ANCA Hopes for Massachusetts Court to Turn down Anti-Armenian Lawsuit
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.07.2006 14:01 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ A hearing date on whether or not to consider an
Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA) backed lawsuit to
compel the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to include denialist material
in their Armenian Genocide curriculum resource materials has been
set for September 18th, reported the Armenian National Committee of
Eastern Massachusetts. U.S. District Chief Judge Mark Wolf scheduled a
hearing for oral arguments on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts motion
to dismiss the lawsuit, filed by the ATAA, two teachers and a student.
"We welcome the scheduling of a hearing date and look forward to
the court taking this opportunity to dismiss this clearly unfounded
and deeply flawed lawsuit," said ANC of Eastern Massachusetts Chair
Sharistan Ardaljian. "The authors of this suit – in acting as effective
surrogates for Armenian Genocide deniers in Ankara – have committed
a grave disservice to the truth, to the cause of tolerance, and the
growing worldwide movement to prevent genocide."
The ATAA lawsuit calls for the inclusion of their website in a list
of educational sources for teachers, as part of a teacher’s guide on
genocide education provided by the State. The ATAA lawsuit also calls
for the addition of other websites, including that of the Embassy of
the Republic of Turkey, which the ATAA had lobbied to include in the
guide, but were disqualified because they denied the Armenian Genocide,
in direct contravention of the Massachusetts statute requiring the
teaching of the Armenian Genocide.
Soon after the lawsuit was introduced, the Massachusetts District
Attorney’s office had filed a motion to dismiss the case. The Armenian
Bar Association joined with the Armenian National Committee of America,
Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Irish Immigration
Center, in filing a friend of the court brief in March 2006, in support
of the dismissal, arguing that inclusion of Genocide denial materials
in the curriculum would fly in the face of repeated Massachusetts
proclamations and State Resolutions properly characterizing the
Armenian Genocide as ‘genocide.’