Los Angeles Daily News, CA
April 3 2015
Man attempts to fast for 55 days to draw attention to Armenian Genocide
By Susan Abram, Los Angeles Daily News
Posted: 04/03/15, 8:41 PM PDT |
Agasi Vartanyan sits on his cot as he starts a 55-day fast in a glass
enclosure at St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank, Friday, April 3,
2015, to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. (Photo by
Michael Owen Baker/L.A. Daily News)
After a few last words and a blessing by a priest, Agasi Vartanyan
stepped into a glass enclosure outside a Burbank church Friday
morning, where he aims to survive for nearly two months on nothing but
water and willpower.
It’s no David Blaine-like stunt or magical illusion. Instead,
Vartanyan’s 55-day public fast is about casting global attention on
what he calls an injustice to the 1.5 million Armenians who were
killed by the Ottoman Turks starting a century ago.
“I will not eat for those who were tortured, raped, abused, sent on
death marches, dehumanized and killed,” said the Glendale man in a
statement through a translator. “I will not eat to bring awareness to
a genocide that modern-day Turkey still refuses to recognize as well
as for the genocides still taking place today.”
* VIDEO: Agasi Vartanyan will fast for 55 days at Burbank church
Vartanyan’s efforts are supported by the nonprofit Crimes Against
Humanity — Never Again (CAHNA), which formed to raise global awareness
on genocides past and present.
Armenians mark April 24, 1915, as the date their nation’s
intellectuals were rounded up, arrested and later executed by Turkish
soldiers as part of a movement to “Turkify” the region. The killings
led to what Armenians call a systematic cleansing of their collective
existence from the region, where Assyrians and Pontic Greeks were also
affected.
But neither Turkey nor the United States has classified the events as
a genocide. Locally, Rep. Adam Schiff has taken up the cause, hoping
to push the Obama administration and the Turkish government to
officially acknowledge the genocide.
The lack of recognition and accountability are why ethnic cleansings
continue, said CAHNA’s president Harut Sassounian, who lost relatives
to the genocide.
“Our purpose is to raise awareness of genocides so that they never
happen again. As you can see, they are still happening in Iraq and
Syria,” he said, referring to mass killings and rapes of ethnic
minorities by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
* PHOTOS: Fasting for 55 days to draw attention to Armenian Genocide
Built on a high platform outside St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in
Burbank, the nearly 12-by-12-foot glass enclosure allows the public to
see Vartanyan day and night. He’s been given 55 gallons of water, a
few clothes, a lounge chair and a television. There’s also a live
stream at cahna.org.
Vartanyan said he chose 55 days because he is 55 years old and he
wants to break his own record. Several years ago, he survived without
food and only water 50 days.
“I thought about this for many years,” he said. “I’m positively
inclined to carry this out.”