Armenian Assembly of America
1140 19th Street, NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-393-3434
Fax: 202-638-4904
Email: [email protected]
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PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 7, 2007
CONTACT: Karoon Panosyan
E-mail: [email protected]
SENATOR DURBIN HOLDS HEARING ON "GENOCIDE AND THE RULE OF LAW"
Armenian Assembly Calls for Strengthening International Safeguards
and for Educational Reforms in Turkey
Washington, DC – The Armenian Assembly on Monday called on Congress to
strengthen international legal protections against genocide and its
denial in testimony submitted for a Senate hearing on "Genocide and the
Rule of Law."
"We commend Chairman Durbin and his colleagues for establishing this
historic subcommittee, and echo Chairman Durbin’s praise for full
Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy’s vision in creating this
Subcommittee," said Executive Director Bryan Ardouny.
"Assistant Democratic Leader Durbin has a long-standing record in
support of human rights issues, including affirmation of the Armenian
Genocide," continued Ardouny.
The Assembly’s testimony, submitted to the first-ever Senate Committee
on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, noted that
the law was silent in 1915 when hundreds of thousands of Armenians were
sent on death marches, subjected to massacres and starved to death in
the parched desert.
The testimony said in part: "from the time of its founding in 1972, the
Armenian Assembly supported Senator William Proxmire’s unremitting
campaign to persuade the Senate to approve implementing legislation
enabling the U.S. adoption of the U.N. Genocide Convention."
The Assembly encouraged the Subcommittee to actively generate and
introduce new mechanisms to better protect potential victims from future
genocides and to improve the U.S. record on genocide prevention.
"[A]ffirmation of history by our lawmaking institutions is the best hope
available to respond to the power of denial with the decency of the law
and the principles that protect and defend basic human rights," stated
Assembly Executive Director Bryan Ardouny.
The Assembly’s testimony also noted that "Turkey is the only country in
the world where speaking the truth about the Armenian Genocide is
regarded as a prosecutable offense," and pointed out that Hrant Dink,
the Armenian journalist and citizen of Turkey who was assassinated, had
been prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, which
restricts citizens of Turkey from challenging their government’s
distortions and denials of historical facts.
The Assembly also called upon Turkey to pay serious attention to the
plea of the Armenian patriarch of Istanbul, His Beatitude Mesrop II
Mutafyan, who called for an end of the stigmatization of Armenians by
the Turkish educational system and for the reform of school curricula.
Ardouny stated that, "The application of law should not be limited to
prosecution after the crime has been committed. The laws on public
education are where prejudice is averted and the environment of
tolerance first is instilled."
The hearing, which was presided over by Chairman Richard Durbin (D-IL),
also included remarks by Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney
General Sigal Mandelker, Canadian Senator Lieutenant General Romeo A.
Dallaire, actor and activist Don Cheadle and American University
Professor Diane F. Orentlicher. Some 14 organizations also submitted
testimony, including the Armenian National Committee of America, Amnesty
International and Save Darfur, among others.
The Armenian Assembly of America is the largest Washington-based
nationwide organization promoting public understanding and awareness of
Armenian issues. It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt membership organization.
###
NR#2007-028
Attached is the full text of the Armenian Assembly’s Testimony:
The Armenian Assembly of America
Testimony Regarding
Genocide and the Rule of Law
Submitted by Bryan Ardouny, Executive Director
Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee of the
Senate Judiciary Committee
February 5, 2007
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Coburn and members of the Subcommittee, the
Armenian Assembly of America is pleased to offer testimony at today’s
hearing on "Genocide and the Rule of Law."
The Armenian Assembly of America applauds the creation of the first-ever
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law and commends Chairman Durbin
for making this hearing on "Genocide and the Rule of Law" a priority. It
is a testament to the importance that the United States places on the
respect for fundamental human rights. The work of the Subcommittee in
examining past crimes against humanity to draw lessons learned to
prevent future atrocities is further testament to this principle. It is
clear that the existing international legal framework as well as the
U.S. record on genocide prevention is insufficient. We hope this
Subcommittee actively generates and introduces new mechanisms to better
protect potential victims from future genocides and to improve the U.S.
record on genocide prevention. The Armenian Assembly and the entire
Armenian-American community stand ready to help in these efforts.
