ErdoFascism turks In Their Natural Behavior

[Yervant1]

Public Radio of Armenia

March 23 2021

City of Philadelphia replaces stolen Armenian flag on Benjamin Franklin Parkway

The City of Philadelphia has replaced the Armenian flag on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway that was removed illegally/stolen last month, the Armenian National Committee of Pennsylvania informs.

The timeline was expedited in advance of April 24, the day of commemoration of the Armenian Genocide. This year marks the 106th anniversary.

Armenians across the globe will once again come together to honor the 1.5 million Armenians who were systematically killed at the hands of the Ottoman Turkish government.

The Armenian National Committee of Pennsylvania thanked the Mayor’s office for their support throughout the process.

In February the Armenian flag was removed illegally/stolen for the second time in two months.

https://en.armradio.am/2021/03/23/city-of-philadelphia-replaces-stolen-armenian-flag-on-benjamin-franklin-parkway/

[Yervant1]

Armenpress.am

Erdoğan’s Onslaught on Rights and Democracy – Human Rights Watch

Save

Share

20:50, 24 March, 2021

YEREVAN, MARCH 24, ARMENPRESS. The government of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is dismantling human rights protections and democratic norms in Turkey on a scale unprecedented in the 18 years he has been in office, said Human Rights Watch today. The government took further dangerous measures over the past week to undermine the rule of law and target perceived critics and political opponents, ARMENPRESS reports, citing the website of the Human Rights Watch.

On March 19, 2021, the president issued a decree suddenly withdrawing Turkey from the Council of Europe’s Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention, a groundbreaking treaty strongly supported by the women’s rights movement in Turkey. The move came two days after the chief prosecutor of Turkey’s top court of appeal announced that he was opening a case to close down the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), only hours after the Erdoğan-controlled parliament improperly expelled an HDP deputy.

“President Erdoğan is targeting any institution or part of society that stands in the way of his wide-ranging effort to reshape Turkey’s society,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “The latest developments against parliamentary opposition, the Kurds, and women are all about ensuring the president’s hold on power in violation of human rights and democratic safeguards.”

President Erdoğan’s dramatic move to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention with an overnight presidential decree is part of efforts to shore up support from religious conservative circles outside his party and shows his readiness to use the convention as a pretext to promote a highly divisive and homophobic political discourse. That discourse disingenuously claims women’s rights undermine so-called family values and promotes a hateful and discriminatory view of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

The president’s communications chief on March 21 issued a written statement defending the decision to withdraw Turkey from the treaty, saying that it was “hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality – which is incompatible with Turkey’s social and family values.” The claim stems from the convention’s language prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Women’s groups across Turkey have been staunch supporters of the convention as it legally obligates governments to take effective steps to prevent violence against women, protect survivors, and punish abusers.

Given the hundreds of murders of women by partners and former partners in Turkey each year, Erdoğan’s move to withdraw from and weaponize the treaty for political ends and to ignore the treaty’s desperately needed protections for women is shocking, Human Rights Watch said.

“The decision to withdraw is a profoundly backward step in the struggle to protect women’s rights in Turkey and a major blow for all women across the political spectrum,” Roth said.

In response, on March 20, thousands of women protested in cities across Turkey, declaring that the women’s movement in Turkey will continue the struggle and demand government action to combat the entrenched problem of domestic violence and femicide.

The move by the chief prosecutor of the Court of Cassation on March 17 to close down the Peoples’ Democratic Party, the second-largest opposition party in parliament, came shortly after parliament expelled the HDP deputy Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu on the pretext of his conviction for a social media posting. Gergerlioğlu’s expulsion was in reprisal for his consistent focus on the thousands of victims of Erdoğan’s human rights crackdown, while the effort to close the HDP targets the rights of millions of Kurdish voters and subverts the principle of parliamentary democracy, Human Rights Watch said.

Over the past 30 years, Turkey has closed down five pro-Kurdish political parties. As in earlier cases, the chief prosecutor’s indictment accuses the Peoples’ Democratic Party of acting “against the indivisible integrity of the state with its country and nation” (separatism) and violating the constitution and laws, necessitating its full and permanent closure.

The prosecutor also asked the court to ban 687 named individuals, including current and former members of parliament and hundreds of party officials, from political life for five years and to cut the treasury funding that the HDP, like other parties, is entitled to. The evidence cited includes speeches and political activities by parliamentary deputies in office at various times over the past eight years.

“Initiating a case to close down a political party that won 11.7 percent of the vote nationally in the 2018 general election and has 55 elected members of parliament is a major assault on the rights to political association and _expression_,” Roth said. “The move could deny close to six million voters their chosen representatives in violation of their right to vote.”

The European Union and US administration have acknowledged the profound setbacks for human rights but continue overwhelmingly to focus on Turkey’s strategic importance in the region, its foreign policy, its active role in regional conflicts, and migration policies.

On March 25 and 26, EU leaders are to review their relations with Turkey. The European Council should speak out over the sharp decline in the human rights situation in Turkey. The council should make clear that an EU-proposed positive agenda with Turkey would be tied to ending attacks on opposition figures and measurable progress in upholding human rights.

“EU leaders should not pretend it is business as usual, while Turkey’s government is escalating its assaults on critics, parliamentary democracy, and women’s rights,” Roth said.

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1047042.html?fbclid=IwAR0ICTVqmYa9ZFexIAUaV0lf7Zi77lL75nkCx7ZPtmTVT5iu3HIkh8ZXKog

[Yervant1]

Panorama, Armenia

March 29 2021

Politics 13:01 29/03/2021Region

“Slaves to Turkey”: A former child soldier on Turkey’s teenaged Syrian mercenaries

American reporter Lindsey Snell published another article about the use of mercenaries by Turkey in various wars. In the article on North Press Agency, the journalist reveals that Turkey has recruited young children and made them mercenaries. The full article is below.

In 2012, as the revolution in Syria exploded, Fajr Maaliki (a pseudonym) was 12 years old and in the 6th grade. Maaliki’s large extended family stretched across the Idlib countryside, and when the Free Syrian Army (FSA) formed to fight against the Syrian government, many of his relatives joined. “Around 40 of the men in my family became FSA fighters. My father didn’t join the FSA, but he supported them.”

Maaliki was 13 years old when pro-government militias neared the outskirts of his village and he first took up arms. “I went with my cousins,” he recalled. “At this point, none of us had really had any training. It didn’t matter. We went and we fought.”

Maaliki was supposed to take an Arabic exam at school the day he went to his first battle. “I missed that exam and didn’t go back to school again,” he said. “When I got home that night, my mother cried and begged me not to fight again, but of course, I did.” Maaliki’s male relatives had no issue with his young age. Neither did his first FSA commander, who praised him for leaving school to join the fight.

Much of Maaliki’s teen years unfolded on Syrian battlefields. “There were some dangerous times. When I was 14 years old, I was fighting in a battle in the northern countryside of Aleppo. My faction was besieged by the Assad regime, and many of them were killed. I was stuck in one place for three days with one other boy my age. We ate from the garbage. When the siege was finally broken, I think we were both surprised to get out alive.”

Maaliki says roughly a dozen teenagers from his village joined the FSA in the first two years of the war. “Fighting seemed more important than anything else. Back then, there weren’t as many child soldiers in the Syrian opposition as there are now, but it wasn’t uncommon,” he said.

In September 2014, ISIS was approaching the peak of its power in Syria. The group had started to fight against the Free Syrian Army and Al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, despite having previously allied with both in the fight against Syrian government forces. While embedded with the FSA on a reporting trip, I visited the frontlines against ISIS in the northern countryside of Aleppo for an MSNBC documentary. As I filmed the fighters preparing for battle, I saw a boy who looked no older than 13 years old carrying an AK-47. “Can you ask him how old he is?” I asked one of the English-speaking fighters.

“This is my brother,” he replied. “He’s 17. He just looks younger.”

In 2014, the United States launched the Train and Equip Program, which aimed to provide training and weaponry to select “moderate” factions of the FSA to enable them to fight ISIS. One of the key factions selected was Harakat Hazm, which had thousands of fighters in and around Aleppo and Idlib.

In March 2015, Al-Nusra Front attacked Harakat Hazm, effectively dissolving the faction. The weapons and other aid given to Hazm by the US government were stolen by Nusra. Nusra became more powerful in Idlib and Aleppo, erecting checkpoints outside of their own territories and exerting more control over FSA factions.

While ISIS’ brutality became universally known, both through its actions in Syria and Iraq and in the slickly-produced propaganda films it proudly disseminated, Al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, seemed almost gentle by comparison. “Nusra was kinder to the civilians than ISIS, and they offered higher salaries and better training for fighters than the Free Syrian Army, so they became more popular. Many FSA fighters left to join Nusra,” Fajr Maaliki said. “And then, Nusra started to recruit children.”

Maaliki said that Abdullah al-Muhaysini, a Saudi Arabian salafist cleric who served as a leader in Al-Nusra Front, became a fixture at mosques in Maaliki’s area. “He would come with Nusra fighters from each neighborhood, and they would meet with men to encourage them to join Nusra. They held camps to preach to local children and recruit them to fight, too.”

In a video filmed at a youth indoctrination event in Idlib, Muhaysini said that boys joining Nusra should be at least 15 years old. Maaliki says he personally knew several boys who began fighting for Nusra when they were 13 or 14. “In 2016, when the major battle between the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition for Aleppo started, my FSA faction went there to fight. We were fighting alongside Al-Nusra Front, and I ran into a Nusra member I’d met before. His name was Mustafa Waasel. He was killed by shelling in that battle, in the first week of June 2016. He was 14 years old when he died.”

Maaliki continued to fight for the Syrian opposition as the years dragged on. “2016 and 2017 were the hardest years for me. The Syrian opposition factions were not paying fighters consistently. I couldn’t buy shoes. I could barely buy food. I was 16 and 17 years old at the time,” he said.

Then, in December 2017, most factions of the Free Syrian Army were merged into the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA), which was under the direct supervision and support of the Turkish government. “After this, the payments to fighters were made more consistently. We were hopeful that things would improve for the Syrian opposition. But then, the Afrin operation began,” Maaliki said.

In January 2018, Turkey launched Operation “Olive Branch,” attacking the predominantly Kurdish city of Afrin in northern Syria. The Turkish Air Force bombed the city, and the Turkish-backed SNA factions unleashed a ground offensive. “As Turkey started recruiting more men to fill these SNA factions for their Afrin operation, they started recruiting more children, too,” Maaliki said. “And that continues to this day. There are so many children among the SNA factions now.”

Maaliki says the SNA fighters were misled about the true purpose of the operation in Afrin. “The Turks told us the YPG [a predominantly Kurdish, US-allied militia] and ISIS were working together to fight us from Afrin. They said the YPG wanted to do what Israel has done; to create a state within Syria just for the Kurds, and that they would try to occupy Idlib, and the Aleppo countryside, all the way to Latakia.

“But when I was in Afrin after the invasion began, I saw how the SNA factions robbed the civilians, and kidnapped them, and raped women,” Maaliki continued. “I saw Turkey occupy Afrin. We were not fighting Assad in Afrin. The battle had nothing to do with our revolution against the Syrian regime.”

Eventually, Maaliki was assigned to work as a prison guard in Afrin. “There was a very old man arrested by the Hamza Division [faction of the SNA],” he recalled. “He was too old to even walk properly. I asked one of the commanders why he had been arrested, and he said the man planned to plant a bomb in one of our military points. I knew this wasn’t true. I could tell by looking at the old man that he wouldn’t be able to do anything like this.

“When I was left alone with the man, I asked him what really happened,” Maaliki continued. “He told me the Hamza Division men had stormed his home for the purpose of stealing it. They arrested him, but before they brought him to the prison, they raped his daughter in the next room.”

The prisoner gave Maaliki the exact location of his home in the Ashrafieh neighborhood or Afrin. “Go there,” the prisoner told him. “You will see that there are soldiers in my home. You will know I am telling the truth.”

A short time later, Maaliki left the SNA, returned to Idlib. He considers himself an activist now, and he closely monitors the situation in his and other opposition-held areas. “Right now, I have estimated that there are more than 500 children between the different factions,” Maaliki said. “It is because of their extreme poverty. They aren’t fighting for a cause. They are just trying to survive. Turkey is preying on all of them.”

