Monsters and Critics.com, UK –
May 5 2007

Books News
Author is harassed at book signing, man denies genocide

By M&C News May 5, 2007, 15:16 GMT

Margaret Ajemian Ahnert is the author of the memoir The Knock at the
Door, which is about her mother and her experience with the Armenian
genocide. Thinking this was only going to be a casual reading of her
work at a Barnes & Noble on the Upper East Side in New York, instead
led to a man being arrested for harassing the author.

The man began shouting, passing out leaflets, as well as interrupting
Ms. Ahnert’s reading, shouting how the genocide never occurred.
Anhert’s book goes into detail about how her mother survived the
genocide as a teenager during World War I before she came to the
United States.

`Here I was trying to tell the story of my mother, not making a
political statement,’ she said. `It’s a mother-daughter story, it’s
how it affected my life. It’s not just about the Armenian genocide,
it’s about my mother growing up, my life, and events in her life that
affected me. It’s a mother-daughter memoir. I’m not making any
historical statements.’

The Ottoman Empire was responsible for the death of more than one
million people around 1915, as a means of eliminating the Armenian
population throughout what is now Turkey. The man who was arrested
was identified as Erdem Sahin, 41, a Turkish immigrant who lives on
Staten Island.

When asked about his views on the Armenian genocide, he said,
`Honestly, I’m not a historian, but historians say there is no
genocide.’ A spokeswoman for the Barnes & Noble chain said that
passing out pamphlets violated the company’s no-solicitation policy.
`They were asked to stop passing out leaflets. They refused. They
were jeering the author. They were asked to sit down and they
refused.’ That was when the police were called,’ she said.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress