Assyrian, Greek, Christian genocides by ( Turkish ) Ottoman officially recognized.

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Iconoclast
by Iconoclast
02-Jan-2008
 

Genocide Scholars Association officially recognizes Assyrian, Greek genocides :   Date: December 15, 2007

Issued by: Adam Jones, Ph.D,  Associate Professor, Political ScienceUniversity of British Columbia Okanagan     adam.jones@ubc.ca

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In a groundbreaking move, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) has voted overwhelmingly to recognize the genocides inflicted on Assyrian and Greek populations of the Ottoman Empire between 1914 and 1923.

The resolution passed with the support of fully 83 percent of IAGS members who voted. The resolution (text below) declares that "it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks." It "calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution."

In 1997, the IAGS officially recognized the Armenian genocide. The current resolution notes that while activist and scholarly efforts have resulted in widespread acceptance of the Armenian genocide, there has been "little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire." Assyrians, along with Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, were killed on a scale equivalent in per capita terms to the catastrophe inflicted on the Armenian population of the empire -- and by much the same methods, including mass executions, death marches, and starvation.

IAGS member Adam Jones drafted the resolution, and lobbied for it along with fellow member Thea Halo, whose mother Sano survived the Pontian Greek genocide. In an address to the membership at the IAGS conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia, in July 2007, Jones paid tribute to the efforts of "representatives of the Greek and Assyrian communities … to publicize and call on the present Turkish government to acknowledge the genocides inflicted on their populations," which had made Asia Minor their home for millennia. The umbrella term "Assyrians" includes Chaldeans, Nestorians, Syriacs, Aramaens, Eastern Orthodox Syrians, and Jacobites.

"The overwhelming backing given to this resolution by the world's leading genocide scholars organization will help to raise consciousness about the Assyrian and Greek genocides," Jones said on December 15. "It will also act as a powerful counter to those, especially in present-day Turkey, who still ignore or deny outright the genocides of the Ottoman Christian minorities."

The resolution stated that "the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides." The Assyrian population of Iraq, for example, remains highly vulnerable to genocidal attack. Since 2003, Iraqi Assyrians have been exposed to severe persecution and "ethnic cleansing"; it is believed that up to half the Assyrian population has fled the country.

Extensive supporting documentation for the Assyrian and Greek genocides was circulated to IAGS members in the months prior to the vote, and is available at

//www.genocidetext.net/iags_resolution_suppor....

IAGS President Gregory Stanton may be contacted at iagspresident@aol.com.

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FULL TEXT OF THE IAGS RESOLUTION:

WHEREAS the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides;

WHEREAS the Ottoman genocide against minority populations during and following the First World War is usually depicted as a genocide against Armenians alone, with little recognition of the qualitatively similar genocides against other Christian minorities of the Ottoman Empire;

BE IT RESOLVED that it is the conviction of the International Association of Genocide Scholars that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Association calls upon the government of Turkey to acknowledge the genocides against these populations, to issue a formal apology, and to take prompt and meaningful steps toward restitution.

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- end -

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Video of Turkish bombarment of Terrorists

by Shamsoon (not verified) on

Sorry: Apparently link I sent in msg below of 2-min amazing video of Turkish bombardment of 'terrorists' did not work. This should open- plse copy this into your browser: Merci.

kurdistannet.info/2007/12-2007/19-12/topbaraani-qendil.htm


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Assyrians, Greeks, Christian and Iranian genocides...

by Shamsoon (not verified) on

Video! Watch this amzing 2-min video of Turkish bombardment of 'terrorists' by copying this link into your browser: //kurdistannet.info/2007/12-2007/19-12/topbar...

From chilhood and all my life i fought in battles where i helped the innocents and protected the helpless , and now i have grown up i still fight battles, for the hungry ones, the abused ones, the unlucky people...

In retrospect when i turn the pages of history toward the past ,to my dismay i come across so many dark pages that man is still oblivious to them .

