Armenians Banished to Anatolia From İstanbul Commemorated

Click here to read the article in Turkish / Haberin Türkçesi için buraya tıklayın. 

Within the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, a commemoration event has been organized upon call of the Human Rights Association (İHD) Istanbul Branch Committee Against Racism and Discrimination.

The group coming gathering at 1.30 p.m. in Kabataş has departed for Haydarpaşa on boats.

Directors and members of human rights organizations, some other citizens, the French senator and President of the France-Armenia Friendship Group, Philippe Kaltenbach as well as European Parliament MP Julie Ward and European Anti-racist Movement President Benjamin Abtan have attended the commemoration.

The attendants have met the group waiting for them in Haydarpaşa carrying the photographs of the Armenians taken into custody, exiled to Anatolia from Haydarpaşa and killed. The press statement has been read out in Turkish, Armenian and English.

İHD Head Office Board of Directors member, Eren Keskin has read the text in Turkish and expressed the following;

“Today, 101 years ago on April 24, 1915 members from all segments of the Armenian society, but opinion leaders, poets, writers and journalists in particular have been delivered from Sarayburnu on ships to here, Haydarpaşa.

“They have been brought to Anatolia, actually to death. Very few could survive, most of them have been slaughtered. The process of genocide has actually begun with these arrests.

“According to the population census made by the Istanbul Patriarchate the Armenian population in the empire had been around 2,000,000 before 1915 and Armenians had been living in over 2,925 residential areas including provinces, neighbourhoods and villages.

“The Armenian society had 1,996 schools, 173 students consisting of both boys and girls as well as 2,538 churches and monasteries. Such a lively Armenian social existence has been terminated”. (EKN/DG)

* Photograph: Twitter / @OzgurDuygu