Amal Clooney’s latest case: Why Turkey won’t talk about the Armenian
genocideThe human rights lawyer represents Armenia in the ECHR – but what
happened in 1915 when up to 1.5m Armenians were killed, and why do Turks
deny it was a genocide?

[image: A picture released by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute dated
1915 purportedly shows soldiers standing over skulls of victims from the
Armenian village of Sheyxalan in the Mush valley, on the Caucasus front
during the First World War. Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their
forebears were killed in a 1915-16 genocide by Turkey’s former Ottoman
Empire. Turkey says 500,000 died and ascribes the toll to fighting and
starvation during World War I.]
A picture released by the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute dated 1915
purportedly shows soldiers standing over skulls of victims from the
Armenian village of Sheyxalan in the Mush valley, on the Caucasus front
during the First World War. Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images
[image: Raziye Akkoc]

By Raziye Akkoc

8:37AM GMT 28 Jan 2015

Amal Clooney, the human rights lawyer, has *taken on another controversial
case
*
– the Armenian genocide.

Mrs Clooney is part of a team representing Armenia in a case she opens on
Wednesday in which a Turkish politician was convicted by Switzerland for
denying the genocide in 1915 ever took place.

*How has the Armenian genocide ended up in the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR)?*

DoÄ=9Fu Perinçek, chairman of the Turkish Workers’ Party, described
the
genocide of up to 1.5 million Armenians – a fact Turkey disputes as well as
the number of those killed – as an “international lie” in Switzerland in
2005.

A lobby group called Switzerland-Armenia immediately filed a criminal
complaint against him in July as it is against Swiss law to deny the
genocide as part of the country’s anti-racism laws.
Related Articles

– [image: Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney]

–

Amal Clooney takes on Armenia genocide case

12 Jan 2015
–

Armenian genocide is a ‘fact of history

21 Dec 2011
–

Amal Clooney accuses Turkey of hypocrisy on freedom of speech in
Armenian genocide trial

28 Jan 2015
–

‘The river flowed with blood’

18 Oct 2007

Mr Perinçek was found guilty of racial discrimination in 2007 in
Switzerland because “his motives were of a racist tendency”, according to a
later description of the case in an ECHR press release in 2013.

The Turkish national exhausted legal routes in Switzerland to appeal the
judgment but his appeal was dismissed and in June 2008, he lodged an
application to the ECHR complaining that his freedom of expression was
breached.

The Turkish government also submitted written comments as a third party
questioning the veracity of the genocide.

In December 2013, the ECHR agreed with Mr Perinçek and said his conviction
was “unjustified”.

*Why is Amal Clooney representing Armenia? *

Armenia is now challenging the ECHR’s verdict and is represented in the
case by lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers in London.

It has been reported Amal Clooney will be present, although it is unclear
whether she will be a barrister in the case to be heard by the Strasbourg
court’s 17-member Grand Chamber on Wednesday.

Amal Clooney with Kostas Tassoulas, Greek culture minister, during her last
high profile case – the return of the Elgin Marbles

For many Armenians, the genocide, like the Holocaust of six million Jews,
is still a painful issue exacerbated by Turkey’s continued denials. In the
Perinçek case, Armenia hopes to set out that the genocide is a fact which
cannot be denied without legal repercussions.

*What happened in 1915? *

In the last years of the Ottoman Empire, ethnic divisions became a bigger
problem for those in charge and the Armenians were viewed with suspicion.

Turkish historian, *Taner Akçam, in his book, A Shameful Act
*,
explains how non-Muslim communities were organised in a *millet *system of
limited self-government. Although the Ottomans ruled, certain groups along
religious and ethnic lines had limited control over their own affairs.

In 1908, junior army officers – often referred to as the Young Turks and
Committee of Unity and Progress (CUP) – seized power from Sultan Abdul
Hamid II, and the country underwent a process of what many historians call
“Turkification”. This nationalism was intended to bring all cultures
together but in 1914, “the Young Turks began a campaign to portray the
Armenians as a kind of fifth column,” according to *John Kifner in the New
York Times
*.

It is generally accepted by many, including historians and Mr Sarafian,
that the start of the massacres was April 24, 1915. This was the date on
which several hundred Armenian individuals were arrested and killed and led
to further massacres across Turkey.

The map below shows the areas where massacres took place – the larger the
circle, the greater the number of those killed.

(Data from Armenian National Committee of America)

It is believed this lasted until 1917 and led to 1.5 million Armenians
killed – a figure Turkey disputes, putting the figure at 300,000 to
600,000. Armenians are said to have sided with the Russians, and there were
groups who did so – the southeastern city of Van was seized at one point in
1915.

