bedrosian
Activists Turn Their Backs to Denialist Speakers at UofT
Over 70 human rights activists (Photo: Ishkhan Ghazarian)
Over 70 human rights activists from the university community, who made up the majority of those in attendance, held the silent protest by standing in unison and turning their backs to the lecturers. (Photo: Ishkhan Ghazarian)
TORONTO, Canada—On Feb. 27, Armenian youth held a silent protest at a lecture entitled “WWI 100th Anniversary-Human Suffering in Eastern Anatolia,” featuring genocide deniers Justin McCarthy and Bruce Fein. The lecture, organized by the Federation of Canadian Turkish Associations, was held at the University of Toronto (UofT), St. George Campus.
The Armenian Youth Federation of Canada (AYF Canada), in collaboration with the Armenian Students Association (ASA) of UofT St. George and Scarborough campuses, and the Armen Karo Student Association spearheaded this protest action.
Over 70 human rights activists from the university community, who made up the majority of those in attendance, held the silent protest by standing in unison and turning their backs to the lecturers.
Protesters allowed the speakers to deliver their opening remarks. However, when it became apparent that the speakers would deny and misconstrue the factuality of the Armenian Genocide, the group stood up and turned their backs to the podium as a silent protest against genocide denial.
Several racial slurs and discriminatory comments were directed at the protesters as they stood in silence.
Lecture organizers briefly stopped the event, but after campus police made it clear that the form of protest did not interfere with the event, they were asked to continue.
Protesters continued standing with their backs to the podium as Fein spoke, then marched out in an organized walk-out, leaving the remaining twenty or so attendees to listen to the rest of the lecture.
The demonstrators then marched to UofT’s Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office to voice their concern regarding the event, and to deliver a petition of over 2,000 signatures denouncing the event and demanding that the university distance itself from the organizers and speakers. The group had previously sent to the university a letter signed by academics, human rights groups, and student associations, including Hillel of Greater Toronto, the Greek Students Association of UofT-Scarborough, and the Hellenic Students Association of Ryerson University, demanding that this event be cancelled.
McCarthy, who was previously turned away from the University of Melbourne and Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2013, has long been regarded as a mouthpiece of the Turkish state in spreading denial of the Armenian Genocide. Fein is employed by the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA) as a resident scholar, to similarly support and propagate the Turkish denial policy of the Armenian Genocide, and has penned several articles attacking the veracity of the genocide.
AYF-Canada Chairperson Daron Keskinian said it was ”extremely troubling” that such an event took place at UofT.
“As we saw today, the University of Toronto should distance itself from this event immediately. The lecture organizers have used the location to bring legitimacy to their event, and have been given free rein to present their denial propaganda at the expense of the University’s reputation,” said Keskinian.
The ASA of UofT released a statement stressing that the event should be disconcerting to the university community at large.
“In the interest of maintaining its integrity and making amends for this event taking place on campus, the University of Toronto’s President’s Office should release a statement indicating that they distance themselves from this event. The Armenian Genocide is taught at this institution and the University of Toronto should not provide podiums to those who are looking to legitimize their denial of the first genocide of the twentieth century,” read the statement.
2015 marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and is being commemorated globally by countless organizations and governments. In 2004, the Canadian Parliament passed a resolution acknowledging the Armenian Genocide and condemning it as a crime against humanity.
Founded in 1934, the Armenian Youth Federation of Canada is the largest and most influential Armenian-Canadian youth organization, working to advance the social, political, educational and cultural awareness among Armenian-Canadian youth.
Toronto: Fethiye Çetin: I promise Hrant
Hrant Dink, in a ceremony held in Toronto was commemorated in 8 deaths. Fethiye Çetin Speaking at the meeting, recalling the perpetrators of murders in Turkey’s history is full of “Hrant I promise, I’ll try to leave the future of this shame,” he said.Hrant Dink’s assassination in 8th Year, in many parts of the world as well as in Turkey, Hrant Dink was commemorated. One of them was a memorial service held in Toronto, Canada. The main speaker of the conference, the Dink family lawyer Fethiye Cetin and author, talked about the importance of exposing the shame and guilt of Turkey’s history.
Held at the Armenian Community Centre in Toronto, hosted the Raffi Petrosian his ceremony pianist Lane Beylerian and soprano Lynn Anoush Isnarde voiced by Gomidas compositions “Ando” and “Ani Desna ou Merna I” was sung. During the ceremony, Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who was killed in the assassination of Hrant Dink was also called with.
Reminder and not to forget
Of the Armenian identity grandmother 70 years old, he told specifying said starting Fethiye Cetin, the grandmother survived the age of 9, the Holocaust, although have passed almost 60 years with his family, lived in drawing attention to the importance of not remembering anything about the location, “Turkey’s history after leaving politics and society in this regard print edition, as a useless’ he said.
Cetin, despite this policy minorities ‘other’ was also stressed that they are constantly reminded of how “confidential documents about the past and remember the people picked at for not allowing public access to the past; while also keeping a record of the identity of minorities ‘other’ they are constantly reminds them, “he said.
