BBC RADIO 4’S SPECIAL EDITION DEDICATED TO ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL
16:19, 07 Apr 2015
Siranush Ghazanchyan
In a special edition of the programme marking the 100th anniversary
of the mass killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians living
in the Ottoman Empire, BBC Radio 4 Religious Affairs Correspondent,
Caroline Wyatt explores what the events mean for Armenians living
here in Britain.
Twenty-two countries officially recognise the 1915 massacre as
genocide. The Turkish government maintains that while it was a great
tragedy, it was not genocide. We debate the issues with the Armenian
Bishop Vahan Hovhanessian, Geoffrey Robertson QC and Professor
Ayhan Aktar.
We hear the story of journalist Meline Toumani, who grew up an American
Armenian but moved to Istanbul to get to know the country and its
people as a way of understanding what happened to her community.
Bob Walker charts the history of the UK’s Armenian community, visiting
the first Armenian Church in Britain, Holy Trinity Armenian Church
of Manchester, which opened its doors on Easter Day in 1870.
Caroline shares a meal with an Armenian family in London to learn
about how the mass killings of Armenians 100 years ago still has an
impact on 3 generations of the same family.
Also in the programme: the new Bishop of Gloucester, Rachel Treweek,
talks to Caroline about what she hopes to bring to the role as the
first woman diocesan Bishop in the Church of England and the first
woman bishop to sit in the House of Lords later this year.