Denial of the Armenian Genocide

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As Armenian Genocide denial the approval, denial or gross minimization is of the Armenian genocide designated. This attitude is particularly widespread in the Republic of Turkey , the legal successor to the Ottoman Empire . It is also shared by some Western scholars, including Bernard Lewis , Guenter Lewy , Heath W. Lowry , Andrew Mango , Justin A. McCarthy , Stanford Shaw, and Norman Stone . In particular, the intention to exterminate according to the UN Genocide Convention or its evidence is questioned. In Switzerland , Slovakia , Greece and Cyprus , the negationism of the Armenian genocide is a criminal offense.

Rating in Turkey

terminology

In Turkey, the events of 1915–1917 are referred to as Ermeni soykırım iddiaları ("allegations about the genocide of the Armenians") or sözde Ermeni soykırımı ("alleged genocide of the Armenians"). According to the decree 2007/18 of the Prime Minister's Office of Turkey , since 2007 the more neutral term “1915 events” (1915 olayları) or “Armenian claims regarding the 1915 events” (1915 olaylarına ilişkin Ermeni iddiaları) has been officially used.

Approach

The genocide is denied by the Turkish government and large parts of the Turkish public and academia. The victims are side effects of a civil war started by the Armenians . According to popular belief, Armenian groups took the outbreak of the First World War as an opportunity to rise up against the Ottoman Empire , and in the process carried out numerous massacres of the Turkish population. In particular, reference is made to the uprising of Van . In this predicament, the empire saw its existence threatened and decided to relocate (tehcir) the entire Armenian population for military reasons . On May 27, 1915, Turkey passed a deportation law. The Armenians should be compensated and relocated to the Ottoman territories in what is now Syria or Iraq . As a result of the chaos of the war, around 300,000 Armenians were killed in massacres, attacks, hunger and epidemics. There was no order from Talât Pasha or the Committee for Unity and Progress to kill the Armenians. On the contrary, it was intended to protect and supply the columns of deportees.

Historical sources such as the memoirs of the American ambassador to Istanbul at the time , Henry Morgenthau , and the "Blue Book" by Toynbee and Bryce are regarded as non-neutral and the Andonian documents as forgery. Aspects of the Turkish attitude are supported by some non-Turkish scholars.

Judiciary

In 2006, the Grand Senate for Criminal Matters at the Turkish Court of Cassation described the Turkish stance on genocide in the case against Hrant Dink :

“Resmi olan ve tarihi belge ve gerçeklere dayandığı ifade edilen Turk tezine brat; Osmanlı toplumunun bir parçası olan ve Hatta 'millet-i Sadika' olarak adlandırılan Ermenilerin Savasta düşmanlarıyla birlik oldugu, Osmanlıyı arkadan vurduğu, toplu katliamlarla doğu vilayetlerinde zulüm yarattığı, bu nedenle osmanlı yönetimince zorunlu göçe Tabi tutulduğu, bu göçün yine Osmanlıya ait güney coğrafyaya doğru gerçekleştirildiği , çok cephede yürütülen Savasin koşulları, toplu göçün sıkıntıları, açlık, hastalık gibi önlenemez nedenlerle toplu ölümler oldugu kabullenilmekte ve Böylece sanığın benimsediği Tezin tam karşıtı bir diğer tez dile getirilmekte, tarihi belgelere brat Asil soykırımın zorunlu göçün öncesinde bizzat Ermenilerce Türklere karşı işlendiği savunulmaktadır. "

“According to the official Turkish thesis, which is said to be based on historical documents as well as facts, the Armenians, who were part of Ottoman society and even called a 'loyal nation', made common cause in the war with the enemy who attacked the Ottomans from behind and spread terror through mass murders in the eastern provinces. For this reason the Ottoman government made them resettled. It is generally accepted that this relocation was towards the southern territories of the Ottoman Empire and that it was for inevitable reasons such as the conditions of the war that was waged on many fronts, the hardship associated with mass relocation, and from hunger and disease to massive deaths. In this way another thesis is formulated, which completely contradicts the thesis advocated by the defendant [here: Hrant Dink]. The thesis is that, according to historical documents, the actual genocide before the forced resettlement was committed by the Armenians themselves against the Turks. "

- Court of Cassation (GrStrS)

science

Hikmet Özdemir, head of the Armenian section of the Turkish Historical Society , also denies that there was genocide. In an interview with the newspaper Die Welt , he said, among other things:

“If someone shows a document which shows that the government intended to exterminate the Armenians, then I accept that. However, the opposite is the case. The Armenians fought against us and their deportation was necessary for military reasons. It is clear from all documents that the government tried to protect civilians, even postponing the expulsion from winter to spring in order to spare the people. The fact that so many died was the result of the chaos of war, the weather, the primitive circumstances. "

Clashes in Turkey

In Turkey there is an increasing critical discussion of the topic of Armenian genocide and the official denial as genocide. The Ottoman archives of the Prime Minister's Office of Turkey are described by Turkey as freely accessible, but the work for scientists in the archives is made more difficult by restrictions and not all documents are published.

