ARMENIAN GENOCIDE: A PROTEST WAS HELD NEAR TURKISH CONSULATE IN LOS ANGELES
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.04.2007 18:39 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Armenians and their supporters gathered on the
streets of Hollywood to commemorate the 92nd anniversary of the
Armenian Genocide, one of the first acts of genocide in the 20th
century. "We are recalling the attack on the night of April 24,
1915, when, in Istanbul, the leaders of the Armenian community were
executed," Haig Hovsepian, community relations director for Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA) Western Region said. Hovsepian
described the act as "the beginning of years of violence against the
Armenian community by Turks". "An estimated 1.2 million were killed
between 1915 and 1918, the last days of the Ottoman Empire during
World War I. Turkey maintains that the deaths were not sanctioned
by the government and disputes that a genocide took place," he
said. Los Angeles police estimated that the crowd along Fairfax
Avenue at about 1,000 protesters, but Hovsepian said he thought it
was double or triple that number and growing as the demonstration
neared the Turkish Consulate in Hollywood. Thousands of people
protest the Armenian genocide in two marches in Hollywood and at the
Turkish embassy on Wilshire Blvd in the Miracle Mile. Los Angeles
police estimated that 2,500 to 3,000 showed up for the march. "The
demonstrations were peaceful with no arrests or traffic disruption,"
said LAPD spokeswoman Officer Karen Smith.