Massachusetts Lawsuit

[vava]

Just got this...

 

 

 

Armenian National Committee of America

Eastern Region

80 Bigelow Ave

Watertown, MA 02472

ancaer@anca.org

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 29, 2005

Contact: Doug Geogerian

Email: ancaer@anca.org

MASSACHUSETTS LAWSUIT SEEKS TO BLOCK THE TEACHING OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

 

-- ANC-Massachusetts Condemns False "First Amendment" Effort to Force the

Teaching of Genocide Denial to the Commonwealth's Public School Students

 

WATERTOWN, MA - A Washington-based Turkish organization has enlisted the

support of two teachers and a student in a lawsuit against the State of

Massachusetts that would compel the inclusion of historically inaccurate

Armenian Genocide denial materials in the state's education curriculum,

reported the Armenian National Committee of Eastern Region (ANC-ER).

 

In a brief filed with the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, the Assembly

of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), a lobbying group which works

closely with the Turkish government in fighting against U.S. recognition of

this crime against humanity, calls for the inclusion of their website in a

list of educational sources provided to teachers, as part of a teacher's

guide on genocide education provided by the State. The court document also

calls for the addition of other websites, including that of the Embassy of

the Republic of Turkey, which the ATAA had lobbied to include in the guide,

but were disqualified because they denied the Armenian Genocide, in direct

contravention of the Massachusetts statute requiring the teaching of the

Armenian Genocide.

 

According to an October 27th Wall Street Journal article, the ATAA lawyer,

Harvey Silverglate, argues that the removal of the genocide denial sources

violates First Amendment rights to free speech.

 

"The Armenian National Committee will counteract this effort on the part of

the ATAA to use the courts to legislate state curriculum for the purpose of

denying genocide to public school students. We are confident that we will

prevail," said Dikran Kaligian, chairman of the Armenian National Committee

for the Eastern Region.

 

The Massachusetts Genocide teaching guide was mandated to include the

Armenian Genocide, following the August, 1998, unanimous passage of House

Bill 3629 "An Act Relative to the Instruction of the Great Hunger Period in

Ireland, the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust." ANC chapters throughout

Massachusetts had worked with bill authors, State Senator Steve Tolman and

House Member Warren Tolman in support of the measure, which stated that,

"The Board of Education shall formulate recommendations on curricular

materials on genocide and human rights issues, and guidelines for the

teaching of such material." The law specifically calls for the teaching of

"the period of the transatlantic slave trade and the middle passage, the

great hunger period in Ireland, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust and the

Mussolini fascist regime and other recognized human rights violations and

genocides."

 

The ANC Massachusetts continued to work with the Massachusetts Board of

Education, providing information on peer-reviewed, teacher tested resources

for inclusion in the teaching guide. In June of 1999, the ANC-MA protested

the proposed inclusion of genocide denial propaganda in the teaching guide

that lobby groups, among them the ATAA, had pressured the Board of Education

to add in its second version of the guide. In a letter to Massachusetts

Governor Paul Cellucci, the chairmen of the state's four ANC's argued that

inclusion of such websites "is directly counter to the intent of the law."

The letter went on to note that, "careless intermingling of genocide denial

with the documentary sources it aims to obscure, will only serve to confuse

students and undermine academic integrity."

 

In August of 1999, in a letter to the ATAA, made public as part of the

lawsuit, the Board of Education argued that "since the legislative intent of

the statute was to address the Armenian Genocide, and not to debate whether

or not this occurred, the Board and Department of Education cannot knowingly

include resources that call this into question." By October, 1999, the

denial material was removed from the teacher's guide.

 

In 2002, the ANC of Massachusetts again took action regarding the genocide

curriculum, when a revised version which was up for review in May, proposed

the removal of the Armenian Genocide from the curriculum, to be replaced

with a more euphemistic and evasive reference to Armenian "slaughter."

Community leaders again worked with Department of Education Commissioner

David Driscoll to ensure that the proper terminology was maintained.

 

According to the District Court of Massachusetts Clerk's Office, as of

Friday, October 28th, the ATAA lawsuit had not yet officially been filed,

although the attorney for the ATAA has provided several press interviews.

ATAA lawyer Harvey Silverglate, who has made a career of First Amendment

cases, has taken on a string of fringe causes and clients, including the

American Nazi Party during the school-busing crisis in Boston. In 2000, he

defended NAMBLA, an organization advocating sexual relations between men and

underaged boys, in a case involving the 1997 assault and murder of a 10-year

old child.