In 2008 there was the signature campaign “ I beg your pardon ” on the Internet , in which celebrities also took part.

The Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (insulting Turkishness) is used to up to now, to pursue the public recognition of the genocide of Armenians by law.

Turkish students learn from the 10th year at the latest that there was no genocide against the Armenians and that the Armenians committed genocide against the Turks. This Turkish historiography has to be learned by heart by the students.

The political parties that particularly emphasize the thesis of “alleged genocide”, that is, deny genocide, include the Labor Party and the Party of the Nationalist Movement .

The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink , who was murdered in 2007, was sentenced to a suspended sentence in 2005 for “insulting Turkishness”. The Turkish writer Elif Shafak was acquitted in 2006. A fictional character in her novel The Bastard of Istanbul criticized the genocide from an Armenian perspective.

In March 2011, Turkish Nobel Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk was sentenced to pay damages to six plaintiffs for violating Article 301, who felt offended by his comments on the 2005 killings of Armenians. (Pamuk: “The Turks killed 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians on this soil.”) Pamuk's condemnation met with fierce criticism both inside and outside Turkey.

Rating outside of Turkey

A total of more than 20 countries recognized the massacre as genocide in accordance with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide , which was adopted in 1948 and entered into force in 1951 . Despite political demands from the opposition parties and the Armenian minority for recognition of the genocide through political and diplomatic pressure, the respective governments of Turkey are trying to prevent other states from recognizing the events as genocide. In March 2010, the government recalled its ambassador from Washington after the US Congress classified the events as genocide. The evaluation of the events plays a central role, especially in relation to Armenia.

Germany

In its resolution of June 2, 2016, the German Bundestag found with one vote against and one abstention almost unanimously by all parliamentary groups that the planned expulsion, murder and extermination of the Armenians and other Christian ethnic groups in 1915 and the following can be described as genocide . The Bundestag advocates a comprehensive reappraisal of the events of the First World War and the role of the German Reich and calls on the state parliaments to include the annihilation of the Armenians in the curricula and materials as part of dealing with the history of ethnic conflicts of the 20th century to take up and convey to future generations. The Bundestag also advocates that the budget funds support scientific, civil society and cultural activities in Turkey and Armenia , which serve to promote exchange and rapprochement as well as to come to terms with Turkish-Armenian history. In Germany, as an ally of Turkey in World War I , the involvement of German military attachés is largely unknown.

France

In December 2011, the French National Assembly passed a law stating that “the public praising, denial or gross trivialization of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes” can be punished with imprisonment or fines. This also includes the genocide of the Armenians. The French MPs criticized the "intolerable attempts" by the Republic of Turkey to put pressure on the French parliament. In response, the Turkish government withdrew its ambassador from France. The law was ratified by the French Senate in January 2012 and has yet to be signed by the President before it can come into force. The French law, after being ratified by the Senate, sparked severe criticism and threats against France from Turkey. The law was in February 2012 by the French Constitutional Council as unconstitutional explained, because it violates the freedom of expression contrary. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy then announced an amended version of the law. On July 1, 2016, the French parliament again passed a draft law, with which the denial of genocides, including the denial of the genocide of the Armenians and the denial of war crimes, slavery and crimes against humanity in the future with one year imprisonment and a fine The amount of 45,000 euros should be punished.

Great Britain

Great Britain held Istanbul under siege from 1920. After the First World War , the British government was primarily responsible for the establishment of national military courts of war (Istanbul Trials) by the Ottoman successor government of the Young Turks . a. should clarify the question of guilt of the central government formed by the Young Turks during the war . Since the British government assessed the national processes as "window dressing", it led several Young Turkish intellectuals into exile in Malta from May 1919 . The aim was to create international courts of wars, but their establishment failed. The UK government does not consider the evidence presented to be sufficient to classify the events as genocide :

“The massacres were an appalling tragedy, which the British Government of the day condemned. We fully endorse that view. However, neither this Government nor previous British Governments have judged that the evidence is sufficiently unequivocal to persuade us that these events should be categorized as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, a convention which is, in any event, not retrospective in application.

