Armenian Genocide Recognition
Armenian
Genocide recognition is the formal acceptance that the systematic massacres and
forced deportation of Armenians committed by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to
1923, during and after the First World War, constituted genocide. The consensus
of historians and academic institutions on The Holocaust and genocide studies
recognize the Armenian Genocide.
However, despite the recognition of the genocidal character of the
massacre of Armenians in scholarship as well as in civil society, some
governments have been reticent to officially acknowledge the killings as
genocide because of political concerns about their relations with the Republic
of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Imperial authorities which
perpetrated the genocide. The governments of Turkey and its close ally
Azerbaijan are the only ones that directly deny the historical factuality of
the Armenian Genocide, and both are adamantly opposed to the recognition of the
genocide by other nations, threatening economic and diplomatic consequences to
recognizers. As of 2020, governments and
parliaments of 32 countries, including the United States, Germany, France,
Italy, Canada, Russia and Brazil have formally recognized the Armenian
Genocide.
International
organizations: Catholic Church: 2015,
International Association of Genocide Scholars: 1997, International Center for
Transitional Justice: 2002, The Elie
Wiesel Foundation for Humanity: 2007, European Parliament: 1987, 2000, 2002 and 2005, 2015, Council of
Europe: The Council of Europe recognized the Armenian Genocide on May 14, 2001,
The Union for Reform Judaism: 1989, The Anti-Defamation League: 2007, The
American Jewish Committee: 2014, The Jewish Council for Public Affairs: 2015
and The Presbyterian Church (USA): 2014.
Other
organizations which have recognized the Armenian Genocide include (Unknown
Year): World Council of Churches, European Green Party, Mercosur
Parliament, Latin American Parliament, Interparliamentary Assembly on
Orthodoxy, European Alliance of YMCAs, Andean Parliament, Centrist Democrat
International
Parliaments
and Governments: Turkey continues to insist that the mass killings of 1915
were not a genocide, a fact which many Europeans take as casting doubt on the
Turkish nation's commitment to human rights, but also as an "excuse"
to block European Union membership for a Muslim-majority country, for which
Turkish-Armenian intellectual Hrant Dink publicly issued condemnation to some
countries before he was assassinated in 2007. On May 24, 1915, during
World War I, the Allied Powers (the United Kingdom, France and Russia) jointly
issued a statement in which they said that for approximately a month, the
Kurdish and Turkish populations of Armenia had been massacring Armenians, with the
connivance and often assistance of Ottoman authorities, and that the Allied
Powers would hold all officers of the Ottoman Government implicated in such
crimes personally responsible for crimes against humanity.
As of
February 2020, 32 states had officially recognized the historical events as
genocide. Sovereign nations (i.e. UN member-states) officially recognizing the
Armenian Genocide are: Argentina: 1993, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2015;
Armenia: 1988 (Recognition extended by the Armenian SSR); Austria: 2015;
Belgium: 1998 and 2015; Bolivia: 2014; Brazil: 2015; Bulgaria: 2015; Canada: 1996, 2002, 2004 and
2006; Chile: 2007 and 2015; Cyprus:
1975, 1982 and 1990; Czech Republic: 2017; France: 1998 and 2001; Germany: 2005
and 2016; Greece: 1996; Italy: 2000 and 2019; Libya: 2019; Lithuania: 2005;
Lebanon: 1997 and 2000; Luxembourg: 2015; Netherlands: 2004, 2015 and
2018; Paraguay: 2015; Poland: 2005;
Portugal: 2019: Russia: 1995, 2005 and 2015; Slovakia: 2004; Sweden: 2010;
Switzerland: 2003; Syria: 2015 and 2020;United States: 2019 (Congress);
Uruguay: 1965 and 2004; Vatican: 2000 and 2015; Venezuela: 2005.
States,
regions, provinces, municipalities and parliamentary committees:
Australia: New
South Wales: 2007 and South Australia: 2009
Belgium:
Flanders
Brazil: Ceará:
2006, Paraná: 2013, Rio de Janeiro:
2015, São Paulo: 2003)
Canada: British
Columbia, Ontario: 1980 Quebec: 1980
France:
Corsica: 2015,
Iran: Tehran
Israel:
Knesset’s Education, Culture and Sports Committee: 2016
Mexico: Michoacán: 2019
Spain: Aragon,
the Balearic Islands, Basque Country,
Catalonia, Navarre, 35 Spanish cities within 8 regions
United Kingdom:
Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Derby, England: 2018
United States:
49 U.S. States and Washington DC
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