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ATTACKS ON ARMENIAN WOMEN IN TURKEY HAVE DREDGED UP MEMORIES OF MASSACRE IN 1915. THE ECONOMIST
22:02, 29 January, 2013
YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS: British "The Economist" posted
an article titled "Terrible attacks on Armenians" which referred
to latest attacks on Armenians in Istanbul. As reports Armenpress
"The Economist" mainly wrote
"Marissa Kucuk was a little old Armenian lady who lived on her own
in Samatya, a picturesque neighborhood of Istanbul where Christians
and Muslims used to rub along peacefully. On December 28th Ms Kucuk,
85, was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed, repeatedly.
Relatives said a crucifix was carved onto her naked corpse.
Last week, a masked assailant attacked another elderly Armenian as she
was entering her apartment. He punched her in the head. When she fell
to the ground he began kicking her. "My mother's mouth was filled with
blood...the neighbors came to the rescue when she screamed for help and
the man fled," Maryam Yelegen, told "Agos", a Turkish Armenian weekly.
The attack marks the fifth in the past two months against elderly
Armenian women (one has lost an eye). All of the attacks took place
in Samatya, which is home to some 8,000 Armenians and the seat of the
Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate. Opinion remains divided as to whether
these are organised hate crimes targeting non-Muslims or just random
theft. Some of the victims were, indeed, robbed. The Turkish police
are said to be concentrating their investigation on a man in his
thirties as a potential suspect. Turkey's Human Rights Association
remains unswayed. "The attacks were carried out with racist motives,"
it concluded in a report that was published last week.
Either way, the attacks have dredged up memories of the mass slaughter
of about a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915. "The attacks highlight
the unbearable heaviness of being Armenian in Turkey," says Khatchig
Mouradian an Armenian activist and academic who lost ancestors in
the killings.
Academic opinion worldwide tilts towards the view that these
constituted genocide. Turkey refutes this saying the majority died
of illness and hunger during forced deportations to the Syrian Desert.
Those who dared to challenge the official line (among them Orhan Pamuk,
Turkey's sole Nobel laureate for literature) have faced prosecution
and death threats. But none as much as Hrant Dink, the outspoken
Armenian journalist who founded AGOS as a platform for unfettered
debate about 1915. He was murdered in 2007 by an ultra-nationalist
youth outside his office in the heart of Istanbul.
Mr Dink's family insists that the killer was acting under orders from
rogue ultra-nationalist elements within the security forces, who,
in turn, were probably linked to a Byzantine plot known as "Kafes" or
Cage. Scores of suspects, including three admirals tied to Kafes are
being tried on charges of conspiring to murder Christians in Turkey.
Their alleged aim was to intimidate Christians into leaving for good,
place the blame on Turkey's Islam-tinged Justice and Development (AK)
Party and thus lay the ground for the army to intervene. The 2007
murders of three Christian missionaries in the eastern province of
Malatya (their throats were slit) are believed to be part of Kafes.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer for the victims, sees parallels between
the Kafes plot and "the ultra-nationalist mentality informing 1915"
which tends to view "citizens of Armenian descent as disloyal and
untrustworthy."
22:02, 29 January, 2013
YEREVAN, JANUARY 29, ARMENPRESS: British "The Economist" posted
an article titled "Terrible attacks on Armenians" which referred
to latest attacks on Armenians in Istanbul. As reports Armenpress
"The Economist" mainly wrote
"Marissa Kucuk was a little old Armenian lady who lived on her own
in Samatya, a picturesque neighborhood of Istanbul where Christians
and Muslims used to rub along peacefully. On December 28th Ms Kucuk,
85, was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed, repeatedly.
Relatives said a crucifix was carved onto her naked corpse.
Last week, a masked assailant attacked another elderly Armenian as she
was entering her apartment. He punched her in the head. When she fell
to the ground he began kicking her. "My mother's mouth was filled with
blood...the neighbors came to the rescue when she screamed for help and
the man fled," Maryam Yelegen, told "Agos", a Turkish Armenian weekly.
The attack marks the fifth in the past two months against elderly
Armenian women (one has lost an eye). All of the attacks took place
in Samatya, which is home to some 8,000 Armenians and the seat of the
Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate. Opinion remains divided as to whether
these are organised hate crimes targeting non-Muslims or just random
theft. Some of the victims were, indeed, robbed. The Turkish police
are said to be concentrating their investigation on a man in his
thirties as a potential suspect. Turkey's Human Rights Association
remains unswayed. "The attacks were carried out with racist motives,"
it concluded in a report that was published last week.
Either way, the attacks have dredged up memories of the mass slaughter
of about a million Ottoman Armenians in 1915. "The attacks highlight
the unbearable heaviness of being Armenian in Turkey," says Khatchig
Mouradian an Armenian activist and academic who lost ancestors in
the killings.
Academic opinion worldwide tilts towards the view that these
constituted genocide. Turkey refutes this saying the majority died
of illness and hunger during forced deportations to the Syrian Desert.
Those who dared to challenge the official line (among them Orhan Pamuk,
Turkey's sole Nobel laureate for literature) have faced prosecution
and death threats. But none as much as Hrant Dink, the outspoken
Armenian journalist who founded AGOS as a platform for unfettered
debate about 1915. He was murdered in 2007 by an ultra-nationalist
youth outside his office in the heart of Istanbul.
Mr Dink's family insists that the killer was acting under orders from
rogue ultra-nationalist elements within the security forces, who,
in turn, were probably linked to a Byzantine plot known as "Kafes" or
Cage. Scores of suspects, including three admirals tied to Kafes are
being tried on charges of conspiring to murder Christians in Turkey.
Their alleged aim was to intimidate Christians into leaving for good,
place the blame on Turkey's Islam-tinged Justice and Development (AK)
Party and thus lay the ground for the army to intervene. The 2007
murders of three Christian missionaries in the eastern province of
Malatya (their throats were slit) are believed to be part of Kafes.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a lawyer for the victims, sees parallels between
the Kafes plot and "the ultra-nationalist mentality informing 1915"
which tends to view "citizens of Armenian descent as disloyal and
untrustworthy."