Assyria Times
April 18 2010
Hundreds Protest in Sydney for Genocide Recognition
By Raymond Elishapour
Hundreds of people had amassed outside the Turkish consulate this
morning, divided by press and Police protesting both for the
recognition of the Armenian and Assyrian Genocide and its denial.
Armenians, Assyrians and other Human Rights Activists brought signs
and their voices to the Sydney suburb of Woollahra ` protesting
against atrocities committed during the early 20th century. The issue
was the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire against (a reported)
two and a half million people made up of predominantly Armenian,
Assyrian and Greek people.
The two sides took up their place outside the consulate and there was
a bitter and heated shouting match between the two groups. There was
evident tension as the controversial and disputed genocide issue was
contested. Among their chants, the Armenian and Assyrian empathisers
asserted their desire to have justice for the atrocities committed in
1915 ` shouting that justice was yet to be done for those murdered and
that their quarrel was not with the Turkish Australian community in
Sydney but in the Ottoman perpetrators, instigators and officials that
oversaw the mass slaughter, rape and destruction that characterized
the closing phases of the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia.
The opposition to the genocide recognition included anti-Armenian
chants, jeering and attempts to provoke the demonstrators into
retaliation. Though separated by a strong police presence, Turkish,
flag-bearing deniers took to insisting that this first group was
lying, that there was no evidence and more summarily and
inflammatorily that the fathers of those that were demonstrating were
Turks (possibly alluding the rape of women and children during the
same, alleged genocide). It seemed relatively evident that there was
little substance to the Turkish denial, whose entire presence reveled
in chanting slander, inciting violent retaliation and otherwise
ridiculing the attempts at pressing the cause for recognition and
acceptance of the otherwise forgotten genocide of 1915 ` 1920,
encompassing Seyfo.
If anything this demonstration reflects a resurgence of consideration
of the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocide in contemporary world
politics, as progressively there is pressure being placed upon the
Turkish state to consider its history and in a sense `come clean.’
The evidence is clear however, that Turkey both nationally and abroad
is intent on denying and avoiding liability and admission of the
genocide.
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