60 WORLD LEADING EXPERTS ON HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDE STUDIES SIGN A PETITION
FOR THE SWEDISH PARLIAMENT
armradio.am
10.06.2008 10:46
On an initiative of Vahagn Avedian, Chairman of the Board of Union
of Armenian Associations in Sweden, a petition published in 10
languages, whose Turkish, is addressed yesterday to the members of
the Swedish Parliament in order to influence on a decision of the
Foreign Affairs’s Commission suggesting at the Parliament and the
government to disallow the proposals for a recognition of Armenian
Genocide of 1915, independent correspondent Jean Eckian informed.
An extract of this text indicates: "Today, Sweden is internationally
regarded as a champion of human rights. It is incumbent on the Swedish
authorities to live up to this reputation and to reject any compromise
with negationism and denial. The Swedish Government should attempt to
assist Turkey to become a better democracy by facing its history and
acknowledging the truth, not by continuing to stagger in the darkness
of self-deception and pretense. Today, the data and information
about the Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks are so
extensive that no serious politician can honestly cite insufficient
or inconclusive research as an excuse to avoid recognition. Refusal
to recognize established fact based on qualitative and quantitative
research may be regarded as being tantamount to denial."
"The signatories of this letter do not consider there is any doubt that
the massacres of Christians and other minorities in the Ottoman Empire
during the World War I constituted genocide. Even though research
must and will continue, the existing information is compelling and
must be acknowledged as such," the petition concluded.