Cetin, the most important name in the history of crime and how to confront forget noted that Hrant Dink; “Because of the fact that Hrant Dink was not only remembered, but also helped her believe every person it touches. Hrant Dink was killed because he passed the red line drawn by the state, touched taboo. Dink, the hatred towards Armenians were brought from the past into a single visible target. “
Dink, indicating that power is used as the trump of war during the murder trial of 8 years Cetin, “Hrant Dink’s death takes exactly the process I am a Witness. Perpetrator of the murders in Turkey’s history, the instigator can not be found, filled with murder, tried to forget the community. We have over the past this shame, but to leave the future in our hands. I have witnessed this process as a promise to Hrant, I promise that I will search for truth and justice. “
Effort to abolish Armenian Genocide curriculum in Toronto failed
An effort by Canadian Turks to abolish curriculum on the Armenian Genocide in Toronto schools has failed, with education officials saying that the genocide will continue to be taught for years to come, Rudaw reports.
Canadian Turks earlier this year submitted over 2,200 signatures from an online petition calling for the Armenian genocide module to be removed from the Toronto District School Board’s educational curriculum.
The petition demanded that Canada’s largest school board remove any references to the Armenian genocide on the basis that it “unremittingly discredits one community’s narrative over the other” and “adversely affects the students with Turkish and Turkic heritages.”
The Armenian Genocide has been taught since 2008 in a secondary school course called Genocide and Crimes again Humanity.
The district told Rudaw that the class “is offered in some of our high schools where there is enough interest’’ and is “in line with not only the Canadian government but scholars who have looked into this specific issue.”
The Toronto District School Board “has no intention to have it removed in the years ahead,” a district spokesperson said.
Toronto is the largest and one of the most diverse school districts in Canada, serving approximately 232,000 students, including international students, in almost 600 schools.
The online petition was the latest attempt by Turkish Canadians to counter recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide.
The Federation of Turkish Canadian Associations, which championed the online petition and tried to stop the Armenian genocide curriculum from being introduced in 2008, also in April lobbied against a monument recognizing the Armenian genocide in Toronto.
The petition garnered 2,255 signatures from around the world. The Federation of Turkish Canadian Associations reports that there are 50,000 Canadians of Turkish origin.
Robert Kouyoumdjian, head of the political chapter at the Armenian National Committee of Canada, lobbied for the Toronto district’s Armenian genocide curriculum. Frank Chalk, director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, endorsed it, according to Rudaw.
The online petition was launched by Turkish parents of students attending Toronto schools who stated in the petition that they were “deeply concerned about the negative impact of the current curriculum module on ‘Armenian Genocide,’” claiming it “would often result in ridiculing, intimidating, and bullying of our innocent children while causing injury to them physically and psychologically.”
However, Jim Karygiannis, a former MP based in Toronto, told Rudaw there is no evidence of Turkish children having been intimidated at schools. He said teaching high school students about the Armenian and other genocides could help prevent future atrocities.
Karygiannis also warned that removing references to the Armenian genocide from textbooks could call into question curricula from other genocides, such as the Holocaust, the Ukrainian famine and genocide from 1932-1933, the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the 1980s Anfal genocidal campaign in Iraqi Kurdistan.
“You can’t change history, and history should not be altered. We should learn from history and move forward so we don’t make the mistakes again,” Karygiannis said.
A Kurdish attorney based in Toronto, Hadyat Nazami, wrote a letter to Change.org officials, expressing serious concerns about the petition, which he deemed hate speech. In his letter, Nazami described the Turks’ petition as “essentially demanding that books and school curriculum be censored, in line with the one century old official ideology of the Turkish state to deny Armenian genocide ever took place in that country.”
Nazami’s vocal opposition has led to discussions among scholars and NGOs about adequate measures to protect freedom of speech while paying respect to the sufferings of survivors.
TORONTO,— Kurdish writer Kaziwa Salih has been chosen as the 2014 PEN Writer-in-Residence in the Centre for Preparatory and Liberal Studies at George Brown College.
Born in Iraqi Kurdistan, Salih moved to Toronto in 2003. She is currently a post-graduate student at York University where she has already obtained a BA in Communication and an MA in Culture and Genocide studies.
Salih is the publisher and editor of two Kurdish magazines. In 2010 she founded the Anti-Genocide Project to bring together the voices of genocide victims living in Canada. She is the author of 12 books and has received several international awards, including the 2013 Naguib Mahfouz Award for the Novel and Short Story from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture.
Salih has participated in a number of international workshops and conferences, most recently a field study on the Holocaust with York University and “The Women of the Middle East” conference on agency and activism with Albany State University of New York. She has been a member of PEN Canada’s Writers in Exile network for several years.
Background:
PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization of writers that works with others to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right at home and abroad. PEN Canada promotes literature, fights censorship, helps free persecuted writers from prison, and assists writers living in exile in Canada.
PEN Canada’s Writers in Exile program helps authors and journalists who have been silenced in their country of origin to establish themselves in Canada. A decade ago PEN Canada established the Placement Program to engage exiled writers in literary and academic communities in Canada. George Brown College has partnered with PEN Canada’s Writers in Exile since 2004.
George Brown College in Toronto has established a reputation for equipping students with the skills, industry experience and credentials to pursue the careers of their choice. The college offers programs from its three campuses located across the downtown core, including its newest location at the Toronto waterfront, which opened in September 2012. George Brown offers 135 full-time programs and 189 continuing education certificates/designations across a wide variety of professions to a student body of over 24,800 (full-time equivalent) students, including over 3,200 international students; and over 61,000 continuing education registrants. Students can earn certificates, diplomas, postgraduate certificates, apprenticeships and degrees.
SOURCE PEN Canada, Canada NewsWire
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