Turkish-American association reacts to CNN broadcast about Genocides

March 8, 2010 - 16:25 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - On March 7 CNN showed Scream Bloody Murder, a documentary about Genocides prepared by a known TV journalist, Christian Amanpour. The author tells about the Armenian Genocide, the Holocaust, the Genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, as well as the massacres of Kurds during Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Releasing a statement on CNN's program, Ali Cinar, vice president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations -ATAA, said that the timing of the broadcast was significant, and called on everybody to protest the TV channel immediately.

Cinar said "US TV channels' displaying a unilateral stance with the Armenian Diaspora's financial support did not comply with objectivity and journalistic ethics".

Noting that CNN's broadcast would harm Turkish-US relations, Cinar said associating the incidents of 1915 with the Holocaust and with what had happened in Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfour was a "major ignorance".

Cinar also said that the Turkish-American community would continue to react against the unilateral stance displayed by the US media on such matter, the Anatolia News Agency reported.

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.