Daily Pilot
April 3 2015
UCI student leaders condemn denial of Armenian genocide
By Nicole Knight Shine
April 4, 2015
The UC Irvine student legislative council on Monday unanimously passed
a resolution to commemorate the Armenian genocide and “condemn its
denial.”
The measure follows similar resolutions passed at UCLA and other state
campuses meant to mark the 100th anniversary of the massacre of about
1.5 million Armenians starting in 1915 amid the chaotic collapse of
the Ottoman Empire.
Over the years, measures put forward in the U.S. Congress to recognize
the killings as genocide have failed in the face of stiff opposition
from Turkey.
Turkey acknowledges that many Armenians died in the fighting but
denies the widely accepted number and the term genocide, which is
nonetheless used by many foreign parliaments and Western historians.
“The cycle of genocide continues with that denial,” said Carla
Kekejian, a UCI junior and one of three students who petitioned for
the resolution.
The resolution calls on the campus to set April 24 as the official day
of remembrance for the Armenian genocide. It also “condemns those
attempts made by governments as well as other entities, both public
and private, to distort the historical reality and legal relevance of
the Armenian genocide to the descendants of its survivors and humanity
as a whole.”
“When we put in writing like that,” Kekejian said, “it ensures that
every year it is going to be remembered and commemorated on campus.”
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From: A. Papazian