ASSOCIATION FOR FIGHTING GROUNDLESS CLAIMS OF GENOCIDE (ASIMED) LAUNCHED COUNTER-CAMPAIGN AGAINST ARMENIAN DIASPORA
ArmInfo
2009-08-12 17:10:00
ArmInfo. The California State Assembly Education Committee’s recent
passage of a piece of legislation that calls on the California State
Curriculum Commission to consider the inclusion of an oral history
component in its already mandatory genocide education curriculum has
prompted the Association for Fighting Groundless Claims of Genocide
(ASIMED) to launch an e-mail campaign against the legislation, which
will lead to terming the World War I killings of Anatolian Armenians
as genocide.
The influential US-based Armenian diaspora organization, the Armenian
National Committee of America (ANCA), last week announced that the
legislation, authored by Republican California Senator Mark Wyland
and known as SB 234, the Genocide Awareness Act. Both the existing
curriculum and SB 234 make explicit reference to the allegations
of Armenian genocide in addition to several other genocides of the
20th century. The California State Senate unanimously passed the bill
on June 3 this year. Having cleared the CA State Assembly Education
Committee, SB 234 now moves to the CA State Assembly Appropriations
Committee for consideration, ANCA noted on Friday.
Assistant Professor Savas Egilmez of the Erzurum-based Ataturk
University, who heads ASIMED, has warned about the probable
implications of the bill, announcing that ASIMED has been preparing
to launch an e-mail campaign protesting the bill, the Cihan news
agency reported.
"This bill will cause the equalizing of the 1915 events with the
Holocaust and the Cambodian and Rwandan genocides," Egilmez was quoted
as saying, referring to the killings of Anatolian Armenians during
the early 20th century as "the 1915 events."
If the legislation is adopted, Turkish-American children attending
schools in California will also be exposed to the Armenian lobby’s
campaigns, Egilmez said. "Young people from other ethnic origins
will label Turks as barbarians and will have prejudice and enmity
against Turks. Recognition of this legislation in a state will trigger
similar legislation in other states or at least it will encourage
the diaspora on this issue. That’s why both citizens of the Turkish
Republic and Turks living in the United States should lend support to
the protest campaign against this legislation," he said, adding that
he would guide people who would like to join the protest campaign if
they send their e-mails to [email protected].