State Assembly Passes Genocide Resolution

[MosJan]

State Assembly Passes Genocide Resolution

SACRAMENTO—The State Assembly passed legislation April 18, jointly authored by Assemblymembers Dario Frommer (D-Glendale) and Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) designating April 24, 2002 as "California Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923." The legislation, AJR 44, also calls upon Congress and the federal government to likewise commemorate the Armenian Genocide. Assembly Joint Resolution 44 passed 76 to 0.

 

"This legislation remembers the victims and honors the survivors of the Forgotten Genocide," said Frommer of the proposed legislation.

 

"Governments throughout the world must work diligently to keep this new millennium free of the hatred, bigotry, and cruelty which was at the heart of the Armenian Genocide and the other crimes against humanity that marred the 20th century," added Frommer.

 

"This is the ninth consecutive year that the Legislature has voted to recognize a week of Remembrance," said Assemblymember Frommer. "I look forward to the day when the United States government will do the same."

 

The Armenian people living in their historic homeland in Asia Minor were subjected to severe persecution and brutal injustice by the Turkish rulers of the Ottoman Empire before and after the twentieth century, culminating with what is known as the "Forgotten Genocide." From April 24, 1915, through 1923, more than 1.5 million Armenian men, women, and children were murdered by the Young Turk regime in control of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, and many more were starved, tortured, led on death marches into the Syrian desert, and exiled from their homeland.

 

California joins a list of many groups and governments that have admitted the abuses and crimes committed by the Young Turk regime against the Armenian people. The Republic of Turkey continues to deny the occurrence of the crimes against humanity committed by the Young Turk rulers.