Reparations for the Armenian Genocide discussed at conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge

After a two-year hiatus, the Armenians and Progressive Politics (APP) conference returned on September 26 and 27 in Greater Boston with the theme “The Road to Justice.”

The conference opened with a plenary session on Friday evening, September 26, featuring renowned scholar, activist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky in conversation with Alternative Radio’s David Barsamian. They discussed contemporary Turkish politics, social movements, religious minorities, and the Kurds.
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Thank you for the recognition and condemnation

2015 bears particular significance for Armenians all over the world. On April 24 Armenians around the globe will commemorate the most tragic page of the nation’s history – the centennial of the Armenian Genocide. It was an unprecedented crime aimed at eliminating the nation and depriving it of its homeland: a crime that continues to be an unhealed scar for each Armenian. The 1915 Genocide was a crime against civilization and humanity, and its inadequate condemnation paved the way for similar crimes of mass murder in the future.

PRESIDENT SERZH SARGSYAN
STATEMENT AT THE 69TH SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Declaration adopted by the participants of the 5th Armenia-Diaspora Conference

The 5th Armenia-Diaspora Conference, which was held ahead of the Centennial of the Armenian Genocide, reaffirmed that the future enlargement and development of the Armenia-Artsakh-Diaspora partnership will help specify and implement the priorities of the nation, will contribute to the security of the Armenian people, as well as to the consolidation of all Armenians around the nation’s interests and goals.
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International Conference on Genocide Centennial to be Held in NY

NEW YORK—An international conference marking the Armenian Genocide’s centennial will take place on March 13-15, 2015 at New York’s Marriott Marquis Hotel.

The three-day conference will feature a lineup of prominent historians, policymakers, authors, and artists from around the globe. The program will consist of concurrent morning and afternoon panels and discussions focusing on justice and reparations for cases of genocide, the responsibility to protect (R2P), genocide research, activism for justice and accountability, building solidarity, and artistic responses to genocide and mass violence.
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Armenian Bar Association on Justice for the Armenian Genocide

aba-logo-wide-2015The epitaph on my grandfather’s gravestone at the Ararat Cemetery in Fresno includes the following admonition of a famous Armenian statesman and writer:

Ayskan charik te moranan mer vortik, togh vogch ashkharh hayin garta nakhadink…
If such great wrongs our sons forget, may the world’s curses the Armenians beget…

For nearly 100 years after the Genocide, Armenians around the world and across all walks of life have triumphed over and trumped Avedis Aharonian’s lamented forgetfulness. The fight against forgetfulness, however, is won and done. Now we must move away from the common Armenian characteristic of gratuitously accommodating others and, instead, demand that others accommodate us.
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With new vigor, enthusiasm and determination

Armenian lawyers are compiling a legal package on the Armenian Genocide covering issues at individual, community and national levels.
[…]
Let no one hope that the Armenian Genocide Centenary is the endpoint of our cause. It is a particular destination to mourn our sorrow, to become morally stronger and to achieve justice. The Armenian Genocide Centenary will give birth to renewed objectives, a new Pan-Armenian agenda and plans to build a more powerful statehood and more consolidated Diaspora. With the Centenary we will sum up a historical period and will herald a new phase of struggle for the restoration of justice.

President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan
4th session of the State Commission on Coordination of the events dedicated to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

The Constitution of Armenia, the Genocide and its reparations

Vladimir Vardanyan
International Law Expert

REPAIR – Armeno-Turkish Platform – The international law expert Vladimir Vardanyan presented in every detail the issue about the provision on the Armenian Genocide in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, including the clause on the claim of Western Armenia. According to him the reference to the Genocide in the main document of Armenia is based on international law and norms. The international law expert also spoke about the legal basis of the Turco-Russian Treaty, dated 1921.

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The Confiscation of Armenian Properties: An Interview with Ümit Kurt

By Varak Ketsemanian
The Armenian Weekly

The following interview with Ümit Kurt tackles how the physical annihilation of the Armenians paralleled the confiscation and appropriation of their properties in 1915. By citing the various laws and decrees that orchestrated the confiscation process, Kurt places our understanding of the genocide within a legal context.

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