Anti-hate groups want Facebook to block posts denying the Armenian genocide

Public Radio of Armenia
Jan 1 2021

Anti-hate advocates are calling on Facebook to ban posts denying the Armenian genocide, which led to the deaths of over 1.5 million ethnic Armenians, saying the social media giant’s policy on hate speech fails to address crimes against humanity, Business Insider reports.

The call to action follows Facebook’s October announcement that it would ban posts denying the Holocaust, which came after pressure from human rights groups, Holocaust survivors, and a 500-plus company ad boycott. However, the change did not include the denial of other genocides, such as the Rwandan and Armenian genocides.

“They have an obligation to responsibly address all genocide,” said Arda Haratunian, board member for the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU), the largest non-profit dedicated to the international Armenian community.  “How could you not apply the same rules across crimes against humanity?”

Now, voices from across the Armenian diaspora and anti-hate groups are calling for the company to change its policy. In November, the Armenian Bar Association penned a letter to Facebook and Twitter (which banned posts denying the Holocaust in the days after Facebook did), proposing that they expand their ban to posts denying the Armenian genocide,

“It made us hopeful, because it was a sign that Facebook is taking steps towards fixing its speech problem,” said Lana Akopyan, a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and technology, and member of the Armenian Bar Association’s social media task force. The Armenian Bar Association has yet to receive a response from either company, Akopyan told Business Insider.

Facebook’s current hate speech policy prohibits posts that directly attack a protected group, including someone of a racial minority, certain sexual orientation or gender, or religion. But the platform lacks a cohesive response to other “harmful false beliefs,” like certain conspiracy theories, said Laura Edelson, a PhD candidate at NYU who researches online political communication. Rather than a systematic approach to harmful misinformation, Edelson likened Facebook’s strategy to a game of “whack-a-mole.” 

“You are allowed to say, currently, the Armenian genocide is a hoax and never happened,” said Edelson. “But you are not allowed to say you should die because you are an Armenian.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which successfully lobbied for social media companies to ban Holocaust denial, is also supporting the calls for change. 

“ADL believes that tech companies must take a firm stance against content regarding genocide and the denial or diminishment of other atrocities motivated by hate,” said an ADL spokesperson in a statement to Business Insider.  “Tech companies should, without doubt, consider denial of the Armenian genocide to be violative hate speech.”

Dr. Gregory Stanton, founding president of human rights nonprofit Genocide Watch, says that denial is a pernicious stage of genocide, since it seeks to erase the past and can predict future violence. 

“Denial occurs in every single genocide,” said Stanton. “I think it’s irresponsible…. with Facebook’s incredible reach, it absolutely should be taken down.” 

19th century Armenian church in central Turkey to serve as ‘Humor Art House’

Stockholm Center for Freedom
Jan 1 2021

The Surp Yerrortutyun (Holy Trinity) Armenian church in central Turkey’s Akşehir district is to serve as the “World’s Masters of Humor Art House” as part of a project to found a “humor village” in the hometown of famous 13th century Turkish satirist Nasreddin Hoca, the Agos newspaper reported.

The church was built in 1859 in the neo-classical style and was registered as a cultural heritage site in 1975 by Turkey’s Ministry of Culture. It was recently restored at a cost of TL 3.5 million ($470,000).

Nasreddin Hoca is known for stories with subtle humor of a pedagogic nature. The “humor village” project is being carried out by the Konya Regional Development Administration and includes 204 historic buildings. It is not known when the church will be opened in its new capacity.

According to the report by Ferda Balancar, some 5,000 Armenians lived in the Akşehir district of Konya prior to 1915.

US-based advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC) criticized the move, saying Turkey has not made any attempt to return abandoned churches to their original Christian community.

“Instead, Turkey either converts these churches into mosques or restores their buildings into faith tourism sites. When pursuing the [latter] option, Turkey uses it as an example to the international arena about how they care for religious freedom,” the group said. “However, it is a point which confuses religious freedom with faith tourism. The state reaps the monetary rewards of having churches restored into cultural sites and museums. Any remaining Christian community is forced to petition the state for access to these sites for worship purposes.”

Turkey to turn renovated Armenian church into art centre

Public Radio of Armenia
Jan 1 2021

Turkey has decided to turn the recently renovated Holy Trinity Armenian Church in the south-central Konya province into a cultural centre, the Armenian weekly newspaper Agos reported.

The 19th-century building, which has been closed to worship and visitors even after restoration project ended in 2017, will be re-opened as the World Masters of Humour Art House at an unannounced date, Agos said.

The project was carried out by the Aksehir municipality and the Konya Plain Project Regional Development Administration (KOP), at a total cost of 3.5 million Turkish liras ($475,000), it said.

The church is the latest historical Christian house of worship that Turkey has repurposed as either a mosque or religious tourism site this year. The sites include the Byzantine Chora Church and Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.


Turkey’s crackdown on freedom of expression highlighted in new report

Arab News


Dec. 31, 2020

ANKARA: A December 29 report from Expression Interrupted highlights
Turkey’s repeated violations of Article 10 of the European Convention
on Human Rights, to which it is a signatory party, and its failure to
comply with rulings handed down by the European Court of Human Rights
(ECtHR).

Of all 47 members of the Council of Europe, Turkey has the most
violations of freedom of expression under Article 10 of the
Convention. Of the 845 judgments ECtHR delivered between 1959 and
2019, 356 were against Turkey — almost five times as many as against
the distant runner-up, Russia.

Turkey also tops the list of rights violations pertaining to all
articles of the Constitution. “Between 1959 and 2019, 3,645 of the
22,535 judgments delivered by the Court were against Turkey, making it
the country against which the ECtHR has delivered the most judgments,”
the report reads. Out of 5,231 cases currently pending execution by
signatory parties, 689 of them are against Turkey.

The report also noted: “One of the most important reasons for these
huge numbers is non-implementation of the previous judgments of the
ECtHR, which sets the stage for repetition of similar violations in
the future,” and emphasized that broad interpretation of acts
including “insulting the president” or “denigrating the Turkish
nation/state” have been used as a basis for arrests and convictions,
in violation of ECtHR rulings.

The jailed Kurdish politician and former co-chair of Turkey’s Peoples’
Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas, and philanthropist and
businessperson Osman Kavala, are two of the highest-profile prisoners
in the country, despite rulings from the ECtHR calling for their
immediate release. The report suggests that their continued
imprisonment is designed “to punish and discourage the exercise of
freedom of expression.”

“The speed with which Turkish authorities implement judgments such as
those regarding Kavala and Demirtas show what kind of commitment
Turkey has to the founding values of the Council of Europe and the
European Convention on Human Rights,” Massimo Frigo, senior
international lawyer at the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ),
told Arab News.

Last week, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
once again urged Ankara to comply with the ECtHR’s ruling that
Demirtas should be released immediately.

Turkey is one of the founding members of the Council of Europe and
ratified the European Convention on Human Rights in 1954. “Under
Article 46 of the Convention, Turkey is bound to implement the
judgments of the European Court of Human Rights at a domestic level,”
human rights lawyer Beril Morel told Arab News.

According to Morel, Turkey has a particularly poor track record when
it comes to the implementation of judgments rendered on politically
sensitive cases. “The refusal of Ankara to recognize the violations in
Demirtaş’ and Kavala’s cases are a recent example,” she said.

Morel cited “the actions of security forces; the lawfulness of
detention; domestic violence; freedom of thought, conscience and
religion; freedom of expression and information; and freedom of
assembly and association” as the topics likely to “top the ECtHR
agenda concerning Turkey.”

“Turkey amended its Constitution to recognize the supremacy of
international law over its domestic law. Article 90 of the
Constitution expressly provides that international conventions
concerning human rights, ECtHR being one of these, prevail over
domestic law in case of a conflict between those,” Morel said.
Therefore, Turkey should implement the ECtHR’s judgements. However,
she pointed out, the ECtHR can only intervene in the domestic
implementation of its rulings by member states if the matter is
brought to its attention with a second application and a violation of
Article 46 of the Convention is found.

“We are leaving 2020 behind with a heavy heart. Turkey’s human rights
and rule-of-law crisis has deepened further,” Ayse Bingol Demir, a
human rights lawyer and co-director of the Turkey Human Rights
Litigation Support Project, told Arab News.

According to Demir, the ongoing detention of Kavala and Demirtas —
despite ECtHR rulings — will be an important feature of the Council of
Europe Committee of Ministers’ agenda in 2021.

“Turkey will likely face increasing pressure and sharper decisions
from the Committee,” she said. “As it did in the case of Kavala in
2020, I expect the Committee to conclude that the ongoing detention of
Demirtas constitutes a continued violation of the European Court’s
rulings,” she said.

“The Committee will also focus on arbitrary and unlawful detentions;
the frequent use of anti-terror legislation to target the legitimate
activities of human rights defenders and opposition politicians; and
the lack of independence and impartiality of the judiciary,” she
continued. “If the ruling government decides to insist on its current
policy of denial, 2021 will certainly be a more difficult year in its
relations with the Council of Europe.”


 

Armenpress: PM Pashinyan continues consultations with political forces

PM Pashinyan continues consultations with political forces

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 19:11,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan continues consultations with the representatives of different political forces. Pashinyan met with the representative of ''For the sake of the Republic'' Party, MP Arman Babajanyan and members of the social-democratic ''Citizen's Decision'' Party Suren Sahakyan and Gor Hakobyan on December 30.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister, the issue of holding snap elections in 2021 was discussed. The PM listened to the opinions and positions of the representatives of the parties.

Armenian, Russian FMs discuss bilateral and international agenda

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 19:26,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 30, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Armenia Ara Ayvazian discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov a number of bilateral and international issues, ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Russian MFA.

The sides emphasized with satisfaction the high intensity of allied partnership in the passing year and confirmed the mutual readiness to continue in the same spirit in 2021.

Armenpress: Russian Ambassador congratulates Armenians and Russians on New Year

Russian Ambassador congratulates Armenians and Russians on New Year

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 12:07,

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 31, ARMENPRESS. Ambassador of Russia to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin issued a congratulatory message on New Year. ARMENPRESS reports the congratulatory message of the Ambassador runs as follows,

''The coronavirus pandemic, the dramatic developments over the escalation of Nagorno Karabakh conflict left a trace on all aspects of our lives.

In the face of the severe challenges, the fraternal and allied relations between our countries, that are greatly demanded and have no alternative, were demonstrated with special clarity, as well as the traditional features of those relations – common strategic interests, support, willingness to help and mutual trust.

Entering the New Year with this baggage, we have every reason to look to the future with optimism, despite the problems and difficulties we face.

We always expect good news and events from the New Year. I want to believe that it will not deceive us. I wish all of us, our families peace, health and welfare. Happy New Year and Merry Christmas’’, reads the congratulatory message of the Russian Ambassador.