Maaliki began collecting photos and information on child militants in the SNA. “I felt bad for them, because I was a child who fought, and I don’t want them to have the experiences I did. But they’re in a worse situation than I was. When the war started, I could read. Most of the child fighters today cannot read. Many of their fathers have died fighting. They are being taken advantage of by Turkey and the corrupt SNA commanders.”

Before Maaliki left Afrin in 2018, he recalls walking by a headquarters for the Sultan Murad faction of the SNA. “I heard music and laughing, so I stopped to look in the windows,” he said. “I thought I saw two women dancing in front of three Sultan Murad commanders. But once I looked more closely, I saw that they were young boys dressed in women’s clothing.” Maaliki said that once the men began raping the two boys, he could no longer bear to watch and fled the scene.

Maaliki says the practice of Syrian opposition commanders sexually abusing male children has existed since the beginning of the war in Syria, but that it is more common now than ever before. He cites Turkey’s involvement in the Libyan conflict as a major factor.

In December 2019, Turkey struck a deal with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) and began deploying thousands of Syrian National Army militants to Tripoli and Misrata. In interviews conducted with Libya-based SNA members, they revealed that the GNA forces have gone to great lengths to keep the majority of them apart from the local civilian population.

“Now that Turkey has sent the SNA factions to Libya, there are SNA commanders who don’t have access to women,” Maaliki said. “They are away from their wives. And they have brought young boys to Libya who are there for the sole purpose of being sexually used by them. They call them al-firakh [baby birds]. The practice is completely accepted among the SNA, and the young boys don’t know any better.”

In March 2020, a report by human rights organization Syrians for Truth and Justice alleged that Turkey recruited child soldiers to send them to Libya. Maaliki bristles at its mention. “Each SNA faction that sent men Libya had a quota of fighters to fill. So naturally, child soldiers ended up among the militants in Libya,” he said.

“It is not that Turkey recruited the children for Libya. It is that for years, there have been child soldiers in the SNA and the FSA. This issue existed long before Turkey sent the first Syrian to Libya, and it will exist long after the last Syrian leaves Libya,” Maaliki said. “Do the Syrian children who are fighting only matter when they leave Syria? Because it should be clear that when Turkey sent SNA to Azerbaijan [to support Azerbaijani forces in their attack on Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2020], there were children among them, as well.”

Fajr Maaliki doesn’t have high hopes for the future of Syria or its youth. “Our revolution is dead. The Syrian National Army are just mercenaries for Turkey. Erdogan has sent us to Libya, to Azerbaijan. There are many rumors about where the SNA will be sent next. The young generation, those who were babies when the war started, are illiterate, uneducated, and naive. I think they will remain slaves to Turkey.”

https://www.panorama.am/en/news/2021/03/29/Turkey-teenaged-mercenaries/2477172

[Yervant1]

March 2 2021

Turkey’s Sordid Past

As Turkey achieves unprecedented regional power, Christians fear a second genocide. By Claire Evans

Hagia Sophia, once a grand cathedral and center for Eastern Christianity, was transformed into a mosque last year by the Turkish authorities.

This story was originally published in the April issue of ICC’s Persecution magazine.

04/02/2021 Turkey (International Christian Concern) – Rewrite the story. Forget the history. Silence yesterday’s memory, and the present is lost. This is the tragedy of Turkey, and the experience of Christians living within its grasp. It is an experience of genocide, forced population exchanges, and pogroms. It is in short, an experience of religious persecution perpetuated throughout the past century, with no end in sight.

As the geographical bridge between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Turkey’s history has never been anything less than complicated.

It was the birthplace of the New Testament church and the seat of the Byzantine Christian Empire. Later, it was the birthplace of the Ottoman Islamic Empire. Then it became the birthplace of secular Kemalism.

The price of each transition was blood and violence, with every religious minority paying the price. Since the early 1900s, the price for Christians has been particularly high: Christianity was nearly eliminated, with survivors struggling to maintain their existence ever since.

The Armenian Genocide
Armenia is the oldest Christian nation in the world, but has suffered devastating violence at the hands of Turkey and other neighboring Muslim nations for over a century. The Armenians were the first nation to adopt Christianity in 301 AD. They lived in the Armenian highlands for centuries, leading up to 1915. In 1915, Turkey (the Ottoman Empire) slaughtered over one million Armenian Christians in what is now known as the Armenian genocide.

That became the first genocide of the last century, where over 1.5 million Armenians were killed, starved, raped, and put on death marches in the Syrian desert. The aftermath was a complete dispersion of the Armenian people, all over the world.

Unfortunately, the hatred that led to the 1915 massacre lives on in the 21st century.

“Turkishness”
The idea of “Turkishness” was institutionalized as the failing Ottoman Empire was replaced by the secular Kemalist government following World War I. Secular Kemalism essentially hides Islam behind the Turkish ethnicity. During WWI, the Ottoman Empire fought and lost against Christian European countries. Since then, the government has protected Turkishness above all else. Any other ethnicity became devalued. Christianity was viewed as a foreign threat. As WWI ended, Turks retaliated with genocide against the ethnic Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians who were living within their borders. Up to that point, these three ethnic groups were the church in Turkey. Millions of Christians died during the genocide, and the church nearly ceased to exist.

As one Turk explained, “We fought against lots of countries and some bishops blessed the enemies of the Turks. That’s why people started to hate Christianity.”

His observation is also confirmed by Turkey’s President Erdoğan, who said that it “was the most reasonable action that could be taken in such a period.” Turkey maintains that the genocide was an action of self-defense, not genocide, and has devoted multiple resources in promoting this viewpoint.

Internationally, however, the genocide is recognized as a proven historical fact. Nevertheless, such widespread international recognition has failed to translate into preventing new genocides by Turkey across multiple countries and regions.

History Bleeds
As Turkey has proven, bullying the memory of genocide into silence means that the present is lost to anyone who does not fit their definition of Turkish. As one Greek Christian observed, “the main challenge of the remaining Christians in Turkey is simply to survive, physically, religiously, and culturally… The genocide process continues in one way or another. (The Turkish State’s) aim is to completely and irrevocably Islamize and Turkify the Turkish society and landscape.”

History bleeds into the present, and the present is suffocating Christianity wherever Turkey exists. And today in 2021, Turkey exists everywhere and has achieved a global reach unparalleled during the past century. As you will learn more, Christians continue to suffer at the hands of Turkey today. The sentiment behind the genocide has never left Turkey.

https://www.persecution.org/2021/04/02/turkeys-sordid-past/?fbclid=IwAR14wtzi6GYJiW4Kr7RokXqJHwcc_p62rPR0hOj7_UaolrIrlg5j50_q93w

[Yervant1]

Greek City Times

April 3 2021

Erdoğan: With our mentality we succeeded in Karabakh, Cyprus, Eastern Mediterranean and Aegeanby Panagiotis Savvidis

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reiterated his country’s firm position on following its revisionist agenda

“With this mentality, we have succeeded in Karabakh, Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean,” Erdoğan said provocatively when responding to criticism for his policies.

“Attempts that are not in line with our ethics, law, justice, goodwill and conscience, by those who do not respect Turkey ‘s sovereign rights, has and will have no value in our eyes,” he said.

The Turkish President added: “From Syria to Libya, from Karabakh to Cyprus, and from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Aegean, in every place with this mentality we have reached the success of our struggles.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

In essence, Erdoğan responded to recent criticism about the human rights situation in Turkey and their growing provocations in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.

He even called his critics ” hypocrites “.

The Turkish president specifically stated:

“The purpose of imposing criteria on us, which they never apply themselves, is not to direct our country in a more modern and successful way.

“We know full well that the goal is to cause a waste of time and energy.

“From the defense industry to the energy sector, from the environment to human rights, and from politics to civil liberties, to countless other examples we have experienced, we have not thanked and will not thank these hypocrites.”

The new provocative statements of the Turkish president took place during his announcement on new COVID-19 measures in the country.

https://greekcitytimes.com/2021/04/03/erdogan-karabakh-cyprus-aegean/

[Yervant1]

Public Radio of Armenia

April 8 2021

US condemns Turkish party at Armenian monastery in Cyprus

The US Embassy in Cyprus has strongly condemned the misuse of Saint Magar Armenian Monastery in Cyprus.

“Freedom of worship is a fundamental value, and we echo the call from religious leaders that all places of worship, in use or not, be protected against misuse, vandalism, and desecration,” Ambassador Judith Garber said in a Twitter post.

The U.S. Embassy strongly condemns the misuse of Saint Magar Armenian Monastery. Freedom of worship is a fundamental value, and we echo the call from religious leaders that all places of worship, in use or not, be protected against misuse, vandalism, and desecration.

— Ambassador Garber (@USAmbCy) April 7, 2021

Last week, young Turks held a party in the yard of Makaravank, Cyprus, without permission.

According to the statement the live techno party was organized by an event-planning group, that apparently organizes and broadcasts electronic music events at entertainment venues, including historical and cultural locations. The event was recorded and uploaded on YouTube on 7 April 2021.

Sourp Magar is an Armenian Monastery is an 11th century Monastery founded by the Coptic Orthodox Church in memory of Saint Makarios the hermit of Alexandria.

The Monastery was transferred to the Armenian Community in Cyprus during the15th century and has belonged to and has been intrinsically linked to the community ever since.

St Magar Monastery has been left uncared for since 1974 and is in dire need of immediate protection, renovations and full restoration.

It is the most important place of worship and pilgrimage for the Armenian community of Cyprus and the only Armenian Monastery in Cyprus.

Cyprus has been occupied since the 1974 illegal Turkish invasion.

 

https://en.armradio.am/2021/04/08/us-condemns-turkish-party-at-armenian-monastery-in-cyprus/

[Yervant1]

Jewish News Syndicate

April 9 2021

How Jews in Palestine were persecuted during the 1915 Armenian Genocide

Uzay Bulut

Ottoman Turkish authorities aimed to Islamize the whole region by eliminating non-Muslim populations: Christians, Jews and Yezidis—groups that continue to be targeted in and outside of Turkey today.

(April 9, 2021 / JNS) April 24 marks the 105th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide by Ottoman Turkey. As Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities notes,

“On April 24 of 1915, leaders and intellectuals within the Armenian community of Constantinople were detained and interned. This event initiated a longer series of arrests that resulted in the imprisonment, relocation, and/or murder of countless notable Armenians across the Ottoman Empire over the course of the subsequent months. Soon thereafter, Ottoman authorities commenced internment, displacement, and deportation actions against the general Armenian population. For their part, Armenian men were most often put into servitude at a variety of forced labor camps before facing arbitrary executions. Women, children, and elderly members of the Armenian community, by contrast, were made to participate in ‘death marches.’ These forced marches led victims on protracted journeys through what is now the Syrian desert with many subjected to torture and rape in addition to death through attrition.

“While estimates on the total number of those who perished can vary, between 1,000,000 and 1,800,000 Armenians are known to have lost their lives as a result of the genocide. This number amounts to approximately 70% of the region’s Armenian community. The scale and cruelty of the atrocities served as one of the principal inspirations for the creation of the word ‘genocide’ by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin and, by extension, the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

A significant but widely unknown fact is that not only Greek and Assyrian Christians of Ottoman Turkey, but many Jews of Palestine were also targeted, persecuted and deported during the Armenian Genocide.

How Jews in Palestine were persecuted during the 1915 Armenian Genocide

A thoroughly researched book by Dr. Andrew Bostom, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History, exposes the persecution and mass expulsions that the Jewish population in Palestine endured as a result of the orders of Djemal *****, an Ottoman military leader. He was also one of the three *****s who ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I and organized the genocide. He writes:

“During World War I in Palestine, between 1915 and 1917, The New York Times published a series of reports on Ottoman-inspired and local Arab Muslim-assisted anti-Semitic persecution that affected Jerusalem and the other major Jewish population centers. For example, by the end of January 1915, seven thousand Palestinian Jewish refugees—men, women and children—had fled to British-controlled Alexandria, Egypt. Three New York Times accounts from January and February 1915 provide these details of the earlier period.