[Sip]

Can they actually win such a rediculous lawsuit?

[hytga]

what's rediculous is that they include non relevant material in their cases. What does the so called "Armenain Nazi" party have to do with the genocide? Nazis didn't come until 1940s in germany. They are so unreasonably aggressive that they're not capable to hide their true intentions.

[Arpa]

Can they actually win such a rediculous lawsuit?

When people are caught between a rock and a hard place, i.e. between “Europe dreamin’ and a bloody Ottoman legacy, they lose all perspective, lose their ability to discern between the “ridiculous” and the sublime.

I have on many occasions expressed similar opinions before, and used such cliches.

All we have to do is stick to our guns, literally as well, Walk softly and carry a big stick, have crackerjack lawyers on the sideline watching every word, every period and comma and just let them drown in their own efflux. They are in a state of panic, they are sinking in that quicksand they themselves created, the more they thrash the more they will sink. They are running around like a “turkey” with its head cut off, and in the process losing al their ruffled feathers, so much so that pretty soon they will be as naked as a jaybird. Their feathers so ruffled that they can’t even think straight. Of all the places Boston is the worst place for them to stir the muck. Boston is the place where the most damning and irrefutable archives are stored, the (third party, missionary) eye witness accounts. They should also be encouraged to file suite in NY where, among othres the Morgenthau archives are stored.

As someone here suggested. Will this suit open that can of worms, encouraging the Holocaust deniers to follow suit? Are the Holocaust survivors and their heirs following this “comedy“?

We have been almost sinking in that big quicksand for a long time, now it is their turn, and all we have to do is sit back, not really, stand up and push them deeper and deeper, give them all the rope, and tighten the noose, they need as they are hanging themselves.

As you can see, they are so desperate they are resorting to such tactics as sending their “ambassadors of ill will” to spam our forums with their version of history chemistry , ( the latest being that pain in the v…k “Agri “(pun intended)” to reeducate us.

We don’t need reeducation, they do, our “education” is indelibly recorded in most and all major libraries here and abroad.

And, as intimated before, those primitive idiots don’t even realize what they are doing is the “beginning of their end”.

 

“Europe or bust”?

 

BUST!!!

 

They will not get into Europe until and unless they amend their bullying ways ala Suleiman (that kanjuk[literally-bloody in their lexicon] bitch) who was turned back at the gates of Vienna with his/her tail between his/her legs.

Edited November 2, 2005 by Arpa

[vava]

what's rediculous is that they include non relevant material in their cases. What does the so called "Armenain Nazi" party have to do with the genocide? Nazis didn't come until 1940s in germany. They are so unreasonably aggressive that they're not capable to hide their true intentions.

 

Not sure if you read correctly - there's no mention of Armenain Nazi party - it states "American Nazi Party". I'm supposing that you're referring to the passage that refers to the ATAA's choice of counsel.

 

ATAA lawyer Harvey Silverglate, who has made a career of First Amendment

cases, has taken on a string of fringe causes and clients, including the

American Nazi Party during the school-busing crisis in Boston. In 2000, he

defended NAMBLA, an organization advocating sexual relations between men and

underaged boys, in a case involving the 1997 assault and murder of a 10-year

old child.

 

I don't mind that the Turks getting into the same boat as kid-diddlers & racists.

[kakachik77]

they want to do this as a way of advocating free speech, to tell the story of the other side. Now in my opinion if they want to do it (that is have the other side), then it should look like something like this:

 

Armenian Genocide DID occur....Turkey does not want to acknowledge it for these reasons....

 

as opposed to

 

Armenians say Genocide occurred and Turks say it did not.

[hytga]

Not sure if you read correctly - there's no mention of Armenain Nazi party - it states "American Nazi Party". I'm supposing that you're referring to the passage that refers to the ATAA's choice of counsel.

 

my bad. I misred American as Armenian

[phantom]

Isn't it ironic that Turkey would be behind a push for supposed freedom of speech in America? They want supposedly both sides of the story told, yet in Turkey, telling the true side of the story can and will get you a criminal sentence, as Orhan Pamuk and Hrant Dink recently found out. What a joke.

 

But in any case, this lawsuit is awesome! More free press on the Armenian Genocide, and more free press about Turkey's sickening denial. The student who is a plaintiff in the case has said that he actually believes that what happened was a Genocide, but he thinks that both sides should be taught for freedom of speech purposes.