As we reflect on the continuing problem of genocide, certainly the 20th
century stands out as one marred by mass killings on a scale never
before seen in history. From the Armenian Genocide at the turn of the
century, which the world easily forgot but for Adolf Hitler, who
infamously invoked it by saying: "Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?" as he unleashed the horrors of World War
II and the Holocaust – to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the
atrocities in Rwanda, and now in the 21st century, the decimation of the
population of Darfur, the trail of crimes against humanity painfully
continues.
The absence of international law to hold the perpetrators of the
Armenian Genocide accountable was dishearteningly evident at the end of
World War I. But for a brief series of domestic trials in Turkey, which
were too soon discontinued, the organizers of the Armenian atrocities
avoided responsibility and escaped judgment. This very lack of
accountability to one’s own nation and to the international community
for having committed mass atrocities propelled a true giant in the
defense of human rights, Raphael Lemkin, to ask why a murderer may be
charged for a single crime, while a mass murderer is excused. It would
take one more genocide for mankind to find the sense of outrage that is
now embodied in the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of
the Crime of Genocide, of which the United States is a signatory.
In fact, the Armenian Assembly of America was part of the coalition of
organizations headed by the American Bar Association advocating for the
U.S. adoption of the U.N. Genocide Convention. From the time of its
founding in 1972, the Armenian Assembly supported Senator William
Proxmire’s unremitting campaign to persuade the Senate to approve
implementing legislation enabling the U.S. adoption of the Convention.
The Armenian Assembly had the honor then of giving testimony in
committee and in writing, as part of the commitment of the
Armenian-American community to doing its share in creating greater
awareness of the danger of genocide.
The law was silent in 1915 when Armenians by the hundreds of thousands
were sent on death marches, subjected to massacres, and starved to death
in the parched desert. While the law was silent, leading voices of
conscience in the United States and elsewhere around the world were far
more vocal. Newspapers across America carried chilling accounts under
headlines such as "Armenians Are Sent to Perish in the Desert" and
"1,500,000 Armenians Starve" (New York Times, August 18, and Sept. 5,
1915, respectively). In turn, America’s diplomatic representatives in
the Ottoman Empire performed an extraordinary service by recording their
eyewitness accounts and sending them to the Department of State and the
President. Their horror and indignation prompted U.S. Ambassador Henry
Morgenthau, with the approval of the State Department, to appeal to
American humanitarians to respond to the crisis in the Middle East. At a
time when relief agencies were non-existent, the U.S. Senate called upon
the American people to rescue the survivors of the Armenian Genocide. A
resolution adopted by the Senate on February 9, 1916, reads in part:
Whereas the people of the United States of America have learned with
sorrow of this terrible plight of great numbers of human beings [several
hundreds of thousands of Armenians in need of food, clothing, and
shelter] and have most generously responded to the cry for help whenever
such an appeal has reached them: Therefore be it
Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), That,
in view of the misery, wretchedness, and hardships which these people
are suffering, the President of the United States be respectfully asked
to designate a day on which the citizens of this country may give
expression to their sympathy by contributing to the funds now being
raised for the relief of the Armenians in the belligerent countries.
Further, in 1919 the Senate incorporated the agency called Near East
Relief for the express purpose of providing for the care of orphans and
widows and to promote the welfare of those rendered destitute by "the
cruelties of men."
Against the background of overwhelming evidence that would have been
sufficient to prosecute any number of the criminals involved in the
Armenian Genocide, today the Armenian-American community instead
struggles against the unremitting forces of denial that want to bury the
past, distort history, and erase the memory of this crime against
humanity. To quote Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University, who
personally confronted the problem in court, "Denial of genocide is the
final stage of genocide; it is what Elie Wiesel has called ‘a double
killing.’ " It seeks to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the
perpetrators.
Descendents of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide in their
respective countries of residence have appealed to their governments to
stop this denial and to re-affirm the historic record on its occurrence.
For them, as for us in the Armenian Assembly of America, the affirmation
of history by our lawmaking institutions is the best hope available to
respond to the power of denial with the decency of the law and the
principles that protect and defend basic human rights.
Denial also subverts the essence of the rule of law. It is a form of
violation, a violation of the right to honor the memory of the victims
of genocide without facing the abuses and indignity of denial. For this
very reason the Armenian-American community with every Congress has
urged legislators to re-affirm this history, and most especially the
very honorable American record of humanitarian response to the Armenian
Genocide. Therefore, we remain deeply concerned that the Department of
State, despite the very evidence in its own archives, has consistently
opposed Congressional resolutions that properly identify the mass
killing of the Armenians as genocide. This policy is not consistent with
the American record on human rights and flies in the face of past and
current policy to expose those who commit atrocities and to bring them
to justice.