‘On Jan. 8, Djemal ***** ordered the destruction of all Jewish colonization documents within a fortnight under penalty of death. … In many cases land settled by Jews was handed over to Arabs, and wheat collected by the relief committee in Galilee was confiscated in order to feed the army. The Muslim peasantry are being armed with any weapons discovered in Jewish hands. … The United States cruiser Tennessee has been fitted up on the lines of a troop ship for the accommodation of about 1,500 refugees, and is plying regularly between Alexandria and Jaffa. … A proclamation issued by the commander of the Fourth [Turkish] Army Corps describes Zionism as a revolutionary anti-Turkish movement which must be stamped out. Accordingly, the local governing committees have been dissolved and the sternest measures have been taken to insure that all Jews who remain on their holdings shall be Ottoman subjects. … Nearly all the [7,000] Jewish refugees in Alexandria come from Jerusalem and other large towns, among them being over 1,000 young men of the artisan class who refused to become Ottomans.’

“By April of 1917, conditions deteriorated further for Palestinian Jewry, which faced threats of annihilation from the Ottoman government. Many Jews were in fact deported, expropriated, and starved, in an ominous parallel to the genocidal deportations of the Armenian dhimmi communities throughout Anatolia. Indeed, as related by Yair Auron,

‘Fear of the Turkish actions was bound up with alarm that the Turks might do to the Jewish community in Palestine, or at least to the Zionist elements within it, what they had done to the Armenians. This concern was expressed in additional evidence from the early days of the war, from which we can conclude that the Armenian tragedy was known in the Yishuv [Jewish community in Palestine].’

“A mass expulsion of the Jews of Jerusalem, although ordered twice by Djemal *****, was averted only through the efforts of the Ottoman Turks’ World War I allies, the German government, which sought to avoid international condemnation. The eight thousand Jews of Jaffa, however, were expelled quite brutally, a cruel fate the Arab Muslims and the Christians of the city did not share. Moreover, these deportations took place months before the small pro-British Nili spy ring of Zionist Jews was discovered by the Turks in October 1917 and its leading figures killed. A report by United States consul Garrels (in Alexandria, Egypt) describing the Jaffa deportation of early April 1917 (published in the June 3, 1917 edition of The New York Times), included these details of the Jews’ plight:

‘The orders of evacuation were aimed chiefly at the Jewish population. Even German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian Jews were ordered to leave the town. Mohammedans and Christians were allowed to remain provided they were holders of individual permits. The Jews who sought the permits were refused. On April 1 the Jews were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours. Those who rode from Jaffa to Petach Tikvah had to pay from 100 to 200 francs instead of the normal fare of 15 to 25 francs. The Turkish drivers practically refused to receive anything but gold, the Turkish paper note being taken as the equivalent of 17.50 piastres for a note of 100 piastres.

‘Already about a week earlier 300 Jews had been deported in a most cruel manner from Jerusalem. Djemal ***** openly declared that the joy of the Jews on the approach of the British forces would be short-lived, as he would make them share the fate of the Armenians.

‘In Jaffa, Djemal ***** cynically assured the Jews that it was for their own good and ‘interests that he drove them out. Those who had not succeeded in leaving on April 1 were graciously accorded permission to remain at Jaffa over the Easter holiday.

‘Thus 8,000 were evicted from their houses and not allowed to carry off their belongings or provisions. Their houses were looted and pillaged even before the owners had left. A swarm of pillaging Bedouin women, Arabs with donkeys, camels, etc., came like birds of prey and proceeded to carry off valuables and furniture.

‘The Jewish suburbs have been totally sacked under the paternal eye of the authorities. By way of example, two Jews from Yemen were hanged at the entrance of the Jewish suburb of Tel Aviv in order to clearly indicate the fate in store for any Jew who might be so foolish as to oppose the looters. The roads to the Jewish colonies north of Jaffa are lined with thousands of starving Jewish refugees. The most appalling scenes of cruelty and robbery are reported by absolutely reliable eyewitnesses. Dozens of cases are reported of wealthy Jews who were found dead in the sandhills around Tel Aviv. In order to drive off the bands of robbers preying on the refugees on the roads, the young men of the Jewish villages organized a body of guards to watch in turn the roads. These guards have been arrested and maltreated by the authorities.

‘The Mohammedan population has also left the town recently, but they are allowed to live in the orchards and country houses surrounding Jaffa and are permitted to enter the town daily to look after their property, but not a single Jew has been allowed to return to Jaffa.

‘The same fate awaits all Jews in Palestine. Djemal ***** is too cunning to order cold-blooded massacres. His method is to drive the population to starvation and to death by thirst, epidemics, etc., which according to himself, are merely calamities sent by God.’

“Auron cites a very tenable hypothesis put forth at that time in a journal of the British Zionist movement as to why the looming slaughter of the Jews of Palestine did not occur—the advance of the British army (from immediately adjacent Egypt) and its potential willingness ‘to hold the military and Turkish authorities directly responsible for a policy of slaughter and destruction of the Jews—may have averted this disaster.”

Jews were not the only non-Christians targeted during the genocide. “In addition to the Armenians,” writes Dr. Maria Six-Hohenbalken, “demographically smaller groups of Christian denominations, as well as non-Christian groups such as the Yezidi, were targeted by the politics of annihilation. It is nearly impossible to know the number of the victims; about 12,000 Yezidis managed to find refuge in Armenia, where they established a diasporic community in the Soviet realm.”

During the genocide, Ottoman Turkish authorities aimed to Islamize the whole region by eliminating non-Muslim populations: Christians, Jews and Yezidis. These groups continue to be targeted both in and outside of Turkey today. An effective way to end these abuses and create a region where persecuted communities are safe and equal is for Turkey and international governments to recognize the 1915 genocide, and honor all of its victims and their descendants.

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara. She is currently a research student at the MA Woodman-Scheller Israel Studies International Program of Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/how-jews-in-palestine-were-persecuted-during-the-1915-armenian-genocide/

[Yervant1]

Middle East Eye

April 12 2021

Canada cancels weapons sales to Turkey over Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict

Investigation by Ottawa concluded that Turkey deployed drones to Nagorno-Karabakh that used Canadian technology, foreign affairs minister says

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev attend military parade for Azerbaijan's victory against Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 10 December 2020 (AFP)

By Ragip Soylu
in Ankara

Canada cancelled all defense exports to Turkey on Monday after an investigation found that Canadian technology was used in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the country's foreign affairs minister said.

Ottawa suspended the sale of advanced drone optics and defence equipment last October amid allegations that Canadian technology was used by Azerbaijan, a key ally of Turkey, during six weeks of fierce fighting with Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Earlier on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu voiced displeasure over the arms embargo during a call with his Canadian counterpart, Marc Garneau, and asked for a review.

"[The] Canadians told Turkish authorities that they weren't planning to lift the suspension of military export licences to Turkey, on the contrary, they would cancel all suspended military exports licences, even the ones issued in the past," one person familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye.

Later on Monday, Garneau announced that Canada conducted a thorough review of all suspended and valid export permits and would no longer sell military goods and technology to its NATO ally.

Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict: How Baku destroyed Russian S-300s with Israeli suicide drones

"Following this review, which found credible evidence that Canadian technology exported to Turkey was used in Nagorno-Karabakh, today I am announcing the cancellation of permits that were suspended in the fall of 2020," Garneau said in a statement.

Last year, Ottawa launched an investigation into whether Turkey had violated an end-user licence agreement by selling Turkish armed drones to Azerbaijan.

"This use was not consistent with Canadian foreign policy, nor end-use assurances given by Turkey," Garneau added.

Ottawa initially imposed an embargo in response to Turkey's military incursion into Syria in 2019. It partially backtracked on this decision last June and approved the sale of drone optics after high-level talks with Turkey. However, Canada suspended military exports after video footage indicated the use of Canadian-made Wescam optics in drones in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 2019, Turkey purchased two Canadian Bombardier Global 600 type business aircraft to use as part of locally developed Remote Electronic Support/Electronic Attack Ability in Air Platform (HAVA SOJ).

A Turkish official said last year that Canada also stopped providing the required training and the transfer of know-how regarding the aircraft as part of an arms embargo.

A Canadian firm had also stopped supplying helicopter platforms needed for the national warship programme MILGEM. Turkey has also been importing engines for its Hurkus training aircraft from Pratt & Whitney Canada.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/canada-cancel-all-suspended-arms-export-permits-wescam-turkey

[Yervant1]

Newsweek Magazine

April 13 2021

Turkey's Christians Face Increasingly Dangerous Persecution | Opinion

LELA GILBERT , FELLOW, HUDSON INSTITUTE
ON 4/13/21 AT 8:00 AM EDT

Once upon a time, tourists in Turkey eagerly made their way to Hagia Sophia—a historic architectural marvel shimmering with the golden light of ancient mosaics. Although marred by many centuries, images of Jesus, Mary and John the Baptist reflect the spirit of a fledgling Christian world. In fact, Turkey's earliest churches are recalled in the New Testament itself—in Antioch, where St. Paul began his missionary journeys, and in the Seven Churches portrayed by St. John in his Book of Revelation.

Christianity once flourished in Turkey, until the Ottoman Empire's 1915 genocide of Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and other Christians. Now the Islamist regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his neo-Ottoman agenda has magnified Turkey's anti-Christian hostility. Since a failed coup attempt in 2016, the regime intensified its scapegoating of Christians, while occasionally making deceptively amiable gestures toward them.

In July 2020, Erdogan officially declared that Istanbul's Hagia Sophia—beautiful mosaics and all—would once again become a mosque. Erdogan announced that this would gratify "the spirit of conquest" of Mehmet II, the Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople from the Christian Byzantines in 1453, and turned the church of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.

That, and the transformation of Istanbul's beautiful Chora Church of the Holy Saviour, merged into a swelling stream of Turkish Christian churches being confiscated, shuttered, torn down, or converted into mosques.

Troubles within the Greek Orthodox patriarchate and a disputed election of the Armenian Orthodox patriarch have also sounded international alarms. But even more troubling are the enmity and abuse displayed by the regime toward Christians themselves, both as faith groups and individuals.

During the genocidal ISIS invasion of Syria and Iraq, floods of refugees poured into Turkey. Most were Muslim, but a considerable number of them were Christians representing venerable Middle Eastern churches. As a bloc, the refugees were useful to Erdogan who, if his political demands weren't met, periodically threatened to release millions of them into Europe.

Meanwhile, according to numerous sources, Christian refugees in Turkey have been treated with contempt, consigned to remote locations, far removed from existing churches or co-religionists. Neither Turkish speakers nor Muslims, the Christian men could not legally find employment, while language and religious issues sidelined women and children struggling to work or attend school.

Unwarranted confrontations with authorities have become commonplace.

In this photograph taken on February 23, 2020, a young member of the Assyrian Christian community walks with incense during a Sunday mass at the Mor Behnam Kirklar Church in Mardin, southeastern Turkey.BULENT KILIC/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

My friend Charmaine Hedding is founder of Shai Fund, a Christian charity. After the ISIS invasion in Iraq, she visited Turkish refugee centers across the country several times in order to provide food vouchers for destitute Christian families. On one visit, quite unexpectedly, she and two colleagues were roughly taken aside by a local government official. He ordered them into a room, locked the door and then angrily slammed a Koran onto the table in front of them. He pointed a finger at each of them, demanding that they convert to Islam. This angry radical lectured them for several hours before their release. They were terrified.

One beloved Christian, who selflessly assists refugees who fled ISIS, is a Chaldean Catholic priest named Father Remzi Diril, who visits and comforts Christian families, providing religious services, sacraments, infant baptisms and charitable assistance. He "logs thousands of miles tending his flock, the community of Iraqi Christian refugees in Turkey. Their exact number is unknown, but it is estimated to be 40,000." Unsurprisingly, Father Diril has also faced harassment.

Ominously, Father Diril's elderly parents—71- and 65-year-old residents of a tiny Christian community—were kidnapped from their home in 2020.

AsiaNews reported in March 2021, "Turkey's human rights agency has rejected the request by Fr. Remzi Diril for an investigation. Nothing is known about his father who went missing over a year ago while his mother's body was found naked, with signs of torture." This horrific crime remains unresolved.

