Armenian Genocide memorial desecrated in France’s Villeurbanne

July 9, 2014 - 16:43 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - A memorial for the Armenian Genocide in the French city of Villeurbanne was desecrated on July 3. Some letters of an inscription on the memorial, which read “Recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915,” are now missing. The memorial had been unveiled in 2005 ahead of the 90th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by Mayor Jean-Paul Bret, Asbarez reported.

“The desecration of the Armenian Genocide memorial in Villeurbanne on the night of July 3 is a new outrage to the memory of the million and a half Armenians exterminated in 1915 under the command of the Young Turk government,” the Coordinating Council of Armenian Organizations of France (CCAF) said in a statement, Nouvelles d’Armenia reports.

According to CCAF, this new attack, which came less than eight days after the vandalism of a Missak Manouchian statue in Marseille, is a new affront to human dignity, a blow to the fraternity between peoples and democratic values, and a direct aggression against the Armenian community of France.

The statements emphasizes that this provocation months before the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide proves the need to adopt a law criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide, as pledged by the former and current authorities of France.

Asbarez. Armenian Genocide Memorial in France Desecrated

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.