On Saturday 22 April, around a thousand Armenians living in the UK marched from Marble Arch to the Cenotaph in Westminster where a wreath was laid to draw attention to their demands for the recognition of the Turkish genocide of 1915-23 in which around 1.5 million Armenians were killed.
Genocide has been around throughout history, but it was only in the twentieth century that the term was invented. It was needed to describe both the fate of the Jews under the Nazis and the earlier Turkish crimes against the Armenians.
Ethnic groups such as the Armenians just didn't fit in with the concept of a new Muslim Turkey held by the Young Turks in the early years of the twentieth century. The only solution was to kill them. The Turks started on the job on 24 April 1915 by arresting 1000 intellectuals and other leaders and executing them.
Next they conscripted 300,000 male Armenians for army service, but but instead of sending them to the trenches, they were alleged to be traitors, disarmed and killed.
Finally, the remaining Armenians - women, children and the elderly - were dealt with my mass killings and enforced marches into the desert where they starved. Rape and other atrocities were common.
The Armenians had been living inside what became modern Turkey for some 3000 years. At the start of 1915 there were over 1.5 million of them. Most were killed during that year, and by 1923 there were only around 50,000 left.
The Turkish government still refuses to accept this genocide occurred. In 1916, a UK parliamentary report by Lord Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, 'Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16' detailed these systematic politically motivated killings, and many other reports, including some from the UN have given simiilar accounts.
Over recent years, many governments and other organisations around the world have passed resolutions affirming that the Armenian genocide occurred. Like the Nazi holocaust, it is a fact of 20th century history, and like that, totally reprehensible.
Various Early Day motions in the British parliament have called upon our government to take some action. The most recent, sponsored by Stephen Pound MP, "calls upon the UK and Turkish governments publicly and officially to recognise the Assyrian and Armenian genocide of 1915" and for the "UK Government to call on the European Union to make official Turkish recognition ... one of the pre-conditions for Turkey's membership of the EU." So far this has only attracted 38 signatures - only one from a Conservative.
The march was one of a number of events this year organised by the Campaign for the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide, CRAG, together with other Armenian community groups. Among those leading the march was Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian, Primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain.
More pictures on my web site shortly. Also there are pictures and a report from the April 2005 march in London.
Ethnic groups such as the Armenians just didn't fit in with the concept of a new Muslim Turkey held by the Young Turks in the early years of the twentieth century. The only solution was to kill them. The Turks started on the job on 24 April 1915 by arresting 1000 intellectuals and other leaders and executing them.
Next they conscripted 300,000 male Armenians for army service, but but instead of sending them to the trenches, they were alleged to be traitors, disarmed and killed.
Finally, the remaining Armenians - women, children and the elderly - were dealt with my mass killings and enforced marches into the desert where they starved. Rape and other atrocities were common.
The Armenians had been living inside what became modern Turkey for some 3000 years. At the start of 1915 there were over 1.5 million of them. Most were killed during that year, and by 1923 there were only around 50,000 left.
The Turkish government still refuses to accept this genocide occurred. In 1916, a UK parliamentary report by Lord Bryce and Arnold Toynbee, 'Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16' detailed these systematic politically motivated killings, and many other reports, including some from the UN have given simiilar accounts.
Over recent years, many governments and other organisations around the world have passed resolutions affirming that the Armenian genocide occurred. Like the Nazi holocaust, it is a fact of 20th century history, and like that, totally reprehensible.
Various Early Day motions in the British parliament have called upon our government to take some action. The most recent, sponsored by Stephen Pound MP, "calls upon the UK and Turkish governments publicly and officially to recognise the Assyrian and Armenian genocide of 1915" and for the "UK Government to call on the European Union to make official Turkish recognition ... one of the pre-conditions for Turkey's membership of the EU." So far this has only attracted 38 signatures - only one from a Conservative.
The march was one of a number of events this year organised by the Campaign for the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide, CRAG, together with other Armenian community groups. Among those leading the march was Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian, Primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain.
More pictures on my web site shortly. Also there are pictures and a report from the April 2005 march in London.
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