Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Activist charged for saying Turkey should apologize for mistreating Armenians
by Canoe - canada's internet network - Feb 8 2001
Posted: Thursday, February 15, 2001 01:38 am CST

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkish prosecutors filed charges Thursday against a leading human rights activist for reportedly saying that Turkey should apologize for its treatment of Armenians and other minorities early this century.

Ankara prosecutors charged human rights activist Akin Birdal with "openly insulting and vilifying Turkishness" for comments he made during a panel discussion in Germany last year. The offence carries a maximum sentence of 6 years in prison.

"Everybody knows what was done to the Armenians," the prosecution charges quoted Birdal as saying, according to the Anatolia news agency. "Turkey must apologize for what it did to the minorities."

Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were slaughtered as part of a genocidal campaign to force them out of eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923.

Turkey says hundreds of thousands of Armenians and Turks were killed during civil unrest under wartime conditions, but insists the killings did not amount to genocide.

Turkey has strongly protested the French Parliament's decision last month to recognize the Armenian killings as genocide.

Birdal's attorney Sedat Aslantas said his client was referring to Turkey's treatment of minorities in general and not particularly the Armenians.

Today, there are virtually no Armenians in eastern Turkey. Istanbul, which once had large Armenian, Greek and Jewish communities, now has only tiny minority communities.

Aslantas said Birdal had expressed sadness at some episodes of Turkey's history, such as the exorbitant Second World War taxes which were imposed only on minorities and a series of attacks on Greek-owned properties in Istanbul in 1955. Many minorities who could not pay the war taxes were sent to labour camps.

Birdal, the former president of the Human Rights Association, was released from prison last September after serving a 10-month jail sentence for inciting racial hatred. He was convicted for speeches he gave in 1995 and 1996 supporting Kurdish rights.

Dozens of writers, journalists and intellectuals have been jailed under Turkish laws which limit freedom of speech.

Related Information...

Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives