13 November 2009

Los Angeles

In the month of September the Armenian public learned of a blatant case of denial of the Armenian Genocide within Armenia. A court case was initiated by the “ARARAT” Center for Strategic Research against the Yerevan-based Caucasus Institute and its director Alexander Iskandaryan for publishing and disseminating denialist literature. Unfortunately, as the initiators of this court case noted during the press-conference, this was not the only such instance of Armenian Genocide denial within Armenia. Another case of such denial transpired recently. A journalist named Emil Danielyan, a citizen and resident of Armenia, in his article about Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s speech before the Armenian National Congress leadership, intentionally refused to use the word genocide when referring to the Armenian Genocide (http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/1875375.html). His expression of choice was the “1915 mass killings and deportations” so ubiquitous in English-language publications supportive of the Turkish denialist position. Furthermore, a news service operating in Armenia and staffed by Armenians, the Azatutyun radio station, published this article without any editing or disclaimers, assuming the responsibility of the content.

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