GREEK PROSECUTOR PRESSES CHARGES OVER TURKISH FLAG BURNT IN ARMENIAN DEMO
Agence France Presse — English
May 23, 2007 Wednesday 10:50 AM GMT
A prosecutor in the northern Greek city of Salonika has pressed
charges against unidentified persons who burned a Turkish flag during
a Greek-Armenian demonstration at the city’s Turkish consulate last
month, a local justice source said on Wednesday.
The charge of insulting the symbol of a foreign state will enable
the perpetrators to be brought to justice should they be identified
via photographs and video shot during the demonstration.
The incident occurred during an April 24 demonstration to mark the
92nd anniversary of massacres allegedly committed against Armenians
by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The Turkish consular authorities complained to Greece over the burning.
Greeks of Armenian descent annually hold demonstrations to press
Turkey to admit guilt over the massacres.
Ankara says 300,000 Armenians, and at least as many Turks, died in
civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence and sided
with invading Russian troops during World War I.
But Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were
slaughtered in orchestrated killings that can only be seen as genocide.
Greece’s parliament adopted a resolution condemning the Armenian
massacres as genocide in 1996.