As Father Diril prays and waits, we're reminded of the arrest and imprisonment of American Pastor Andrew Brunson. After serving as a Christian clergyman in Turkey for 23 years, he was suddenly locked up in solitary confinement in October 2016 under ridiculously false charges. Brunson's case became a top news story in the U.S. while former President Donald Trump repeatedly demanded his release. Brunson, who struggled with intense anxiety and depression during his imprisonment, finally walked free in July 2018.

In the meantime, friends inside Turkey report, since 2019, some 73 foreign Christians have been expelled from the country, including spouses of Turkish pastors, thus tearing innocent families apart. Some of these workers are denied re-entry at passport control upon arrival. Others receive N82 visa stamps on their travel documents, falsely labeling them as a threat to public health, safety and/or order and making their return to Turkey impossible.

Recently, Morning Star News reported, "A German pastor fighting expulsion from Turkey is hopeful that he may be the exception to a wave of foreign Christian leaders expelled from the country as 'threats to national security.'" And a Syriac Orthodox monk was accused of terrorism, tried and sentenced to more than two years in prison for providing bread and water to hungry monastery visitors.

Violations of religious freedom against Turkey's Christians are increasingly rampant. I asked former Turkish parliamentarian and Foundation for Defense of Democracies scholar Aykan Erdemir to explain.

"The Erdogan government's glorification of the Ottoman 'spirit of conquest', and references to the 'right of the sword' in converting Hagia Sophia and other churches, have relegated Turkey's Christian citizens to an inferior rank of conquered minorities," Erdemir said. "Such supremacist policy and rhetoric will exacerbate precarious conditions for Christians. They will be at the mercy of a repressive government that swings back and forth between outbreaks of persecution and spectacles of tolerance."

Lela Gilbert is senior fellow for religious freedom at Family Research Council and a fellow at Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

https://www.newsweek.com/turkeys-christians-face-increasingly-dangerous-persecution-opinion-1583041

[Yervant1]

eKathimerini, Greece

April 13 2021

The Turkish dictator and President Biden

‘If Erdogan had been counting on his third consecutive “reset” with a US administration, President Biden has disappointed him,’ the author says.

Endy Zemenides

12.04.2021 • 12:02

• 
  

Nearing 20 years in power, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is now dealing with his fourth United States president. Erdogan is accustomed to building a rapport with new presidents early in their terms. His strategy was successful at the beginning of both the Obama and Trump administrations, before US-Turkey relations took a turn for the worse. After a dizzying last quarter of the Trump Presidency – which included the imposition of CAATSA sanctions for Turkey’s purchase of Russia S400s and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly scolding Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu during a virtual NATO summit – Ankara was certainly ready for a fresh start.

Erdogan’s regime was already quite familiar with President Joe Biden and key members of his team. There were plenty of moments on the 2020 campaign trail – including Biden’s scathing critique of Turkey during a New York Times editorial board meeting, his promise to recognize the Armenian Genocide, his criticisms of Turkish moves on Hagia Sophia and Varosha – that should have given Ankara pause. But Erdogan could have been forgiven for assuming that this was election year posturing and that much of it resembled Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign promises on the same issues, which were quickly forgotten once he got into office.

If Erdogan had been counting on his third consecutive “reset” with a US administration, President Biden has disappointed him. During a first 100 days dominated by domestic policy and getting past Covid, the Biden administration has done enough on Turkey to leave Erdogan on edge and off-balance.

The catalogue of specific moves at the outset of the Biden Presidency has exceeded the expectations of even the president’s most loyal supporters. Imagine having to brief Erdogan on the following over the last few months: the appointment of Brett McGurk to the National Security Council; Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s commentary on Turkey during his confirmation hearing and his rebuke of Turkey’s stance on Cyprus during a later appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee; the State Department’s open condemnation of government crackdowns at Bogazici University, the sham prosecution of Osman Kavala and Henri Barkey, and moves against the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP); the rollout of the CAATSA sanctions; the legal briefs filed by the Justice Department and State Department that allowed the lawsuit against Turkey in the Sheridan Circle case to move forward. On top of that, imagine having to explain how Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has already spoken to President Biden while Erdogan still waits.

Steven Cook, the Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and African studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes the significant departure from the approach towards Turkey over the last several administrations: “It doesn’t seem that quiet diplomacy is in the policy. Ned Price [the State Department spokesperson] has been forthright and strong from the podium.” During the Obama and Trump administrations, the US was often caught sending mixed signals to Turkey. According to Cook, “what has been a surprise [under Biden] is that the signals have not been mixed. The president and his team are not going to overlook American values.”

This clear commitment to democracy and human rights is notable, argues Alan Makovsky, senior fellow for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. “The Biden administration has Turkey covered like a blanket like no administration before. So far it’s mostly rhetorical, but it is comprehensive. If you are a democrat in Turkey, you are happy that you seem to have a friend in the White House.”

This more clear-eyed policy on Turkey is not necessarily a surprise to those who have been following Washington closely. Congress had already adopted a more aggressive stance than the previous two administrations. Over its last two sessions, Congress forced the issue on CAATSA sanctions and on ejecting Turkey from the F-35 program, unanimously adopted the Armenian Genocide resolution through the Senate, passed the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, and has instituted an informal arms embargo on Turkey. In this latest session, Congress has issued wide-ranging written critiques of Turkey’s record on human rights and democracy, with more than 50 senators and 170 representatives signing letters.

For Makovsky, this backdrop signals a bigger problem for Turkey. “With Trump’s departure, Turkey has no real supporters left in Washington. Even at State and Department of Defense, where there is still appreciation for Turkey’s strategic potential, there is ever growing doubt about its willingness to be a partner and there is also a strong sense that the worst is yet to come in term of human rights abuse. Turkey’s stock in Washington is in free fall, and nobody is expecting Erdogan to do what is necessary to reverse that trend.”

No one should take all this as any type of signal of a full rupture in US-Turkey relations. There seems to be a new Washington consensus that while a loving relationship with Turkey will not be re-established, a working one must be found. And thus the US is arranging for talks on Afghanistan to be held in Turkey and urging the EU to hold off on a more aggressive posture with regard to sanctions on Turkey.

Cook points to Turkey’s ability to compartmentalize relations with other countries (like Russia) and argues that the US can adopt a similar approach to Ankara: “Work with Turkey where you can, work against it where you must, and where the stakes are low stay out of each other’s way.”

Makovsky sees two key upcoming milestones – whether the Biden administration recognizes the Armenian Genocide (he believes it will) and whether Turkey bans the HDP. A rupture in the bilateral relationship will not necessarily ensue, but Turkey may finally realize how politically and diplomatically isolated it really is in the United States.

Erdogan has long operated under the assumption that the US will blink first in a stare-down with Turkey. But in 2021, he is staring down a president and administration that has more experience, a clearer world view, and more political cover to “not blink” than any he has ever faced. It is still early, and the Biden administration has to maintain consistency, but when it comes to US-Turkey relations, blunt diplomacy is on track to replace the failed quiet diplomacy of the past. Will this result in Erdogan changing behavior or Turkey moving on from Erdogan?

Endy Zemenides is the executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC).

https://www.ekathimerini.com/opinion/1159028/the-turkish-dictator-and-president-biden/

[Yervant1]

News.am, Armenia

April 17 2021

Erdogan: Israel is enemy of Islam

12:07, 17.04.2021

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the Israeli government on Friday, saying that he knew well how Israel is “an enemy of Islam,” over the country’s most recent air strike on targets in Gaza, Ahval reported.

Early on Friday, Israeli aircraft hit three facilities in Gaza, in response to a previous rocket attack, according to an Associated Press report.

The Israeli military said Palestinian militants fired two rockets from Gaza into the country’s south on Friday, within 24 hours.

“We know Israel is an enemy of Islam. Unfortunately, Israel does not change these habits,” Erdogan said, speaking to reporters following Friday prayers. “We want all of humanity to follow closely Israel’s hostility against Islam evaluate (the situation). Surely, as long as Israel maintains this attitude, it is impossible for bilateral relations to reach a level we would like.”

The Turkish Foreign Ministry also issued a statement on “Israel’s attacks on Gaza,” and expressed concern about “Israel's policies of oppression and violence against the Palestinian people” increasingly continuing during Ramadan.

https://news.am/eng/news/639372.html

[Yervant1]

Al-Monitor

Turkey’s ruling Islamists dogged by mounting corruption claims

By Amberin Zaman
April 19, 2021

[Allegations of government corruption are adding to public anger as
the economy continues to decline.]

Turkish authorities announced Monday they are expanding an ongoing
investigation into allegations of human trafficking leveled against a
local municipality run by the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP), adding to mounting public anger over endemic corruption and a
weakening economy.

The municipality organized tours to Europe for people who wanted to
leave the country, providing them with special visa-exempt passports
in exchange for large sums of money, in what opposition lawmakers
charge is a state-sponsored illegal migration scheme.

The government said it was investigating six more municipalities,
including several run by opposition parties, on similar charges.

The scandal erupted in early March after it emerged that of a total 45
persons sent to Germany in September 2020 by the AKP-run Yesilyurt
municipality in southeastern Turkey as part of its “project to raise
environmentally conscious individuals,” only three had returned. The
group had traveled on “grey” passports issued to Turkish citizens who
take part in government-sponsored activities overseas.

The government launched an investigation, with one deputy governor and
three other bureaucrats suspended from their duties so far. Details
only began to fully emerge last week as various people involved in the
scam began to speak out.

Sevilay Yilman, of the pro-government Haberturk daily, published
excerpts of her conversation with a man who went on the junket in an
April 19 column. The man, who said he was employed as a construction
worker in Germany, presumably off the books, claimed one of the main
organizers of the scheme was a former AKP mayor in his native Bingol
province also in the mainly Kurdish southeast. The man, identified
solely by his initials B.H., said, “Everyone who lives in Bingol knows
this is the way to get to Germany, so long as you have 6,000 euros.”
The man continued, “There are of course suckers who cough up 20,000
euros.” The Yesilyurt scandal was only the tip of the iceberg.
“Between 2019-2020, at least 450-500 people who I still see here [in
Germany] were spirited out of Bingol in this way,” the man said.

German authorities have reportedly launched their own investigation
into the activities of a company in Germany run by a Turkish man named
Ersin Kilit, who is implicated in the fraud. Kilit denies any
wrongdoing and has pointed fingers at the AKP.

The human trafficking charges come amid a campaign mounted by
opposition parties demanding that the government explain where some
$128 billion in Central Bank reserves went after it was thought to
have been spent to prop up Turkey’s ailing currency by Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law, former Economy Minister
Berat Albayrak.

Albayrak resigned from his post last November a day after Naci Agbal,
a former finance minister, was tapped by Erdogan to head the Central
Bank. Agbal began raising interest rates and the lira began to rally,
but he was sacked last month with some alleging that this was because
he was investigating the fate of the $128 billion in reserves that
Albayrak is accused of having burned through over the past two years.

Erdogan has angrily rejected the claims, and prosecutors have filed
charges against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP)
for hanging banners and posters that read “Where is the 128 billion?”
on the grounds that these constituted an insult to the country’s
president.

Erdogan suggested that the money had been spent on combatting and
mitigating the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. But with
Turkey now topping the list of countries most affected by the virus,
with some 55,802 cases reported on April 18 despite a raft of new
restrictions, the explanation rings hollow.

It hasn’t helped that Turkish Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan’s own
efforts to battle the pandemic were allegedly crafted to enrich
herself. She has yet to formally respond to CHP lawmakers’ claims that
her ministry awarded contracts to buy 9 million liras ($1.1 million)
worth of anti-COVID-19 sanitizers to a company she jointly owns with
her spouse.

Oya Ozarslan, who is the Turkish chair of Transparency International,
the global graft monitoring agency, noted that Turkey currently ranks
86 (with a score of 40) among 180 countries in the Corruption
Perception Index of Transparency International. Compared to only seven
years ago, the country dipped by 33 levels in its ranking and by 10
points overall. “Corruption has always been an issue for Turkey, but
this rapid decline is very concerning. Over the years, the type and
scale of corruption may have also significantly changed to grand
corruption from petty [cases], and with the recent decline in the
economy, people are becoming more susceptible to corruption issues,”
Ozarslan said in emailed comments to Al-Monitor.

