GRAY WOLVES THREATENING TURKISH HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS FOR APRIL 24 COMMEMORATION

Tert.am
28.04.10

Human rights defenders are being scared in Turkey for paying tribute
to the memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide in the break
up of Ottoman Empire in 1915.

Representatives of the Istanbul branch of Union for Human Rights
Defense are being threatened to death by representatives of Turkish
nationalist circles for having organized a commemoration of the
victims of the Armenian Genocide on the central square in Istanbul
on April 24, reports Turkish Firat news agency.

In an interview with Firat Secretary of the Union for Human Rights
Defense Baki Bogan said they were receiving e-mails verbally assaulting
them and threatening to kill them.

"Last year too we made a statement over the Genocide and received
threatening e-mails. But this year the number of threats has
multiplied," said Bogan, adding they were planning to lodge a complaint
against the sender of those e-mails.

"We have not explored the source of those e-mails yet. But it can
definitely be said that their content corresponds to the ideas of
the extremist organization Gray Wolves," said Bogan, adding that what
happened in 1915 constituted Genocide.

"More than 1 million people died during the Genocide. It does not
matter whether the Turks or the Kurds perpetrated those killings. What
does matter is that it was implemented upon specific instructions by
the state," concluded Bogan.