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US senator introduces bill urging Turkey to restore properties to Armenian church

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Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D – La Cañada Flintridge), Chair of the Senate Select Committee on California, Armenia and Artsakh Mutual Trade, Art and Cultural Exchange, introduced Senate Resolution 29 on Monday designating the month of April for commemoration of the Armenian Genocide.

The Resolution also calls on the Republic of Turkey to return confiscated church properties to their rightful congregations, Asbarez reports.
April 2017 will mark the 102nd commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, which began in 1915. More than 1.5 million Armenians were persecuted and massacred by the Ottoman Turks in the first genocide of the 20th century. California has long and proudly recognized the Armenian Genocide. This is the first legislative resolution to declare April as a month of Armenian Genocide commemoration and also call for the immediate restoration of church properties under Turkey’s control.
In addition to genocide denial, religious discrimination and intolerance remain serious issues in the current Republic of Turkey. Discriminatory laws are still used to justify the confiscation of church property and prevent free worship. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom noted in its 2011 report that the Turkish government continues to impose serious limitations on freedom of religion or belief, thereby threatening the continued vitality and survival of minority religious communities in Turkey.

US senator Seeks to press Azerbaijan on political prisoners

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dick_durbin.thumbA senior US senator has said that he intends to press Azerbaijani officials to release government critics imprisoned amid what rights groups call an escalating campaign to silence dissent in the oil-rich former Soviet republic.

Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the November 2 Democrat in the Senate, told RFE/RL on October 29 that the US ambassador in Baku, Robert Cekuta, has “encouraged” him to open a “dialogue with the Azerbaijani government” about the Caucasus nation’s human rights record.

Cekuta “doesn’t believe the West should give up,” Durbin said. “He believes that there are still influences within the country and within the government that want to move in the right direction.”

“They’ve really got to come to grips with some of the excesses when it comes to human rights policy and be a more open society, more tolerant society,” Durbin said. “I think that really is in the best interest of the people who live there.”

Durbin said he had spoken with Cekuta earlier in the day and that he hopes to meet next week with Elin
Suleymanov, the Azerbaijani ambassador in Washington.

“I want to reinforce that if I can in my communications with their ambassador, and perhaps later try to find other ways to reach out and convince them the release of these prisoners would be in the best interest of the country,” Durbin said.

Numerous activists, journalists, and government critics – including investigative journalist and RFE/RL contributor Khadija Ismayilova – are currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan on charges that Western officials and international rights groups have called politically motivated.
Baku has repeatedly rejected the accusations, insisting that the cases in question are strictly criminal in nature.

Durbin met this week in Washington with Dinara Yunus, the daughter of Azerbaijani rights activists Leyla and Arif Yunus, who are currently serving prison terms on charges widely denounced as a travesty of justice.
Dinara Yunus told a briefing on Capitol Hill on October 28 that she fears her parents, both of whom suffer from health problems, will “die behind bars.”

“They are both facing some very serious medical challenges, and we’re very worried about it,” Durbin said of the Yunuses, adding that he discussed the couple’s case with Cekuta.

Durbin has been a vocal critic of Azerbaijan’s rights human rights record.

In August, he was one of three U.S. senators who sent a letter to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev calling for the release of “peaceful civil society activists” imprisoned in cases with “political overtones.”