Disaffection with the government has been sharpened by the pandemic,
notably as a result of the initial discrepancies between the number of
cases reported by the Ministry of Health and those tracked by civil
society. The uneven application of pandemic rules has added to public
resentment, Ozarslan observed. While the AKP has organized a series of
party congresses across the country and allowed its associates to
organize funerals and other events in violations of government rules
in the midst of the pandemic, “tens of thousands of people had to
close their shops, lost their jobs and a number of people were even
driven to suicide. This created a feeling of deep injustice,” she
added.

Yet during its nearly 20 years of uninterrupted rule, the AKP managed
to survive a string of corruption scandals, most notably in 2013 when
a far-reaching probe unveiled links between Erdogan’s inner circle,
Turkish state lender Halkbank and Iran’s multibillion-dollar
sanctions-busting oil-for-gold trade. Halkbank is in the dock in a New
York federal court over its central role in the scheme. Erdogan’s
biggest worry is not the size of the fine the state lender is likely
to be slapped with as much as what further revelations jailed
Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab, who signed a plea bargain
with the prosecution, is likely to offer about Turkey’s ruling elite.

Ayse Cavdar, a Turkish anthropologist based in Berlin who has closely
studied the AKP, noted that “the prevailing sentiment until recently
within Erdogan’s base was that ‘they are not stealing for themselves
but sharing the riches with us.’ The prevailing sentiment now is that
'what is stolen is no longer coming back to us,’” Cavdar noted.

As joblessness and inflation — and resulting poverty — continue to
spiral, the AKP’s poll numbers are moving in the opposite direction.
The withdrawal of government subsidies for low-income people hit by
the pandemic has aggravated life for many. (The majority of the people
who bought their way to Germany are believed to have gone to seek
employment.) A survey conducted in March by Metropoll, an Ankara-based
polling outfit, suggests that if an election were held today, the AKP
would win 31.3% of the vote. That’s still 12 points ahead of the CHP
but not enough to form a governing majority with Erdogan’s nationalist
allies, the National Movement Party, which scores 7.8%. A bloc of
opposition parties jointly musters 40%. More critically perhaps, the
biggest and ever-swelling number of undecided voters are among those
who voted AKP in the previous elections in 2018.

Erdogan’s foes, though, should not rush to celebrate. “Turkey is
enduring soaring living costs, a relentless crackdown on civil
liberties and a public health crisis, which would be enough to unravel
most Western governments,” said Michael Daventry, a UK-based
journalist who runs the Turkish politics website JamesinTurkey.com and
analyzes Turkish polls. “These figures show Turkish voters clearly
hold the [AKP] responsible for their hardship but aren’t convinced
that opposition parties provide the remedy. And crucially, far fewer
voters blame President Erdogan himself — he still commands enough
trust for now to win any snap [presidential] election," Daventry
predicted.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/04/turkeys-ruling-islamists-dogged-mounting-corruption-claims__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!-XHhkdsvHDhIN-d8lkMPqFi-TwWFgdsaYY4tNf5u-QpCqvwvPsq_XvwJ4ynyXA$

[Yervant1]

The usual barking has started!

The MediaLine

April 21 2021

Turkey Threatens US Ahead of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

URI COHEN

04/21/2021

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu on Tuesday commented on the latest projections about a possible official recognition of the Armenian genocide by US President Joe Biden on the upcoming annual remembrance day of April 24. “Statements that have no legal binding will have no benefit, but they will harm ties,” Çavuşoğlu warned. “If the US wants to worsen relations, the decision is theirs,” he said, imploring Washington to “respect international law.” Biden has in recent days faced mounting bipartisan pressure to become the first president to call the mass murder and systematic ethnic cleansing of over 1 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans during World War I a genocide. Biden promised to do so on the campaign trail, similar to previous presidents, yet none of his predecessors followed through on their pledge after taking office, fearing diplomatic repercussions from Ankara, which rejects the Armenian accusations. In 2019, the US Senate passed a historic nonbinding resolution recognizing the genocide, infuriating Turkey’s government. President Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have yet to speak since the January 20 inauguration.

https://themedialine.org/mideast-daily-news/turkey-threatens-us-ahead-of-armenian-genocide-remembrance-day/

 

[Yervant1]

Soon it will be used for toilet!

 

Armenpress.com

Turkish lira drops amid reports of Biden’s potential recognition of Armenian Genocide

Save

Share

13:57, 22 April, 2021

YEREVAN, APRIL 22, ARMENPRESS. The Turkish lira dropped 2,2% against the dollar on April 22, following reports that US President Joe Biden is preparing to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide on April 24, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, a move believed to further worsen the ties between the NATO allies. Ahval News reported that the lira fell by as much as 2.2 percent against the dollar on Thursday and it was trading down 1.7 percent at 8.31 per dollar at 10:43 a.m. local time in Istanbul.

The Turkish-American ties worsened over the recent years after Turkey purchased S-400 missile systems from Russia and launched a military operation against Kurds fighting alongside American troops against Islamic State (ISIS).

The lira also declined after reports that the United States officially notified Turkey of its exclusion from a programme to develop and acquire the F-35 stealth fighter jet.

The lira dropped 28% since the start of last year as “investors fretted over unorthodox economic policies followed by the government and central bank.”

Editing by Stepan Kocharyan

 

 

https://armenpress.am/eng/news/1049870.html?fbclid=IwAR3my0HwOYu04DuKz_eXM_b_cn2sB-ObvvzIs4_u0OFt_tGUtxa9uOxcxmA

 

 

[Yervant1]

The MediaLine

April 23 2021

Biden’s Expected Recognition of Armenian Genocide Shows Turkey’s Fading Influence, Analysts Say

KRISTINA JOVANOVSKI

04/23/2021

Previous US presidents have avoided using the term ‘genocide’ out of fear of angering key NATO ally

US President Joe Biden’s expected recognition of the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings of Armenians as genocide is a sign of Turkey’s waning influence over Washington, analysts told The Media Line.

Biden is expected to make the recognition on Saturday, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, according to US reports, which cited unnamed officials.

Turkey’s foreign minister told a local news channel that such a move would harm relations with the United States.

That sentiment was echoed by Turkey’s main opposition party, The Republican People’s Party, in a statement released on Thursday, denouncing the possible move by Biden.

“This is unjust, unwarranted and inappropriate. We do not accept this characterization,” the party said in its statement.

Turkey, where many revere the Ottoman Empire, accepts that Armenians were killed but has long refuted equating the deaths with genocide.

“Genocide recognition is going to be a large blow to the Turkish government,” said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Sabancı University in Istanbul.

He says Biden has been angered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies that went against US interests and believes the Turkish president can’t respond too strongly while he is dealing with a major spike in COVID-19 cases and an economic crisis in his country.

Relations with the US are especially important to Turkey’s economy, which strongly relies on foreign investment.

A 2018 diplomatic dispute between the two countries over Turkey’s detention of US pastor Andrew Brunson led to Washington placing sanctions on Ankara which sent Turkey’s currency into free fall.

Genocide recognition is going to be a large blow to the Turkish government

Economists said the image of Ankara arguing with the biggest economy in the world played more of a role in the economic crisis than the sanctions themselves.

Esen told The Media Line that the recognition of genocide would show how low US-Turkish relations have sunk, considering previous presidents avoided using the term so that they would not upset an important NATO ally.

Turkey has made a slew of decisions since the dispute that have harmed ties with Washington, including launching an offensive against US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria and purchasing an advanced Russian anti-missile defense system, the S-400s, which led to Ankara being kicked out of the US F-35 joint strike fighter program.

“I think the deterioration in US-Turkish relations really is the big difference maker here,” said Alan Makovsky, a senior fellow for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, who previously worked on Turkish affairs at the US State Department.

Turkey’s geopolitical position, bordering Iraq, Iran and Syria, has made it a valuable NATO ally, including by hosting a base which was used by the US to launch attacks against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Makovsky told The Media Line that a Biden recognition of the Armenian deaths as genocide would be a signal to Turkey that it doesn’t have the amount of leverage it believed it did.

“It’s a problematic relationship. The US is starting to hedge its bets a bit … people still see [Turkey] as important strategically but I think Turkey has lost its veto power in certain areas in the US, including on this issue,’ he said.

Makovsky added that the lack of a strong reaction from Ankara after the US Congress passed a resolution to recognize the deaths as genocide showed there probably would be no major fallout from such a move.

Even before he became president, Biden said he would take a tough line with Erdogan, telling The New York Times he would support the opposition.

Since taking office, Biden has not held a phone call with Erdogan even as the Turkish president attempts to strengthen relations with his Western allies.

Turkey ended up with no friends to advocate for Ankara’s position in Washington

Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament with the main opposition party, told The Media Line that Turkey would likely act the same as it did to other countries which have recognized the genocide, such as by recalling the US ambassador.

Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey program for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said such a clash with the US would be short-lived but welcomed by Erdogan who could use the row to distract the public from the country’s domestic issues while playing to his nationalist base.

He said the recognition of genocide by both the Senate and House of Representatives in 2019 showed how bipartisan skepticism of Erdogan has become in the US.

“Ultimately, the Erdogan government’s policies have isolated Turkey in Washington,” he said. “Turkey ended up with no friends to advocate for Ankara’s position in Washington.”

 

https://themedialine.org/top-stories/bidens-expected-recognition-of-armenian-genocide-shows-turkeys-fading-influence-analysts-say/

[Yervant1]

When will Israel feel the same way?

Jerusalem Post

April 23 2021

Biden’s recognition of Armenian Genocide shows Turkey’s fading influence

By KRISTINA JOVANOVSKI/THE MEDIA LINE

APRIL 23, 2021 19:40

Previous US presidents have avoided using the term ‘genocide’ out of fear of angering key NATO ally

US President Joe Biden’s expected recognition of the Ottoman Empire’s mass killings of Armenians as genocide is a sign of Turkey’s waning influence over Washington, analysts told The Media Line.

Biden is expected to make the recognition on Saturday, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, according to US reports, which cited unnamed officials.

Turkey’s foreign minister told a local news channel that such a move would harm relations with the United States.

That sentiment was echoed by Turkey’s main opposition party, The Republican People’s Party, in a statement released on Thursday, denouncing the possible move by Biden.

“This is unjust, unwarranted and inappropriate. We do not accept this characterization,” the party said in its statement.

Turkey, where many revere the Ottoman Empire, accepts that Armenians were killed but has long refuted equating the deaths with genocide.

“Genocide recognition is going to be a large blow to the Turkish government,” said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of political science at Sabancı University in Istanbul.

He says Biden has been angered by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s policies that went against US interests and believes the Turkish president can’t respond too strongly while he is dealing with a major spike in COVID-19 cases and an economic crisis in his country.

Relations with the US are especially important to Turkey’s economy, which strongly relies on foreign investment.

A 2018 diplomatic dispute between the two countries over Turkey’s detention of US pastor Andrew Brunson led to Washington placing sanctions on Ankara which sent Turkey’s currency into free fall.

Economists said the image of Ankara arguing with the biggest economy in the world played more of a role in the economic crisis than the sanctions themselves.

Esen told The Media Line that the recognition of genocide would show how low US-Turkish relations have sunk, considering previous presidents avoided using the term so that they would not upset an important NATO ally.

Turkey has made a slew of decisions since the dispute that have harmed ties with Washington, including launching an offensive against US-allied Kurdish forces in Syria and purchasing an advanced Russian anti-missile defense system, the S-400s, which led to Ankara being kicked out of the US F-35 joint strike fighter program.

“I think the deterioration in US-Turkish relations really is the big difference maker here,” said Alan Makovsky, a senior fellow for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington, who previously worked on Turkish affairs at the US State Department.

Turkey’s geopolitical position, bordering Iraq, Iran and Syria, has made it a valuable NATO ally, including by hosting a base which was used by the US to launch attacks against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Makovsky told The Media Line that a Biden recognition of the Armenian deaths as genocide would be a signal to Turkey that it doesn’t have the amount of leverage it believed it did.