Maybe because it takes too much effort to read the burned words on those scorched pages of history ,or perhaps it happened long time ago,who cares...

I was once told by a wise man, 'killing a person in a remote jungle where there arn't any wittnesses is an unforgiveable crime- it shouldn't escape punishment . And exterminating a nation to is even more unforgivable crime whose punishment lasts past and beyond its memory .

What they did there is no denying and those who pretend that it never happened ,are as guilty of the crime its self.

To forget that incident ,is to embrace it and to acknowlege it. to promiss that we never repeat it ,unfortunatly they havnt learnt from hisory .As we speak they are exterminating innocent people.

This time it carries a different name ,it is called killing the bad guys ,go and look at those bad guys on the video clip. I saw a couple of young boys crying over a lifless body of an innocent mother laying among countless lifless of silenced lamb and sheep.

Among them one stood out: one sheep it was staring at the camera- it had lost a limb along some body parts and as it was making a sound i noticed a laceration on its throat .

So when it was makind the sound which what to be appeard to be like a sheep,it sounded like a voice of a woman who was being raped and was asking for justice.

Bravo Turkey- you have once again repeated history!

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Ben Madadi

...

by Ben Madadi on

Turkey should do thorough research and acknowledge all historical realities and just like Germany move forward and join the civilised world. Then it will be Iran's turn to acknowledge all the attrocities it has committed against so many. But it would be a good start for Turkey to come clean and show that it is different, in case its democracy has progressed indeed. But Iranians have no less guilt than the Turks of Turkey. The Iranian regime of today and those of the past have done so much wrong to their own citizens and those of other nations.


Iconoclast

There are No Gods but Allah and Muhammed is the Prophet of Allah

by Iconoclast on

I agree with your comments.  But giving the infidel the right to attest "There are No Gods but Allah and Muhammed is the Prophet of Allah (the Shahada, "La Illaha Il l'Allah, Muhammed Rasoul l'Allah') is a fact, whether believed and defended by a New York taxi driver or by a Muslim scholar. 

Even now in 21 C. we know if others do not attest this Muslim cardinal belief, they are looked upon as 'wrongful', 'not men of Allah/God","Najas/Unclean"... at best to be tolerated but as a the 'other' or a 'minority' like the Pars, Bahai and Yarsans in Iran, and Yazidis in Iraqi Kurdistan, and Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq and Turkey today.

Does not IRI - Iran Islamic Repbulic, an oxymoron-  force non-Muslim Iranian women (whose ancestors had lived in Iran before Muslim soliders arrived) to chador themselves even if they are just tourists,?

Does the rest of the world force Iranian Muslims to wear and behave like they do when they visit their countries?

It is quite plausible that in the past when Arab Muslims invaded other cultures, whoever did not attest of Allah as the only God... were slaughtered, ;B'Isem Allah' in the Name of Allah.

I agree it is not productive to dwell in the past but we need to learn from it and ensure that genocides in the name of a supposedly superior religion - whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim or Hindu ..- are condemed and stopped as it happened in our age by Saddam in Kurdistan and by Sudan in Darfur and by others in Rwanda....

And hopefully to stop all future racist wars and genocides inlcuding by the Middle Eastern Alliance of Evil: Turkey, Bush Admistration, and Israel.  Merci. 

Justice, Love & Peace for All.


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dariushabadi you simply are an ignorant fool

by MRX (not verified) on

you simply are ignorant to say the least! first of all Iranians never had slaves during anytime in their history much less during the time of Hakhamaneshi. if any thing cyrus the great liberated slaves in babelon. The labor that was used to build Takht jamishd, they all had salary. Slavery was/is a foreign concept to zoroshtianism.
There is no record of genoside by iranian forces during that time. even greek historian Herodot who did not much care for Iranians and could have wrote all he wanted and bad mouth Iranians did not say such a thing.
Finaly you are talking about 2500 years of a go where the values were far different than today. Interestingly though, the Iranian leaders back then were far more humane, a better leader, and better human beings than the current cockroaches that rule Iran right now, the same folks you defend again and again!


