First ever presentation to be given about H.Res.306

PanARMENIAN.Net - Khatchig Mouradian, the editor of the Armenian Weekly and among the Diaspora's leading public intellectuals, will speak at the Armenian National Committee of America's (ANCA) Armenian Cause 2.0 conference about the confiscation of Christian church properties by the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey.

Mouradian's timely presentation will take place in wake of the recent introduction of a resolution, H.Res.306, in the U.S. House calling upon Turkey to return Christian religious properties to the Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and the other nations that have lived in the lands of present-day Turkey for thousands of years.

Mouradian's presentation, the first ever about H.Res.306 at a civic or community gathering, will cover the Ottoman era of Sultan Abdulhamid and the Young Turks through to the present-day Republic of Turkey. Drawing from a wealth of primary and secondary sources, including recently published scholarly works, Mouradian will present an overview of the process through which Armenian property, including church property, was confiscated from Armenians and transferred to the Ottoman and later Turkish state, and how the economic wealth stolen from the Armenians contributed to the creation of the Turkish national economy.

Mouradian will then discuss the Turkish state's current policy towards Armenians and Armenian cultural and religious heritage in Turkey. He will also explore, with all in attendance, the moral and material remedies available to begin addressing the damages inflicted upon the Armenian and other victims of Ottoman and later Republican Turkey's genocidal campaign to eliminate the Christian populations within its borders.

In addition to serving as editor of the Armenian Weekly, Mouradian is a Ph.D. student in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, where he is writing his dissertation on the destruction of the Armenians in the Syrian desert during the Armenian Genocide.