“It’s a problematic relationship. The US is starting to hedge its bets a bit … people still see [Turkey] as important strategically but I think Turkey has lost its veto power in certain areas in the US, including on this issue,’ he said.

Makovsky added that the lack of a strong reaction from Ankara after the US Congress passed a resolution to recognize the deaths as genocide showed there probably would be no major fallout from such a move.

Even before he became president, Biden said he would take a tough line with Erdogan, telling The New York Times he would support the opposition.

Since taking office, Biden has not held a phone call with Erdogan even as the Turkish president attempts to strengthen relations with his Western allies.

Aykan Erdemir, a former member of the Turkish parliament with the main opposition party, told The Media Line that Turkey would likely act the same as it did to other countries which have recognized the genocide, such as by recalling the US ambassador.

Erdemir, senior director of the Turkey program for the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said such a clash with the US would be short-lived but welcomed by Erdogan who could use the row to distract the public from the country’s domestic issues while playing to his nationalist base.

He said the recognition of genocide by both the Senate and House of Representatives in 2019 showed how bipartisan skepticism of Erdogan has become in the US.

“Ultimately, the Erdogan government’s policies have isolated Turkey in Washington,” he said. “Turkey ended up with no friends to advocate for Ankara’s position in Washington.”

https://m.jpost.com/international/bidens-recognition-of-armenian-genocide-shows-turkeys-fading-influence-666157/amp

 

[Yervant1]

Hey ErDOGan listen to your brave citizens instead of jailing them!

 

Forbes

April 24 2021

Journalist Uzay Bulut Unveils Turkey’s Genocidal Past, Ongoing Human Rights Violations

Jackie Abramian

Contributor

ForbesWomen

I cover women social entrepreneurs, peace builders and change agents.

Journalist Uzay Bulut upholds truth and justice for the oppressed minorities in her homeland of ... [+]

UZAY BULUT

Today U.S. President, Joe Biden formally recognized the massacre of Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire during WWI as an act of genocide, as Armenians worldwide commemorate the 1915 Genocide of 1.5 million Armenians.

Turkey is a “dictatorship” that harshly penalizes citizens for criticizing the military, the Turkish nation, president, government institutions, or national heroes, says journalist Uzay Bulut. In an era of ‘alternative facts’ Bulut upholds truth and justice for the oppressed minorities in her homeland of Turkey by defying the autocratic government. Endangering her own safety and living in self-imposed exile is the sacrifice for continuing to unearth and publish articles on Turkey’s genocidal past and ongoing human rights violations.

Turkey’s systematic violations to a fair trial and misuse of “terrorism” charges restrict freedom of speech for its citizens. Some 80 media workers await in pre-trial detention or serving a “terrorism” sentence, reports The Platform for Independent Journalism (P24). With over 281,000 people in Turkish prisons, Amnesty International labeled Turkey as the world’s largest prison for journalists–ranking second after China says the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“There is no free press in Turkey. Meanwhile, many perpetrators of actual war crimes walk around free in Turkey as international observers report how jihadist terrorists, involved in Syria and Iraq wars, use Turkish territory for transit, refuge, human and goods trafficking,” says Bulut.

Un-Brainwashing Turkish Education

A Turkish citizen, Bulut earned a degree in translation studies from Istanbul’s Boğaziçi University, and a Master’s in media and cultural studies from Ankara’s Middle East Technical University. She began publishing articles, and after a brief stay in the U.S., returned to Turkey to renew her visa and has, since 2016, lived abroad–currently studying at the Israel Studies Department in the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

MORE FOR YOU

Why Podcasting Might Be One Of The Best ROI Marketing Channels In 2021 (And Beyond)

4 Signs Your Business Model Is In Desperate Need Of An Update

Since 2016 Bulut has lived abroad–currently studying at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

UZAY BULUT

“Attending university was a turning point in my life–it introduced me to new ideas and information I hadn’t known before. But deconstructing false narratives taught from childhood does not happen overnight. The more I learned, the more I supported people exposed to genocide and severe persecution at the hands of my country,” Bulut says. "Turkey’s education system upholds nationalism as its dominant state ideology, denying the true history of persecutions against minorities, and indigenous peoples of Asia Minor as the Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians. Turkish schoolchildren learn revisionist history about the 1913-23 genocide when Ottoman Turkey massacred Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Yezidis.”

One of the first historic truths Bulut learned about was Ottoman Turkey’s 1915 Genocide against 1.5 million Armenians. Commemorated worldwide on April 24, it remains the last century’s first, best documented, and least recognized crime against humanity which Turkey has yet to recognize.

Unpacking Turkish revisionism, Bulut explains how Armenian history is “denied in Turkish textbooks”–students learn how during WWI, Turkey’s “war of independence,” Armenians joined “harmful” organizations to “damage or divide” so Turks had to “deal with” them. During last September’s 44-day Turkey-led Azerbaijan’s genocidal war against the indigenous Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), Bulut was “extremely infuriated” that Turks and Azeris blamed the war on Armenia.

“It was my ethical duty to cover the war as objectively as I could–both as a journalist and a human being. Azerbaijan and Turkey jointly attacked Artsakh on September 27 while people were sleeping,” Bulut says. “Carpet bombing Artsakh for 44 days, they murdered thousands of people, destroyed civilian settlements, hospitals, churches and cultural centers, among other non-military targets. Witnessing the brutalities felt like Turks were repeating the Genocide all over again.”

Bulut says much of the mainstream media coverage of the Artsakh war was “misleading and agenda-driven.” Since the conflict occurred in an area few journalists have expertise on, she says, the international media had a misguided understanding of ‘objectivity’ or ‘neutrality’ and blamed both sides for attacking.

“Much of the media were unwilling or unable to say that Azerbaijan and Turkey were the aggressors. This misleading ‘both-sided’ narrative cost thousands of innocent lives in Artsakh, and displaced tens of thousands of indigenous Armenians–and speaks volumes about the ‘free press’ in the West,” Bulut says. “As journalists, we have a responsibility to do soul searching, uphold, and honor journalistic ethics–particularly on what our reports mean to those targeted in war zones. Our readers have the right to know the truth.”

Turkey’s Continued Human Rights Violations

Bulut considers Turkey’s support and empowerment of violent jihadists in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere a ... [+]

UZAY BULUT

Frustrated at NATO and the superpowers’ silence at Turkey’s continued human rights violations against its journalists, citizens and other countries, Bulut says this “policy of impunity towards Turkey,” emboldens the regime. Raising these issues purely because of her love for Turkey, she hopes her homeland can acknowledge the “dark parts of its past, ensuring they’re not repeated” so to succeed, flourish, and build a healthy society.

Bulut considers Turkey’s support and empowerment of violent jihadists in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere a threat to the West and the world–threatening human rights and human dignity while damaging “regional and global security.” As is honoring perpetrators of ethnic massacres–the norm in Turkey where names of perpetrators of crimes adorn many streets, schools, squares, and airports.

“It would not be an overstatement to say that Turkey was largely established on the blood and property of the Armenians and other Christians,” Bulut quotes writer Raffi Bedrosyan on the confiscated Armenian properties.

During the 11th century Byzantine Empire, central Asian Turks invaded historic Armenia (modern eastern Turkey) and Turkified/Islamized the predominantly Christian community throughout the centuries. The fact that Turkish school children learn that during WWI Christian Genocide, Turks’ self-defense against criminal, violent Greeks and Armenians–is even more tragic, Bulut says since many Turks are descendants of Islamized Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews and other non-Turks.

“By showing hatred against minorities, Turks are hating their own ancestors. The dark tradition of violence and severe abuse against citizens and other nations continues in my country,” Bulut considers Turkey a propagandist state. “Teaching denialist narratives, dehumanizes the indigenous peoples of the land, for whose destruction Turkey is responsible.”

Destruction of indigenous lives and exploitation of their cultural heritage is a governmental, cultural, and societal problem in Turkey, explains Bulut. Having “run out of Christians, Jews and Yezidis to persecute,” she says the government now has turned on its own fellow Muslims. Until Turks learn and embrace these truths, Bulut believes they will continue dehumanizing, attack and violate other nations–as the Armenian Republic of Artsakh last September.

“Only the truth will set my people free and make my country a truly civilized place. We must break this tradition of death and destruction we constantly bring upon the Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and others,” Bulut points how Turkey’s ethnic cleansing in Northern Cyprus since 1974, has destroyed innocent lives and ancient civilizations. “It chips away at our own humanity. A nation whose history and current affairs are largely shaped by massacres and destruction of other nations cannot be truly respected by the international community.”

Uzay Bulut

UZAY BULUT

She calls on the Turkish intelligentsia to focus on the Turkish treatment of its indigenous minorities–including the Christian massacres in the 1840s and 1890s and WWI Christian Genocides in Ottoman Turkey, the 1934 anti-Jewish pogrom in eastern Thrace, the 1941 forced labor battalions of Jews and Christians, the 1942 wealth tax law that largely impoverished its Christian and Jewish citizens, the 1955 anti-Greek pogrom in Istanbul, 1964 forced deportations of Greeks from Istanbul, the continued confiscations of Christian and Jewish properties, and the illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of northern Cyprus.

Such crimes as the near annihilation of southeast Turkey’s Yezidi and Assyrian communities due to government policies and local Muslims’ hostility are “almost the norm in Turkey,” Bulut challenges Turkey’s militaristic state, reciting a revised version of pastor Martin Niemöller’s opposition to the Nazi’s.

“First, they came for the Armenians and Assyrians, and I did not speak out—because I was neither. Then they came for the Greeks, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Greek. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The deeply rooted racism, Bulut explains, is a systematic problem since the 1923 founding of modern Turkey. Derogatory statements against minorities as “the remnants (leftovers) of the swords” are common. Last May Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: “We do not allow terrorist leftovers of the sword in our country…to carry out [terrorist] activities. Their number has decreased a lot, but they still exist."

“The genocidal mindset targeting Armenians is alive and well in Turkey,” Bulut points out how Turkish police proudly posed with the assassins of the Turkish-Armenian editor, Hrant Dink, assassinated in 2007. On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Turkish nationalist groups celebrated how the ‘glorious ancestors’ cleansed the country of the Armenians. “Turkey not only denies but dehumanizes the Genocide victims by accusing them as perpetrators–killing the victims all over again."

Similarly, Azerbaijan honored Ramil Safarov with a “People’s Hero” medal for having axed to death the Armenian soldier, Gurgen Margaryan, at the 2004 Partnership for Peace NATO-sponsored program in Hungary. A Hungarian judge convicted and sentenced Safarov to life in prison–but eight years later, after Viktor Orban visited Baku, Safarov was extradited to Azerbaijan, pardoned, promoted, given eight years’ back pay, and a new apartment.

“Azerbaijan made it clear what its citizens should do to become national heroes: Kill Armenians,” Bulut points to Azerbaijan’s systematic cultural and religious genocide of the past 30 years against the indigenous Armenian heritage. A report published in Hyperallergic, confirmed the destruction exceeded ISIS’s dynamiting of Palmyra, in Syria.

Bulut admits Turkey’s “vengeful” regime’s zero tolerance for criticisms is to be feared. She has often considered not publishing–admitting it is challenging.

“Justice and human dignity can only be preserved by courageously upholding the truth. The evil ideology of Nazism would not have been defeated if decent people, including governments, had not acted and spoken out against it. Our world will be a safer, more just place as long as we value and stand up for the truth about the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian Genocides, the Holocaust and antisemitism, China’s persecution of its citizens, the Uyghur, Christians and against Hong Kong and Tibet, and Azerbaijan’s murderous attacks against indigenous Armenians,” says Bulut. “Moral leaders don’t fear press freedom–they protect and promote it. It is the criminals who oppose free press and punish journalists, so their crimes are not exposed.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackieabramian/2021/04/24/journalist-uzay-bulut-unveils-turkeys-genocidal-past-ongoing-human-rights-violations/

 

 

[Yervant1]

I guess Ümit Özdağ is too stupid to realize that he is admitting the fact of the Armenian Genocide!

