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Turkish Laws Banning Discussions on the Armenian Genocide


As the "Armenian Genocide" documentary made clear, Turkey has laws criminalizing admission of the Armenian Genocide by any Turkish citizen. Many citizens of Turkey have been persecuted for admitting the Genocide, including Orhan Pamuk, Hrant Dink, and Ragip Zarakolu (who currently faces 6 years in prison for admitting the truth).

Here is more information on the repressive laws in Turkey suppressing freedom of speech--in particular any speech admitting the truth about the Genocide. This is from a recent US State Department report about one such law:

'The "reasoning" attached to the Penal Code states that persons could be found in violation for ... "saying that Armenians were subject to a genocide at the end of the First World War." The reasoning is not law, but serves as guidance to judges and prosecutors on how to apply the law.'"

US State Department Report on Turkey (2004)
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41713.htm

Of course Turkey, being a repressive society, suppresses freedom of speech and minority rights in other areas as well. For example, Kurds are not allowed call themselves Kurds or to speak Kurdish in public:

"Kurds who publicly or politically asserted their Kurdish identity or publicly espoused using Kurdish in the public domain risked censure, harassment, or prosecution."

US State Department Report on Turkey (2004)
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41713.htm

It is worth to note that, despite denials by Turkish officials, the Turkish government still promotes hatred against its Armenian subjects. Here is an official US report about Turkish textbooks promoting hatred against Armenians:

In February the HRA (Human Rights Association) Istanbul branch sent a letter to the education minister protesting a poetry book published by the ministry. According to the HRA, the book, On This Path, has racist statements about Armenians, including "Are you human, you Armenian?" and "Armenian lower than a Russian." The HRA requested that the ministry remove the book from the curriculum. There were no further developments at year's end.

US State Department Report on Turkey (2005)
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61680.htm

Another recent instance of state-sponsored hatred against Armenians was the outrage of highest military officers and public officials in Turkey upon learning that Turkey's first female pilot could be Armenian:

In February, the Hurriyet newspaper's publication of a report that Sabiha Gokcen--an adopted daughter of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who was the country's first female pilot--was of Armenian descent drew a number of racist public statements. The Turkish General Staff issued a statement criticizing the reports on Gokcen's Armenian ancestry as "a claim that abuses national values and feelings" while the Turkish Air Association called the report "an insult" to Gokcen and to Ataturk.

US State Department Report on Turkey (2004)
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41713.htm

Of course it's clear that the only way for Turkey to cleanse itself from its embarrassing (for Turkey) legacy of hate and repression is to end its denial of the Armenian Genocide.

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go swiss and france and tell, "there wasnt an armenian genocide"

watch how they will put you into jail nicely

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Great compilation but factuality is questionable.
Turkey had a Kurdish prime minister and president named Turgut Ozal. Anyone can speak Kurdish in public and tell that they are Kurdish. Your statements are baseless. There's no law against talking about Armenian Genocide even your source says that it is an interpretation of another law. If you're looking for such laws, Turkey is the wrong place check EU. If that citation about the book is real. That is really unfortunate and it should definitely be removed from curriculum. Armenia also needs to remove similar remarks about Turks. There are racists in every country. I see your intentions but no sane people would generalize such a thing.

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Turgut Özal was only of partial Kurdish ancestry and I'm fairly certain that he considered himself to be Turkish. He threatened to invade Armenia during the Nagorno-Karabakh war. I've been told by Turkish citizens living in Istanbul that the Kurds are still discriminated against, although the situation is slightly getting better. By the way, wasn't there some sort of law in Turkey where the letters Q and W were banned because they were part of the Kurdish alphabet? I think it was eventually amended.

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Kurds are discriminated against is not a correct statement. Turks & Kurds go to same schools, hospitals, live together. The only thing some people see as discrimination is that every body learns the official language in primary school which is Turkish. In the US I don't think teaching English in primary school is considered discrimination. But everybody can speak whatever language they want. Also about the letters Q and W and Kurdish alphabet. Turkish was written using Arabic letters during Ottoman reign. After the new republic they switched to Latin letters. You don't need Q or W to give those sounds in Turkish due to differences in phonetics so they were omitted and official language is Turkish. But it is not a part of Turkish alphabet doesn't mean you can't use it, or it is banned.

Nagorno-Karabakh is still under Armenian occupation. UN Security Council condemned Armenia for invasion many times since 1993. Turgut Ozal proposed that idea based on “Gars Agreement” signed between Turkey and USSR in 1921 giving protection rights of Naxchevan to Turkey.

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First of all, you are an idiot with very limited intelligence. Secondly, the Turkish Ottoman empire killed approx. 2 million Armenians and Greeks in a genocide fashion for no reason except the fact that they were Chritians, and that is completely true.