Most regrettably, Congress and the Department of State need to be
reminded that denial is not a problem of semantics alone. A mere two
weeks ago a terrible crime was committed in Turkey that reminded the
world how high can be the price of fighting denial.
Turkey is the only country in the world where speaking the truth about
the Armenian Genocide is regarded as a prosecutable offense. The
infamous Article 301 of the Turkish penal code coercively restricts the
freedom of expression and has been invoked in dozens of cases against
peaceful law-abiding citizens of Turkey who have taken a public position
challenging their government’s distortions and denials of historical
facts.
The new Turkish penal code, adopted by the Turkish legislature, as part
of its accession process to the European Union, and intended to
introduce reforms in Turkey, has clearly been shown to be a step
backward instead of progress forward.
It is extremely unfortunate that one of the most prominent figures of
the Armenian community in Turkey was prosecuted under Article 301. The
Turkish courts dismissed all other cases filed under Article 301 with
the exception of Hrant Dink, one of the most vocal advocates of human
rights and tolerance in Turkey.
For mere mention of the Armenian Genocide he was hauled to court and
found guilty in 2005. His very public prosecution in the courts and in
the Turkish media made him a target of extremists. Now he is dead,
assassinated in front of the office of the newspaper he founded, a
newspaper he published in Armenian and Turkish to foster understanding
and dialogue among those two communities.
In a country of 71 million people, the representative of the Armenian
minority (approximately 60,000) in Turkey, which numbers less that a
tenth of one percent of the population, the remnant of a people once
counted at over 2 million, happens to be the individual meted punishment
and public condemnation for speaking about events in history that
occurred more than 90 years ago.
Clearly, the law in Turkey violates the very spirit of what the law is
supposed to be, the instrument by which society protects its citizens,
the guarantee by which fundamental freedoms are protected, the
institution that looks after the safety and security of everyone of its
constituents.
Here the rule of law has been turned upside down by Article 301, abused
by prosecutors and judges to impose an authoritarian conformity adhering
to extreme and intolerant forms of nationalism, and applied in a manner
that targeted the bravest champion of democratic freedoms to the point
of exposing him and delivering him as the victim of a ruthless assassin.
Article 301 of the Turkish penal code has become a painful reminder of
the abuses of the law that allowed genocide to be committed in 1915,
much as it became the propellant that added the name of so distinguished
a journalist, a figure honored everywhere for his courage and decency,
to the list of victims of hate, racism, chauvinism, and extremism.
Many in Turkey condemned the murder of Hrant Dink. A reported 100,000
marched at his funeral, an outpouring of grief over the demise of one
man and a statement of public concern for the ominous dangers
threatening democracy and free speech in Turkey. Yet just weeks after
this act of solidarity, a different set of pictures has emerged from
Turkey, of police officers lining up to be photographed with the
assailant (a Turkish flag held between his hands), of crowds in stadiums
holding banners and chanting slogans with messages opposed to the
peaceful rally that carried Hrant Dink to his gravesite.
Hrant Dink did not break the law, as we understand the law. He believed
in the freedom of speech, and he wanted to speak freely. He believed in
the freedom of the press, and he wanted to publish freely. He believed
in the freedom of expression, and he wanted Turks and Armenians to
communicate without rancor. He needed the protection of the law, but did
not receive it. Hrant Dink did not violate the law. Rather, the law
failed Hrant Dink.
The rule of law means more than enforcement. It means respecting the
spirit of the law as the law was meant to be. By the murder of a single
person, or the slaughter of one and a half million, genocide and the
denial of genocide offends the spirit of the law and calls for justice,
whether from two weeks ago, two years ago, or 92 years ago.
The Armenian Assembly of America calls upon Congress to consider and
introduce measures that strengthen international legal protections
against genocide and to do the same regarding the denial of genocide.
The Armenian Assembly of America also calls upon Turkey to pay serious
attention to the plea of the Armenian patriarch of Istanbul, His
Beatitude Mesrop II Mutafyan, who called for an end of the
stigmatization of Armenians by the Turkish educational system and the
reform of school curricula.
The application of the law should not be limited to prosecution after
the crime has been committed. The laws on public education are where
prejudice is averted and the environment of tolerance first is
instilled. The U.N. Genocide Convention did not call for punishment
alone. It aspired for the prevention of genocide. Prevention, whether of
a single crime, or atrocities on the scale of genocide, starts with
education. So does the rule of law.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