The massacres were a terrible tragedy which the British government at the time condemned. We fully share this view. However, neither this administration nor the previous UK governments have determined that the evidence is sufficiently clear to convince us that these events should be categorized as genocide as defined by the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide, which is a convention that is in any case not applied retrospectively. "

The British Crown Attorney Geoffrey Robertson published a report in 2009 called “Was there an Armenian Genocide?” And, based on documents from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), revealed how ministers had for many years the British Parliament through false statements about the genocide of the Armenians have deceived the factual truth of this genocide in order to prevent the British government from recognizing the genocide and thus not to endanger the strategically and politically important relationship with Turkey.

Switzerland

The Turkish politician Doğu Perinçek , who described the genocide of the Armenians as an “international lie” in Switzerland, was fined by the Swiss courts for violating the racism penal code . In December 2013, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg ruled that this violated the right to freedom of expression. Accordingly, the states must allow an open debate about history and also protect minority opinions. Switzerland appealed the judgment. On June 3, 2014, the ECHR decided to have the case reassessed by the Grand Chamber because "the matter raises a grave question about the Convention on Human Rights". On October 15, 2015, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the denial of the genocide of the Armenians falls under the right of freedom of expression.

Attitude of some scientists

Bernard Lewis

Bernard Lewis speaks of "terrible massacres" which have not been proven to have been decided by the state, and estimates the number of Armenian victims at around one million:

“There is no evidence of a decision to massacre. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence of an attempt to prevent it, which were not very successful. Yes there were tremendous massacres, the numbers are very uncertain but a million nay may well be likely ”

“The issue is not whether the massacres happened or not, but rather if these massacres were as a result of a deliberate preconceived decision of the Turkish government.
there is no evidence for such a decision "

Guenter Lewy

Guenter Lewy is of the opinion that the organization of the massacres on the part of the Young Turkish central government, which ruled the Ottoman Empire alone during the war years , cannot be proven, and describes the events as a "badly out of hand deportation". He considers the genocide to be controversial (disputed) :

“The three pillars of the Armenian claim to classify World War I deaths as genocide fail to substantiate the charge that the Young Turk regime intentionally organized the massacres. Other alleged evidence for a premeditated plan of annihilation fares no better. "

The three pillars that are not supposed to prove the organization of the massacres by the İttihad ve Terakki are the Andonian telegrams , the reproduction of part of the minutes of the Istanbul trials in the Takvim-i Vekayi and the role of the secret and Guerrilla organization Teşkilât-ı Mahsusa by Enver Pascha .

Justin McCarthy

Justin McCarthy uses population statistics to estimate that the war years up to 1920 would have claimed 584,000 Armenian deaths. Most of them became victims of the war between Muslims and Armenians, directly or indirectly through hunger and epidemics. In the war years alone, 41 percent of the total Armenian population died. He puts the total number of victims on the Muslim side this decade, including those who died in war, at 2.5 million.

In a more recent publication he and Turkish co-authors investigate the Armenian rebellion in Van . He portrays the events as the consequences of a general Armenian rebellion.

