FRENCH ARMENIANS CONDEMN DESECRATING OF MEMORIAL TO VICTIMS OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN LYON

AZG Armenian Daily
20/04/2006

The Coordination Board of the France based Armenian Organizations
strictly condemned the act of desecration of the memorial to the
Victims of the Armenian Genocide in Lyon that was due to be unveiled
on April 24.

Earlier, by the order of the Turkish government, the Turkish consulate
in Lyon tried to hinder the construction of the memorial. On April 17,
the Turkish vandals wrote statements denying the genocide and praising
the Turks on the columns of the memorial.

“By taking such steps the Turkish nationalists living in France join
the neo-Nazi scoundrels that desecrate the Holocaust memorials,”
the statements of the France based Armenian organizations reads. The
organizations demand that the French political and the judiciary powers
should response this act with strictness, “as such vandalism cases
violate not only the rights of the Armenian community but also those
of all the French citizens and the republic, as well as violate such
values as memory, truth and justice.” The authors of the statement
demand that the vandals should undergo criminal prosecution.