Theme of Armenian Genocide is in the focus of international media

Theme of Armenian Genocide is in the focus of international media

26.03.2010 20:48 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On April 9 the famous German television channel ARD
will show 90-minute documentary about the Armenian Genocide "Calamity"
(Aghet).

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic
destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during
and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres, and
deportations involving forced marches under conditions designed to
lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths
reaching 1.5 million.

The date of the onset of the genocide is conventionally held to be
April 24, 1915, the day that Ottoman authorities arrested some 250
Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople.
Thereafter, the Ottoman military uprooted Armenians from their homes
and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food
and water, to the desert of what is now Syria.

To date, twenty countries and 44 U.S. states have officially
recognized the events of the period as genocide, and most genocide
scholars and historians accept this view. The Armenian Genocide has
been also recognized by influential media including The New York
Times, BBC, The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the
Genocide survivors.