The murders took the form of death marches and deportations of Armenian
families. Many died as a result of hunger and exhaustion but many were
killed and their bodies found in mass graves years later.

In 1923 – the same year the republic was established – similar events
occurred but “with less intensity”, *according to Raffi Sarkissian
*,
co-chairman of the Armenian Genocide Centenary Commemoration Committee.

The Armenian National Institute, a Washington DC-based organisation, said
the deportations were disguised as a resettlement programme.

*”The brutal treatment of the deportees, most of whom were made to walk to
their destinations, made it apparent that the deportations were mainly
intended as death marches. Moreover, the policy of deportation surgically
removed the Armenians from the rest of society and disposed of great masses
of people with little or no destruction of property.”*

The events were not unknown to either the media – *New York Times’ archive
of coverage
**
– *or governments. In 1915, the actions were described as a `crime
against
humanity’ by France, Britain and Russia.

*But if there is evidence, why does Turkey deny it was a genocide? *

Turkey’s position – explained by Geoffrey Robertson QC, founder of the
Doughty Street Chambers in his book, An Inconvenient Genocide- is that the
intent to kill Armenians was not genocidal, according to its meaning.

Raphael Lemkin, a lawyer of Polish-Jewish origin, *coined the term genocide
* as “referring
to violent crimes committed against groups with the intent to destroy the
existence of the group”.

The Turkish republic does not deny there were deaths but disputes the 1.5
million figure and that the intent was to eliminate an entire race. Turkey
claims the killings were part of a conflict not a systematic genocidal
campaign of murder and “that the Armenians as a group took up arms against
their own government” and joined Russian forces.

Turkey says “demographic studies prove that prior to World War I, fewer
than 1.5 million Armenians lived in the entire Ottoman Empire. Thus,
allegations that more than 1.5 million Armenians from eastern Anatolia died
must be false”.

But Mr Robertson points out the Armenian Church estimates 2.1 million
Armenians lived in the empire.

According to Ara Sarafian, an Armenian historian, there are papers which
indicate the genocidal nature of Turkey’s actions including the papers of
Talaat Pasha, one of the Young Turks in charge of the Ottoman Empire,
published by a Turkish journalist in 2011.

Mr Sarafian told *Mediamax
*: “I
decided to present his data as the official view of the Armenian Genocide
according to Ottoman records… It has a column showing the Armenian
population of different provinces in 1914 according to official Ottoman
statistics, and it has a column that has been generated from the returns to
the 1917 survey. Most of these missing Armenians were probably killed.”

*What does the Turkish foreign ministry say?*

The Telegraph contacted the Turkish foreign ministry for comment on both
the ECHR case and the Armenian genocide claims.

According to Turkey, “our memory does not support the Armenian narrative on
the events of 1915, [but] it is only Turks and Armenians who can
effectively address their issues together and work jointly to find ways
forward. Turkey is ready to do its part”.

Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ=9Fan, the Turkish president

Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ=9Fan, the Turkish president, has also acknowledged the
“suffering [of] Turkish, Kurdish, Arab, Armenian and millions of other
Ottoman citizens”.

The *ministry’s full explanation of Turkey’s position
*
can be found here.

Orhan Tung, press counsellor at the Turkish embassy in London at the time
it was published, *wrote in the New Statesman in 2007
*,
“credible evidence” had not been shared to prove it was a genocide – an
argument Turkey often repeats.

*”On the legal aspect, the elements of the genocide crime are strictly
defined and codified by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment
of the Genocide, adopted by the General Assembly on 9 December 1948.
However, Armenians, claiming that “the evidence is so overwhelming”, so far
have failed to submit even one credible evidence of genocide.”*

*Where does the debate currently stand? *

In total, 18 countries accept the massacres as genocide, including Germany,
Greece, and France (you can find the full list *here
*).

The British parliament does not officially refer to the killings as
genocide, but John Whittingdale, a Conservative MP and British-Armenian
All-Party Parliamentary Group, told The Telegraph it was a “terrible
massacre [that] we should recognise as genocide”.

Mr Whittingdale added he thought it was “unlikely” the British government
would accept the 1915 events as genocide.

Mr Sarafian told the Telegraph he is however hopeful Turkey will recognise
the events as a genocide.The historian who frequently goes to Turkey said
although it still “hurt for the state to deny the events”, Mr ErdoÄ=9Fan
has
made Turkey more open to discussion – despite his denials.

“In the 1980s I studied in Turkey and with my friends – they knew I was
Armenian – we never discussed the genocide.”

Now the historian goes to southeastern Turkey for events that explore the
genocide and he hopes to encourage both sides to talk about it “because we
are the same”.