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Today it is US armada at Iran's door

by 1400 years of Vaccume (not verified) on

When you say non Islamic Iran who are you referring to ...

Today it is US armada at Iran's door and Israel is pushing for destruction of Iran ...

If Iran stood alone today, US and Israel would not hesitate for a single minute to destroy Iran ...

Get your fact straight ...

"New York Muslim taxi driver" is not a reference ...

Do not make emotional statements ....
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Iconoclast

Iranians, too, were genocide victims of the onslaught of Arabs

by Iconoclast on

Bravo! Yes, Iranians and all non-Muslims of Mesopotamia (named Iraq by the British in 1920s)Kurdistan, Syria, Anatolia (now Turkey) Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, North Africa, too, must have been genocide victims of the onslaught of Muslim Arab expansion north of Arabia.  

But a New York Muslim taxi driver argued that no Kafirs (non-believers) are allowed by Islam to be killed without first giving them the chance of Shahada - the Muslim declaration, "There is No God but Allah and Muhammed is his only Prophet." Ah Ha!  That means whoever wished to keep his old relition and declined to convert to Islalm had his throat cut in the name of Allah, then his wife and women and his property taken in the name of Anfal- a Quranic Surat which states and confirms the legality of taking the property of the enemy of Allah as rightful spoils of Jihad for Allah's sake.

Some 1600 years after Arab Prophet (Porfit! of his Hareem) Dictator Sadam and his Chemical Ali General named their  genocide campaign of Kurds the 'Anfal Campaign' aka The Final Solution. 

This horrific Anfal included the aerial gassing of Kurdish Halabja town in 1988 which was video photographed by Iranian journalists. 5000 old, young and children were gassed to death in less than 5 mins, close to Iranian border. Yet the ignorant Mullahs in Tehran forget their half Iranian brother Kurds' genocide. Instead, consruct Maydani Palestine - Palestine Monument - in Tehran to mourn their 'Muslim Arab brothers' in far away Palestine! 'And finance Hezb al Allah terrortists to fight for Palestine, as if corrupt Palestinian leaders were not already supported and financed by USA and by 20+ Arab and Muslim countires, including oil-bloated wealthy sheikhdoms of Saudia Arabia and the Gulf Arab oil states!

Iranians and Kurds and all non-Muslim must now do research and find out how they were forced to give up their Zorostrian and other religions and languages and cultures to Arab Muslim wave of conquerers, carrying the Quran in one hand, and the Sword in another.

Justice, Love & Peace for All.


dariushabadi

RE: We Iranians must address our...

by dariushabadi on

Yes, and maybe while you are at it, you should condemn all the millions of people killed by all the wars of the Hakhamanishi and Sassanid empires. Lets not joke with ourselves, they killed millions of wars over 2,000 years of fighting the Romans, the Byzantines, the Egyptians, the Greeks, etc. etc. etc.

 

Why are you nationalists the first to put blame on others, when you are just as guilty as those you blame? You think the Persian Empire had no blood on its hands? That it didn't conquer other territories and force their language and culture to them? You think people just gladly accepted Persian rule and gladly brought presents to the leaders of Persia at Takhteh Jamshid? You think all the slaves the Kings had was not against your current HUMAN RIGHTS.

 

How many SLAVES DID THE HAKHAMANISHI AND SASANID KINGS HAVE? HOW MANY???

 

I'm not saying it was wrong, i'm saying each thing happened in its own time. Get over it. Look toward the future. The future has little to do with the past unless you make it.


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We Iranians must address our

by Iran and Iranian (not verified) on

We Iranians must address our genecide issue by Arab Islamists to the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) and have them eventually also vote to recognize the genocide inflicted on Iranian populations to date by the Arab Islamists over 1400 years.