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Activists hold pictures of Armenian victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks, at the Haydarpasa train station in Istanbul. Photograph: Reuters
Activists hold pictures of Armenian victims of mass killings by Ottoman Turks, at the Haydarpasa train station in Istanbul. Photograph: Reuters

Commemorations for Armenian genocide victims held in Turkey

This article is more than 8 years old

Human rights groups and activists gather in Istanbul to mark centenary of start of mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks

More than 100 people gathered in front of the Islamic Arts museum in Istanbul on Friday to commemorate the massacre of Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman empire.

Now a popular tourist attraction, 100 years ago the building served as the Ottoman police headquarters and was where the first 250 Armenian intellectuals were incarcerated before their deportation on 24 April 1915.

The commemoration, organised by Turkish and international human rights organisations, was one of a series of events taking place in Istanbul to mark the centenary of the Armenian genocide during which more than 1.5 million Armenians were killed, according to historians’ estimates.

Turkey insists the toll has been inflated and rejects that the killings were an act of genocide, arguing that the Armenians died as a result of civil war and general unrest during the first world war. On the eve of the centennial, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reiterated his view that the country’s ancestors never committed genocide.

But at the commemoration in front of the museum, participants did not shy away from using the term.

“This is the first time I have the opportunity to attend the memorials,” said 25-year-old university student Mustafa Polat, a Kurd from Diyarbakir. “I wanted to be here to remind the world of this genocide. The truth is clear, this was a crime against humanity that Kurds were also a part of. One doesn’t need to be Armenian or politically educated to recognise this genocide, it’s enough to have a conscience.”

After 50 years living in Switzerland, 67-year-old Armenian Bogos Tomasian returns to his village near the town of Mutki in Turkey to commemorate the centenary of the Armenian genocide. Guardian

On the “Walk to Remember” through the district of Sultanahmet the group almost vanished among the throngs of tourists and groups of Anzac Day visitors looking for their buses to Gallipoli.

Only a few shyly carried folded posters that read: “Recognise the Genocide”. Some held red carnations or violet crocuses, a stand-in for the purple forget-me-nots that symbolise the centenary elsewhere.

There were no slogans and no chants. Riot police accompanied the hurried march to the shore of the Golden Horn, where a boat took the group to the Haydarpasa train station, from where Istanbul Armenians were deported and sent to their deaths.

Ali Rabis, 58, an unemployed shoemaker from Istanbul, said he had attended each public commemoration since 2010, when groups first came together on Istanbul’s central Taksim Square to remember the 1915 genocide.

“I am Turkish, which is why I come,” he said. “One cannot be aware of such horrible killings and pretend they have never happened.”

He said he hoped the commemorations would send a strong message: “If the genocide had not happened in 1915, maybe world war two would not have been as horrible, maybe the Holocaust would never have happened. I want that such things never happen again.”

Benjamin Abtan, president of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (Egam) that has been part of the commemorations since 2011, said that despite the modest number of participants, the atmosphere in Turkey had changed.

“Very different people are now taking part in the commemorations: more young people, more women, more religious Muslims, and more Armenians from Turkey. The Turkish media are more openly referring to the term genocide. There is more confidence”, he said, adding that the movement had also become more international. “When I came the first time in 2011, I was the only person who was not a Turkish national. Today there are delegations from over 15 countries, including from Armenia.”

On Friday morning, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his French counterpart, François Hollande, joined other state leaders at the genocide memorial complex in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. After a flower-laying ceremony, Armenia’s president, Serge Sarkisian, told the guests: “I am grateful to all those who are here to once again confirm your commitment to human values, to say that nothing is forgotten; that after 100 years we remember.”

Earlier this month, Turkey recalled its ambassadors to the Vatican and the Austrian capital of Vienna after both countries recognised the massacres as genocide. A non-binding resolution passed by the European parliament to commemorate the centenary of the genocide prompted a similarly furious reply, with Erdoğan saying that “such a decision would go in one ear and out the other”.

However, the tone of his message read during Friday’s memorial service at the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul was softer.

“We share the Armenians’ pain with sincerity,” his message read. “The doors of our hearts are open to the deceased Ottoman Armenians’ grandchildren.”

The Turkish president underlined that Armenians had made important economic and cultural contributions to the Ottoman empire, while insisting Armenians were only one of “millions of people from every nation living in the Ottoman empire’s borders” who also died during the first world war.

For the first time in the history of the Turkish republic, a Turkish state official attended the church service. Volkan Bozkir, the minister in charge of Turkey’s EU relations, said he was honoured to be able to attend the service: “We respect the pain felt by our Armenian brothers”.

Later on Friday a rally of Turkish and international human rights groups and others was planned in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Sarkisian lauded those attending as “strong people who are rendering an important service to their country”.

More on this story

More on this story

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  • Armenian genocide survivors' stories: 'My dreams cannot mourn'

  • Centenary of the Armenian genocide: descendants tell their family’s stories

  • Armenian genocide 100 years on: 'We were raised with this trauma. It's in our blood' – video

  • Britain sidesteps Armenian genocide recognition a century after killings

  • Archive: The Armenian genocide

  • Why is the UK government so afraid to speak of Armenian genocide?

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