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Do you have any idea how many centuries Greeks and Armenians lived under Ottoman rule? How do you think they survived? How do you think there are still hundres of churches in Turkey? Even their religious leader resides in Istanbul? Still. Currently Patriarch Bartholomew. How do you think they still have their cultures, languages intact? Why do you think only people in certain parts of Ottoman empire were deported/suffered? Were they MORE Christian Armenians then others? Even today there's a considerable Armenian population in Turkey who received no harm during that period. Did you know hundreds of thousands of Jews migrated to Ottoman Empire escaping from Romans, Spanish which used force to convert them to Christianity. They came to Ottoman Empire and continued their religious practices instead. Dude you don't know anything about history.

There's no doubt that you need to read more history but not Greek, Armenian or Turkish history. If you think you're objective you should consider all of them with doubt. Read about WW 1 in general from different sources and compare them. WW 1 was a disaster for all nations. Including the Turks. Find the figures on Turkish & Kurdish losses while they migrated from Eastern Europe and Russia to Anatolia. You'll see much higher figures than 2 millions. Read about Lawrence of the Arabia. Read about French, British and Russian ways of dealing with the war (incite the locals instead of sending an army) Then read about what lead to the things that happened to Armenian population. The events that preceded the relocations. For example the events in Van. Armenians capturing the city and killing %62 percent of population (anything not Armenian). Right after this Russian army reaches the city. You can read about the massacres from Russian sources, too. Check out the 'the first map of Armenia'. Everything will make more sense. Most people try to frame it as if Turkish government denies the fact that a lot of lives were lost. However nobody denies it. Turkish government claims that it was communal warfare. And they have plenty of proof. Armenian thesis ignores all the background information and just focuses number of deaths (also ignoring about 800,000 Turkish/Kurdish losses). Another interesting fact is as Armenians were relocated they were provided food by Red Cross and missionaries in the towns they travelled. I don't know any genocide story with red cross involved. Doesn't make any sense if the purpose is killing. There's no proof about any order shouted during a meeting or a telegram or a letter, anything at all about extermination of Armenians. The people in charge at the time were tried by British and German courts and were either found not guilty or as in Malta case (released due to lack of evidence). You can find documents on this at university of Michigan library. They refer to the second trial as a 'pending trial' (pending for almost a hundred years??) while most Armenian historians try to avoid it unless somebody asks something particularly about it. Winston Churchill's note about 'lack of evidence' is pretty interesting.

I love the historical revisionism tactics, though. French are the best when it comes to revisionism. If you want something to be forgotten or distorted, it is important to conceal the facts that will undermine your theory. Quoting from Napoleon Bonaparte

'History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.'

France has laws limiting research about its colonial past (massacres in Cameroon, Senegal, Madagascar, Algeria) and slavery stating that only positive colonial history could be taught. Now French president is trying to pass such a law about the issue we have been discussing here making it a crime not to believe that Ottomans committed genocide. Unlike eme456 who apparently has no knowledge of history, The French historians recently issued a common declaration to annul all parliamentary historical decisions, including the Armenian genocide law accusing government of re-writing the history.

This is some issue that should be debated by historians. Even better on live TV. There's going to be such a debate right after this movie was on PBS. Even another movie called 'Armenian Revolt' showing 'the other' side of the story but due to a lot of pressure from Armenian community PBS had to cancel the movie and the debate. Don't you think there's something fishy about it? Why pass laws to stop people from examining the issue? As if somebody's afraid that the truth may surface.


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The reason there are Armenians in Turkey is because not all were massacred during the Genocide. Partly because Germans wouldn't allow in some places (mainly in Constantinople). And, current Armenian population in Turkey is only fraction of the pre-Genocide population.

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this hilarious, why is it that the turkish losses were never reported anywhere else but in turkey? also do explain why turkey has been paying US professors to deny the genocide? you say this is false because you dont have proof of it being true nor false, but i do.

As to why not air anything about the other side of the story as you say, lets put it this way, the minute the air a live debate between a neo-nazi and a jew, then i dont see the problem of them airing a turkish vs. armenian debate.

From 1894 to 1896, the systematic massacres were organized by Abdul-Hamid in order to punish Armenians for their aspiration for freedom. The Sultan considered the Armenian population as an eternal excuse for Europeans and for Russians to interfere. The government instigated assaults on the Armenian villages, that quickly spread to all regions of Western Armenia. Despite the armed resistance in some places, particularly Zeytun, over 200 thousand of Armenians were killed as a result of these bloody pogroms. Historians named Abdul-Hamid "Red Sultan". Dont forget taht either.


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