Duvar, Turkey

April 26 2021

Turkish far-right deputy threatens Armenian MP Paylan with another genocide

Far-right independent lawmaker Ümit Özdağ has threatened HDP deputy Garo Paylan with another genocide. "You'll go through a Talaat ***** experience when the time comes and you should," Özdağ told Paylan on Twitter. Speaking to Duvar English, Paylan said that hate speeches lead to hate crimes and that crimes that go unpunished are bound to be recommitted. "We'll die if they kill us, but we'll never leave this country to fascists," he said.

Tuesday April 27 2021 10:08 am

Neşe İdil / Duvar English

A Turkish far-right independent lawmaker has threatened an Armenian deputy from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) with another genocide.

Ümit Özdağ, who was sacked from the Good (İYİ) Party last year, said that HDP deputy Garo Paylan "should go through a Talaat ***** experience when the time comes," referring to the Ottoman politician who ordered the Armenian genocide in 1915.

"You shameless, provocative man. You can go to hell if you're not happy [here]. Talaat ***** exiled traitors like you, not the patriotic Armenians. You'll go through a Talat Paasha experience when the time comes and you should," Özdağ said on April 26 in response to Paylan's criticism of Talaat *****'s name still being used in street and school names.

"We make our children walk on the streets named after Talaat *****, the architect of the genocide, 106 years later. We make them receive education in schools named after him. We live in a country similar to what Germany would be if streets and schools had been named after Hitler," Paylan said on April 24, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.

Paylan also called on Turkey to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide, noting that the issue is on the agenda of other countries because Turkey denies it.

"I'm seeking justice in the Turkish Parliament. The Armenian genocide happened on this soil and justice can only be served here. We need to face the pains of the Armenians here, where the pain belongs. We need to soothe this pain with justice," Paylan said in a separate tweet.

Paylan's HDP is the only major party in Turkey that recognizes the genocide. It was targeted by authorities on April 24 for doing so. A founding member of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) went as far as to wish for the HDP to "become extinct too."

Özdağ, a political figure known for his racist remarks against Syrian refugees, was slammed by Twitter users on April 26 for suggesting another genocide, as many reported him to Twitter for hateful conduct.

The Human Rights Association (İHD), meanwhile, said that they will file a complaint against Özdağ.

A day later, Paylan responded to Özdağ's threat.

"A remnant of the mentality that slaughtered my people says 'We'll do it again.' You hit us and did we not die? We did. However, those left behind never abandoned the struggle for justice. They won't do so after me," Paylan said on April 27, as he called Özdağ a fascist.

'No need to be reminded'

Speaking to Duvar English, Paylan said that hate speeches lead to hate crimes.

"Our country is in an atmosphere of hate and the political scene ignores these hate speeches. Hate crimes become ordinary as a result," he said, stressing that crimes that go unpunished are bound to be recommitted.

"The genocide took place 106 years ago in a similar atmosphere of hate. Özdağ was able to say these to me because of this atmosphere of hate. I'm not afraid. We'll die if they kill us, but we'll never leave this country to fascists," Paylan noted.

The HDP deputy said that Özdağ didn't need to remind him of Talaat *****, since Armenians are constantly aware of the hate crimes.

"I'm doing politics knowing this," he said, adding that his family was also constantly subjected to hate crimes and speeches.

"My father was subjected to them and I, as a member of the third generation, am also targeted," Paylan said.

"There is no need to be reminded. We are going through the Talaat ***** experience for the past 106 years."

 

https://www.duvarenglish.com/turkish-far-right-deputy-threatens-armenian-mp-paylan-with-another-genocide-news-57246

 

[Yervant1]

France 24

April 27 2021

Turkey's Armenians keep heads down after genocide recognition

Issued on: 27/04/2021 - 12:00

Istanbul (AFP)

Members of Turkey's tiny Armenian community have kept a low profile since US President Joe Biden recognised the Armenian genocide, fearing retribution should they openly celebrate the landmark step.

"Discretion has become a part of our daily lives," said an Armenian Turk who, like many others interviewed by AFP, wished to remain anonymous to protect his local business.

Biden on Saturday became the first US president to brush aside Turkish pressure and call the 1915-1917 events a genocide in which "1.5 million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination".

His words caused relief and bittersweet joy in Armenia and among the the tiny Caucasus state's vast web of ethnic communities across Europe and the Americas.

Once an integral part of the Ottoman Empire's multifaceted society, only 60,000 ethnic Armenians are still believed to live in modern Turkey, most of them in Istanbul.

Ankara accepts that both Armenians and Turks died in vast numbers while the Ottomans battled tsarist Russia, but denies the existence of a deliberate policy of genocide.

Dozens of angry Turks rallied outside the US consulate in Istanbul on Monday to express outrage at Biden's decision.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it "groundless, unfair" and detrimental to US-Turkish ties.

The Turkish-Armenian businessman said his community faces waves of anti-Armenian sentiments whenever debates resume about the century-old events.

"We were raised since childhood not to speak Armenian on the street. We were even told to call our mothers 'anne' (in Turkish) instead of 'mama'," he said.

"Everyone has differences on every issue but when it comes to the Armenian question, everyone is united in Turkey."

- 'Hate speech' -

Yetvart Danzikyan, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos -- whose former editor Hrant Dink was gunned down in Istanbul in 2007 -- said the annual commemorations pass in a "climate of tension" in Turkey.

"The climate is shaped by (Turkey's) tough response, which goes as far as to hold Armenians responsible" for what happened, Danzikyan said in a telephone interview.

Fahrettin Altun, Erdogan's powerful press adviser, tweeted on Tuesday that "distorting history further encourages Armenian extremism", pointing to the Turkish diplomats assassinated by Armenian militants in the 1970s and 1980s.

For Agos's Danzikyan, Altun's words and similar comments represent a campaign of psychological pressure and intimidation that make it difficult to speak freely.

"How can you expect a community which has lived under pressure for decades to speak up?" Danzikyan asked.

Selina Dogan, an ethnic Armenian ex-MP from the main opposition CHP party, agreed that her community's silence since Biden's announcement was part of an attempt at self-preservation.

Armenians have remained discreet "to maintain their presence in these lands," said Dogan, who is now a municipal assembly member representing a district on the European side of Istanbul where many Armenians live.

In Turkey, "hate speech is glorified", said Dogan.

Paramaz Mercan, a 50-year-old Armenian who lives in the mostly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir, said his attempts to relate the way his community felt to the media did not end well.

"On one particular occasion, I expressed a thought and said I wanted to live my own culture, which prompted some to say that I should be deported," he recalled.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210427-turkey-s-armenians-keep-heads-down-after-genocide-recognition

[Yervant1]

Newsweek

April 28 2021

Armenian Genocide Warning by Far-Right Turkish Lawmaker Prompts Criminal Complaint

BY BRENDAN COLE ON 4/28/21 AT 9:58 AM EDT

A criminal complaint has been filed against a far-right Turkish politician for tweets about the mass killings of Armenians, amid a heated debate over the topic in the days since President Joe Biden recognized the deaths as genocide.

The Human Rights Association in Turkey has filed the complaint against the independent lawmaker Ümit Özdağ, who engaged in a Twitter spat with Garo Paylan, a Turkish politician of Armenian descent.

On April 24, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, Biden said: "Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide."

The government in Yerevan celebrated the president's comments, but they sparked a rebuke from Ankara. On the same day, Paylan wrote on Twitter about his unhappiness that streets and schools in Turkey were still named after Talaat *****.

***** was an Ottoman politician and one of the leaders who ordered the exile of Ottoman Armenians in 1915. Armenia says around 1.5 million people died in a planned operation that constitutes genocide.

Armenian Genocide Warning by Far-Right Turkish Lawmaker Prompts Criminal Complaint

"After 106 years, we walk on streets named after Talaat *****, the architect of the Genocide," Paylan tweeted, according to a translation from Turkish. Germany, he pointed out, did not have streets or schools named after Adolf Hitler.

Özdağ replied, telling Paylan to "go to hell." He tweeted: "Talaat ***** didn't expel patriotic Armenians but those who stabbed us in the back like you. When the time comes, you'll also have a Talaat ***** experience and you should have it."

The pair then exchanged a flurry of tweets, with Paylan calling Özdağ a "fascist" and adding: "Those left behind never give up the struggle for justice."

Paylan, a member of parliament from the Peoples' Democratic Party—the only Turkish political party to recognize the killings as genocide—told the magazine Duvar: "Our country is in an atmosphere of hate and the political scene ignores these hate speeches."

The Human Rights Association's criminal complaint requests that a lawsuit be filed against Özdağ under Articles 106 and 216 of the Turkish Penal Code, which cover threats and provoking public hatred.

The organisation is also seeking a discrimination charge under the European Convention on Human Rights, Turkish press agency Bianet reported.

Özdağ, who is described by Turkish news outlets as a far-right lawmaker, now sits as an independent member of parliament. He was previously removed from senior posts in the Nationalist Movement Party and the IYI Party.

Newsweek has contacted Özdağ and the Human Rights Association for comment.

Yerevan celebrated Biden's decision to go further than his predecessors in describing the massacre of Armenians in 1915 and 1916 as genocide.

Ankara acknowledges that deaths occurred, but rejects the idea that there was any systemic or organised effort—and the use of the term genocide. Biden's statement has strained U.S. ties with its NATO partner. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Turkey's foreign minister, said: "We will not be given lessons on our history from anyone."

 

https://www.newsweek.com/armenia-genocide-turkey-human-rights-1587053

[Yervant1]

Greek City Times

April 30 2021

Erdoğan’s games: “Armenians killed Greeks in Pontus”

by Paul Antonopoulos

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan engaged in historical revisionism regarding the Armenian Genocide by claiming that “Armenian gangs” even killed Greeks in Pontus.

“The research of historical events and the appearance of the truth must be left to these experts of the work,” he said on a speech given on Monday.

As is typical within the Turkish propaganda model, the Turkish president did not mention the fact that the Turkish-perpetrated genocide against Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians had academic consensus.

 

He also said “many states that are today in the territories of the Balkans were cut off from the country by asymmetric wars that began in this way.”

Of course, Erdoğan does not say that the First Balkan War was a joint effort by the states of Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria to liberate their historical homeland from Turkish-Ottoman occupation.

He then went onto say that “Armenian organisations, strengthened by the economic and political support of the West and the military support of Russia, attacked cities and villages, killing anyone in front of them.”

Although Turkey often emphasises this point, they cannot somehow explain that Genocide against Christians began as early as 1913 against the Ottoman Empire’s Greek minority, a whole year before World War I began.

“In many parts of our country there are many mass graves of Turks who were killed by Armenians, but nowhere will you find a mass grave of Armenians, because there was no such incident,” he said in defiance of academic consensus.

Nothing said by Erdoğan thus far is different from the decades long propaganda model adopted by Turkey.

However, he did add a new detail to Turkish propaganda regarding the genocide.

Erdogan claimed that “Armenian gangs did not hesitate to massacre even Greek Ottoman citizens in the area of Trapezounta (Τραπεζούντα, Turkish: Trabzon), as well as Jews in the area of Hakkâri.”

As has been accustomed though, the Turkish president provided no evidence for his claim.

During the Genocide, Ottoman-Turkish forces killed over three million Christians – about one million Greeks, with nearly a third of them from Pontus alone.

 

 

https://greekcitytimes.com/2021/04/29/erdogan-armenians-greeks-pontus/

 

[Yervant1]

AHVAL News

May 1 2021

Biden gives Erdoğan ‘a taste of his own medicine’ – Carnegie

• May 01 2021 11:11 Gmt+3
• Last Updated On: May 01 2021 11:20 Gmt+3

U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent reference to “Turkish genocide against Armenians in 1915” was a slap in the face delivered to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for clear strategic reasons, according to Dimitar Bechev, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center.

“In essence, the United States is giving Turkey a taste of its own medicine,” Bechev said.

“On Erdoğan’s watch, the relationship between the two NATO allies has degraded to a transactional partnership of convenience. Turkey has been sitting on two chairs, doing geopolitical business with Russia and calling on the United States on a case-by-case basis when interests happen to converge.”

The new Biden administration is taking a very different approach with Turkey, in an effort to distinguish itself from its predecessor . With former U.S. President Donald Trump in power, Turkey avoided major sanctions over its purchase of Russian-made S-400 missiles.