Web links

literature

  • Alexander Bahar : The suppressed genocide of the Armenians in the First World War. In: Bulletin for Fascism and World War Research, Issue 24, edition organon, Berlin 2005.
  • Guenter Lewy : Can There Be Genocide Without the Intent to Commit Genocide? In: Journal of genocide research , Vol. 9, Issue 4, 2007, pp. 661-674.
  • Guenter Lewy: The Armenian Case. The politicization of history. What happened, how it happened and why it happened (Translation of The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide ). Klagenfurt 2009, ISBN 3-902713-03-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Genocide against the Armenians: "The aim was the Turkishization of Asia Minor" . n-tv . April 24, 2015. Retrieved May 10, 2015
  2. ↑ Harabin Remembers Victims of Armenian Genocide. In: The Daily SK. April 5, 2012. Retrieved January 13, 2013
  3. ↑ Greece parliament ratifies bill criminalizing Armenian genocide denial In: JURIST September 10, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2014
  4. ↑ Cyprus criminalises 'Armenian genocide' denial In: Yahoo! News April 2, 2015. Retrieved April 2, 2015
  5. ↑ Süleyman Kurt: 'Sözde soykırım' yerine artık '1915 olayları' denecek ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zaman.com.tr archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Zaman , August 24, 2007. Retrieved April 24, 2010 (Turkish).
  6. ^ "Massacres carried out by the Armenians" from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey
  7. ↑ Hüseyin Çelik: The 1915 Armenian Revolt in Van: Eyewitness Testimony ( Memento from June 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  8. ↑ "Resettlement" by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey
  9. ↑ Kamuran Gürün: Ermeni Dosyası . 3rd edition, Ankara 1985, p. 227
  10. ↑ Kassationshof (GrStrS) , July 11, 2006, E. 2006 / 9-169, K. 2006/184 ( online ( memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked . Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note .; DOC, 316 KB ( Memento from June 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ); Turkish). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / emsal.yargitay.gov.tr
  11. ↑ Boris Kalnoky: “We did not commit genocide”: A conversation with Hikmet Özdemir . Die Welt, July 15, 2005]
  12. ↑ ozurdiliyoruz.com
  13. ↑ Don't forget, don't forgive: Armenia and Turkey ( Memento from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). WDR . April 21, 2015.
  14. ↑ Accused: Elif Shafak "The Bastard of Istanbul" FAZ, June 27, 2006, accessed on June 25, 2011
  15. ^ FAZ: Court judgment - Elif Shafak did not offend Turkish citizenship FAZ, September 21, 2006, accessed on June 25, 2011
  16. ^ Doğan Haber Ajansı March 28, 2011, accessed June 25, 2011
  17. ↑ Freedom of expression is a long time coming Neue Zürcher Zeitung April 2, 2011, accessed June 25, 2011
  18. ^ Volker Müller: Bundestag resolutions on June 2nd. In: German Bundestag. Retrieved June 3, 2016 .
  19. ↑ Sabri Deniz Martin: The usual silence and neglect. No German complicity according to the Armenian resolution. In: Philipp Berg, Markus Brunner, Christine Kirchhoff, Julia König, Jan Lohl, Tom Uhlig, Sebastian Winter (Eds.): Free Association - Journal for Psychoanalytic Social Psychology 2/2018: Wolfsgeheule. 21st year. tape 2 . Psychosozial-Verlag, 2018, ISSN  1434-7849 , p. 99-103 .
  20. ↑ Jürgen Gottschlich: Aiding and abetting genocide: Germany's role in the annihilation of the Armenians. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-86153-817-2 .
  21. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau: Controversy over the Genocide Act ( Memento from January 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved on January 2, 2012
  22. ^ Dispute with Turkey. France forbids denial of the Armenian genocide. Spiegel online, December 22, 2011. Retrieved January 2, 2012
  23. ^ Senate approves controversial genocide law Süddeutsche Zeitung.de, January 23, 2011. Accessed January 23, 2012
  24. ↑ Mass killing of Armenians: Erdogan rages against France's genocide law Spiegel Online, January 24, 2012. Accessed January 24, 2012
  25. ↑ France: Supreme Court overturns controversial genocide law Spiegel Online, February 28, 2012. Retrieved February 28, 2012
  26. ^ New law: France wants to criminalize denial of genocide . Spiegel Online . July 2, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2016
  27. ↑ British Government's response to the petition to recognize the Armenian Genocide ( Memento of September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  28. ↑ Geoffrey Robertson QC: “Was there an Armenian Genocide?” (PDF file; 983 kB). October 9, 2009 (English). Britain accused of 'genocide denial' over Armenia . The Guardian . November 3, 2009. Retrieved January 13, 2013. A genocide denied . NewStatesman. December 10, 2009. Retrieved January 13, 2013
  29. ↑ Switzerland registers a racism verdict - Armenians “disappointed”. Tagesanzeiger.ch, accessed on December 18, 2013 .
  30. ↑ Genocide verdict is being reviewed , Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 3, 2014 (accessed June 4, 2014)
  31. ^ Strasbourg judges condemn Switzerland in the Perincek case . October 15, 2015. Retrieved April 20, 2016.
  32. ^ Statement by Lewis in April 2002 ( Memento of November 10, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 9 kB)
  33. ↑ Article in The Ombudsman Column, April 21, 2006
  34. ^ Guenter Lewy: The Armenian Massacres in the Ottoman Turkey. A Disputed Genocide. Utah 2005
  35. ^ A b Guenter Lewy: Revisiting the Armenian Genocide . Middle East Quarterly 4/2012, Fall 2005, pp. 3–12.
  36. ^ Justin McCarthy: Death and Exile - The Ethnic Cleansing of Ottoman Muslims 1821-1922. Princeton 1995
  37. ^ Justin McCarthy: The Population of the Ottoman Armenians . On: Armenian-History.com, August 10, 2001 (PDF file; 118 kB)
  38. ↑ Justin McCarthy, Esat Arslan, Ömer Turan and others: The Armenian Rebellion at Van. Utah 2006