101st Anniversary of Armenian Genocide: Confrontation but not Denial

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

Those killed in the Armenian Genocide marked on its 101st anniversary at Tünel Square in Taksim district of İstanbul yesterday (April 24).

The mass gathering upon the call of the Commemorating Armenian Genocide Victims Platform at 7:15 p.m., staged a sit-in protest silently accompanied by Armenian requiems. In the commemoration, artist Leman Stehn sang the Armenian folk song “Yellow Bride”* in Armenian.

In the commemoration starting with the announcement that "As of the commemoration we held last year on 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, significant changes have taken place in Turkey's political climate. We still hold 101st commemoration", names of the Armenians who were taken out of their houses and killed were read. The commemoration ended after reading the press statement.

The press statement read by Emel Kurma from Commemorating Armenian Genocide Victims platform and Hrant’s Friends states that, “We demand that this denialist tradition should now be ended. We want confronting the genocide to become a state policy right now”.

Police enclosed the commemoration area with barricades, and that people entered the area after body search. Many people including Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) MPs Garo Paylan, Rakel Dink, Hosrof Dink, academic Esra Mungan, Sevag Balıkçı's familu Ani and Garabet Balıkçı attended the commemoration.

* Yellow Bride is originally an Armenian song which has been exposed to cultural assimilation and introduced as a Turkish song over the years.