In 2017, Turkish President Recep Erdogan brokered a deal reportedly worth $2.5 billion with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the S-400 missile system. The S-400, a mobile surface-to-air missile system to pose a risk to the NATO alliance.

Despite warnings from the United States and other NATO allies, Turkey accepted the first of four missile batteries in July 2019. A week later, the United States cut Turkey from the programme to produce the F-35 fighter jet, which the U.S. military calls the most advanced technology yet produced. All other NATO allies are participating in the programme.

These sanctions were relatively light, Bechev noted, but Biden takes a completely different approach.

“Now Biden’s team is turning the tables, applying its own version of transactionalism. America will reach out to Turkey if the need arises. Since at present U.S. foreign policy does not prioritise either the Middle East or the Black Sea region, Erdoğan’s services are not required. Let the Europeans deal with Turkey, with the 2016 refugee deal up for renewal and trouble brewing in the Eastern Mediterranean. The United States has other fish to fry.”

Faced with this turnaround, Ankara has tried to “play the Russia card,” Bechev said.

“Turkey, its government asserts, is the only NATO member that has proven willing and able to check the Kremlin’s expansionism.”

Turkey has fought against Russia’s proxies in Syria and Libya.

In Syria, Turkish drones played a major part last year in a series of devastating attacks on Russian-supported Syrian armoured forces that caught some military observers by surprise and helped bring a Syrian government offensive against rebel areas to a halt.

In Libya, Russia and Turkey emerged as the most consequential players on opposite sides. Turkey intervened sending troops and drones in support of the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord, and enabling it to beat back Haftar’s forces, which had been supported by Russian mercenaries.

And Turkey intervened against Moscow in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute which pitted Armenia against Azerbaijan - the latter, an area that had been very much under Russia’s influence.

But Washington “is not ready to cut Turkey any slack,” Bechev insisted.

“The United States is sticking to its guns and demanding that Turkey give up the Russian missiles. As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it in his Senate confirmation hearing, ‘the idea that a strategic—so-called strategic—partner of ours would actually be in line with one of our biggest strategic competitors in Russia is not acceptable.’

Washington is also touting further sanctions against Turkey under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, in addition to those imposed at the tail end of Trump’s tenure over the purchase of the S-400s.”

With no reset with the United States on the horizon, Erdoğan has no choice other than to stay close to Russia, Bechev said.

“Turkey remains the weaker party in the ‘cooperative rivalry’ the two have forged during the past decade. Erdoğan’s will press on with a multi-vector foreign policy balancing between the West, Russia, and—increasingly—China. That is a state of affairs that should be perfectly comfortable for the Russian leadership.”

https://ahvalnews-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/ahvalnews.com/joe-biden/biden-gives-erdogan-taste-his-own-medicine-carnegie

[Yervant1]

Panorama, Armenia

May 1 2021

Italian mayor slams Turkish ambassador for 'intolerant interference' over Armenian Genocide commemoration event

The mayor of the Italian city of Ferrara slammed the Turkish ambassador for his “intolerant interference” in trying to achieve the cancellation of an event commemorating the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

“Ferrara is no Turkey,” infuriated Mayor Alan Fabbri said in a statement in response to Ambassador of Turkey to Italy Murad Salim Esenli’s letter, Armenpress reports.

The Turkish ambassador requested Fabbri to cancel the “Armenian Genocide Between Remembrance, Denial and Silence” event with participation of Antonia Arslan at a local theater in Ferrara. In his letter, the ambassador unsurprisingly pushed forward the Turkish denialism and called the event a “unilateral event” which is “based entirely on claims of Armenians.”

Mayor Fabbri didn’t hide his anger over this letter.

Noting that not only are there numerous proof of the Armenian Genocide, with the latest recognition coming from US President Joe Biden, but that the Turkish envoy is factually “suggesting in our own house to censor an event the only purpose of which is to commemorate the memory of 1,5 million innocent victims and struggle against denial which is taking place for too long.”

“We can’t allow the memory to be insulted, we can’t allow a country like Turkey, which doesn’t stand out with democratic indicators, to try and tangle democratic, peaceful and cultural initiatives which are carried out in a theater which is considered to be a temple of freedom. If with his intolerant interference the Turkish ambassador thinks he can dictate his rules in our own house, then I have to say he is deeply mistaken. Ferrara is a free city, which is against any dictatorship and denialism, and it will be that way forever,” the mayor said, adding that he will start the process of bestowing the title of Honorary Citizen of Ferrara to Italian-Armenian writer Antonia Arslan and Turkish historian Taner Akcam, who is known for his books on the Armenian Genocide.

“My respects and admiration to both of them,” Alan Fabbri said.

https://www.panorama.am/en/news/2021/05/01/Italian-mayor-Armenian-Genocide/2495393

[Yervant1]

How about Turkey's hate crimes against their native citizens who were there before your ilk came. I guess that's not a good idea? Hypocrites!!!!! You only bark when it's done to you!

 

DailySabah.com

Turkish citizens suffered 389 hate crimes abroad in 2020

BY ANADOLU AGENCY ANKARA DIASPORA

MAY 01, 2021 7:58 PM GMT+3

YPG/PKK terrorist group banners are displayed during the so-called

Hate crimes targeting Turkish citizens abroad increased by half during pandemic-ridden 2020, a report released by Turkey's Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) on Saturday found.

In the report titled "Attacks Targeting Turkish Citizens Abroad," the YTB said Turkish and Muslim minority communities, as well as individual members of such groups, places of worship, schools, associations, businesses and facilities belonging to them, plus Turkey's foreign representation offices, faced many more attacks than in 2019, along with a much greater degree of violence in these attacks.

Released annually, the report seeks to prompt international communication and cooperation mechanisms against the threats Turkish nationals are exposed to, especially in Western countries amid increasing Islamophobia and racism.

The number of hate crimes directly or indirectly targeting Turks abroad rose to 389, a 53.7% increase since 2019, according to the report.

It showed that 389 crimes had been committed across 28 different countries in America, Europe and Australia, though the report noted that most attacks were not reported in the media or to the YTB.

Turks in Europe suffer most attacks, Germany leads

With at least 205 attacks, Germany recorded the most crimes against Turks, followed by France with 40 and Austria with 37. In a single incident in the town of Hanau central Germany on Feb. 19, 2020, four Turks were gunned down by a far-right terrorist.

While far-right, racist and anti-Islamic terrorist groups accounted for the lion's share of hate crimes, the number of attacks by members of the PKK terrorist group, as well as Armenian racist groups, increased considerably.

At least five people lost their lives, while at least 36 were wounded in the attacks.

The report pointed out that 225 cases of hate speech or threats, 37 attacks on individuals and 25 arson cases constituted most of the crimes.

https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/diaspora/turkish-citizens-suffered-389-hate-crimes-abroad-in-2020

 

[Yervant1]

Jihad Watch

May 5 2021

Turkish MP Threatens Armenian MP with Murder

MAY 5, 2021 11:00 AM BY UZAY BULUT

As human rights advocates across the world commemorated on April 24 the 106th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey, a Turkish nationalist MP was threatening an Armenian MP with murder.

On April 27, Umit Ozdag, an independent member of Turkey’s parliament and a professor of political science, retweeted a statement by Garo Paylan, who is an Armenian MP from the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Ozdag referred to Talat ***** (1874-1921), one of the primary architects of the Armenian Genocide, which resulted in the systematic extermination of around 1.5 million Armenians. He wrote on his Twitter account, threatening Paylan:

Imprudent, provocative guy. If you are not so pleased, go to hell. Talat ***** did not drive out the patriotic Armenians, but those who shot them from behind like you do. When the time comes, you too will and must have a Talat ***** experience.

At least 12,300 people “liked” Ozdag’s tweet as of May 2.

Talat ***** was the Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire and one of the authorities who assumed primary responsibility for the planning and implementation of the Armenian Genocide. Ozdag’s threatening tweet was in response to this statement by Paylan:

106 years later, we are [still] walking the streets named after Talat *****, the architect of the genocide. We teach our children in schools called Talat *****.

[imagine] what kind of a Germany it would be if there were streets named after Hitler in Germany today and if children there studied at schools named after Hitler. That’s the Turkey we are living in today.

Paylan was referring to the fact that many streets, schools and other venues across Turkey are named after the government and military authorities who planned or implemented the Armenian Genocide.

Paylan responded to Ozdag on his Twitter:

The remnant of the mentality that exterminated my people says “we will do it again.” You shot us and did we not die? We did, but those who survived have never left the struggle for justice. They won’t quit after me

[i am gone]

either. The conscientious majority of this country have not left the [struggle] to fascists like you, and they will not do that.

Falsely claiming that Paylan has ties with groups such as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (or ASALA, which operated in the 1970s and 80s), and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Ozdag continued targeting Paylan with genocide denialist and racist slurs referring to Paylan’s blood:

A remnant of Dashnaks, an extension of ASALA, a supporter of the PKK. You killed hundreds of thousands of Turks, and shot our army from behind. The perpetrators were punished. Nobody touched the patriotic Armenians. But in your blood the Dashnak-ASALA-PKK virus is circulating. You are a ferocious enemy of the Turkish nation.

Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD) Co-Chair and lawyer Eren Keskin then called on prosecutors to open an investigation against Ozdag for his statements inciting violence:

We, as IHD’s Commission against Racism and Discrimination, will file a criminal complaint against Umit Ozdag. I wish a “true legist, prosecutor” would step up before we do, and open an investigation… Here is hoping.

As no public prosecutor has filed a complaint against Ozdag, Keskin took action and announced that the IHD filed a criminal complaint against Ozdag for “threatening” Paylan, “publicly provoking hatred and hostility” and “committing the crime of discrimination.”

However, it is very unlikely that Ozdag will be held accountable for his genocidal remarks, because his views are in line with those of the Turkish government. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself said on April 26 that it was Armenians who committed massacres against “millions of defenceless civilians.”

“Millions of Turks and Kurds, all civilians, were massacred by Armenian gangs,” Erdogan falsely claimed. This allegation has been historically dismissed, but Erdogan continued the narrative. “Feeling unsatisfied, Armenian gangs did not refrain from massacring Greeks in the vicinity of Trabzon and Jewish citizens of the Ottoman State in Hakkari,” he added.

These words demonstrate the scope of the irrationality of historic revisionism in Turkey. The victims are rewritten as the perpetrators and the perpetrators are labeled as the victims. Left is right and right is left. Everything is upside down.

Historical facts, however, clearly demonstrate what happened during the genocide. Beside Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other non-Muslims (such as Yazidis in Ottoman Turkey and Jews in Palestine before the establishment of the modern State of Israel) were targeted. It was a systematic attempt first by the Ottoman authorities and then by Turkish nationalist leaders to wipe out non-Muslims — particularly the indigenous Christians — from their ancient homeland. Honest historians agree on these historical realities. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, for instance, reported in 2007:

The Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

Yet 106 years after the genocide, the victims’ descendants are still targeted by the Turkish government, the political elites and the media. Armenians were the group exposed to the most hate speech by the Turkish media in 2019, according to the Hate Speech and Discrimination Media Discourse annual report by the Hrant Dink Association.

“Hate speech leads to hate crimes and our country lives in a climate of hate,” Paylan told the news site Gazete Duvar. “The whole political sphere ignores hate speech. Hate crimes are becoming commonplace. 106 years ago, genocide also took place in such an atmosphere of hate.” Paylan emphasized that crimes which have remained unpunished will be repeated.

He continued: “Özdağ takes this courage from the [existent] climate of hate. I am not afraid of it. If they kill, we will die, but we will never leave this country to the fascists. I engage in politics knowing this… Armenians are constantly subjected to hate crimes and hate speech in Turkey, including the 6-7 September pogrom in Istanbul [in 1955],” Paylan said. “My father was subjected to the same hate speech. And I am subjected to hate speech as a member of the third generation… We have been living the Talat ***** experience for 106 years.”

Over a century after the genocide, Turkey not only aggressively denies the genocide, but also falsely portrays Armenians as the perpetrators and threatens them with more murders. Meanwhile, the “Free World” stands idly by.

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist formerly based in Ankara.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2021/05/turkish-mp-threatens-armenian-mp-with-murder