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'RECOGNITION AT LAST!' - STATEMENT BY WORKING GROUP RECOGNITION - AGAINST GENOCIDE, FOR INTERNATIONAL UNDERSTANDING
18:10 21/04/2015 Â" POLITICS
The Working Group Recognition - Against Genocide, for International
Understanding has released the following statement in response to
the statement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen
Seibert.
"With relief, gratitude and hope we have learnt from the news of
yesterday night that the German Parliament on 24 April 2015 will vote
on a motion of the ruling coalition; this motion eventually qualifies
the annihilation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
With its decision to the only proper and legally appropriate term,
the two governing parties end their decades-long silence and evasion
and pave the way for a formal genocide recognition in Germany.
"We hope that the wording of the German legislature will include the
co-victims of the Armenians, namely, according to expert estimates over
a million Greek Orthodox Christians of Ottoman nationality, who were
genocidally destructed before, during and after the First World War.
"We would have preferred it if a decision of the Bundestag for the
recognition of the Ottoman genocide would have been taken already 15
years ago, when a mass petition for recognition from the civil society
of Germany has been introduced into the Bundestag. As a result of
this delay relevant issues in memory politics remained unattended,
in particular in the field of school and extracurricular genocide
awareness education. As a result, Germany has become an exclave of
official Turkish denialist constructs. Similarly and as a result
of the above mentioned delay, local initiatives from the Armenian
and Turkey born immigrant communities failed when attempting to
erect memorial sites at the places of their residence in Germany. As
current examples in the cities of Gutersloh, Leer and Cologne show,
such initiatives fail due to the refusal of local authorities.
"While the grief and pain of genocide descendants so far were not
permitted to manifest themselves in the public space of German towns or
cities, leading organizers of the Genocide against the Armenians and
also against Greeks are publicly commemorated and revered in Germany,
namely on the graveyard of the Å~^ehitlik Mosque ('Martyrs' Mosque)
of Berlin-Neukölln, where the 'honorary graves' of Cemal Azmi and
Bahaddin Å~^akir are.
"The recognition of the Bundestag will also have a positive effect
on the scientific review of the Ottoman genocide and in particular
of the role of Germany.
"At this point, our thanks go to all those who have contributed to
the change of attitude within the German government parties. But we
are especially grateful for the persistency of the Armenian community
in Germany. Through them, the German public has been sensitized for
the crime of genocide and its continuing effects for generations."
http://www.panorama.am/en/politics/2015/04/21/armenian-genocide-german/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
18:10 21/04/2015 Â" POLITICS
The Working Group Recognition - Against Genocide, for International
Understanding has released the following statement in response to
the statement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen
Seibert.
"With relief, gratitude and hope we have learnt from the news of
yesterday night that the German Parliament on 24 April 2015 will vote
on a motion of the ruling coalition; this motion eventually qualifies
the annihilation of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
With its decision to the only proper and legally appropriate term,
the two governing parties end their decades-long silence and evasion
and pave the way for a formal genocide recognition in Germany.
"We hope that the wording of the German legislature will include the
co-victims of the Armenians, namely, according to expert estimates over
a million Greek Orthodox Christians of Ottoman nationality, who were
genocidally destructed before, during and after the First World War.
"We would have preferred it if a decision of the Bundestag for the
recognition of the Ottoman genocide would have been taken already 15
years ago, when a mass petition for recognition from the civil society
of Germany has been introduced into the Bundestag. As a result of
this delay relevant issues in memory politics remained unattended,
in particular in the field of school and extracurricular genocide
awareness education. As a result, Germany has become an exclave of
official Turkish denialist constructs. Similarly and as a result
of the above mentioned delay, local initiatives from the Armenian
and Turkey born immigrant communities failed when attempting to
erect memorial sites at the places of their residence in Germany. As
current examples in the cities of Gutersloh, Leer and Cologne show,
such initiatives fail due to the refusal of local authorities.
"While the grief and pain of genocide descendants so far were not
permitted to manifest themselves in the public space of German towns or
cities, leading organizers of the Genocide against the Armenians and
also against Greeks are publicly commemorated and revered in Germany,
namely on the graveyard of the Å~^ehitlik Mosque ('Martyrs' Mosque)
of Berlin-Neukölln, where the 'honorary graves' of Cemal Azmi and
Bahaddin Å~^akir are.
"The recognition of the Bundestag will also have a positive effect
on the scientific review of the Ottoman genocide and in particular
of the role of Germany.
"At this point, our thanks go to all those who have contributed to
the change of attitude within the German government parties. But we
are especially grateful for the persistency of the Armenian community
in Germany. Through them, the German public has been sensitized for
the crime of genocide and its continuing effects for generations."
http://www.panorama.am/en/politics/2015/04/21/armenian-genocide-german/
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress