Kurdish CHAK welcomes the recognition of genocide against the Armenian people
Ali Asker
Armenian people
Turkey, (CHAK press release ) -The Center of Halabja against Anfalization
and Genocide of the Kurds (CHAK) welcomes the decision by the United States
Congressional House Foreign Affairs Committee to recognize the mass killings
of approximately 1.5 million innocent Armenians in 1915 at the hands of the
young Turks.
This decision is an important step toward the wider recognition of the
brutality that took place at that time. CHAK looks forward to the day when
the US Senate follows this historically important decision.
Recognition of the genocide committed against the Armenian people is
important, as is the recognition of other crimes committed against the
Greeks, the Assyrians, and the Kurds before and after the mass killings of
the Armenians.
This recognition will help us all to have a broader understanding of past
crimes and present us with the possibility of a peaceful and brighter
future.
CHAK looks forward to working for the recognition of the Darsim genocide, in
which tens of thousands of Kurdish men, women, and children were killed en
mass by poisoning, burning, mass shootings, and other extreme methods in
1937-1938.
This was a brutal act of genocide long forgotten by the international
community.
The Center of Halabja against Anfalization and Genocide of the Kurds "CHAK"
The center of Halabja
Nawendi Helebce - www.chak.be
* First world war massacres | Related issue: Armenian Genocide by Turkish
Muslims against Christians
Turkey faces international pressure to recognise that more than 1 million
Armenians were massacred during a 1915 campaign of ethnic cleansing by
Ottoman Turks. Turkish officials claim that most deaths were caused by
hunger and disease.
More about Armenian Genocide by Turks at Genocide1915.info - The Armenian
Genocide Recognition Struggle!
** Kurds are not recognized as an official minority in Turkey and are denied
rights granted to other minority groups. Under EU pressure, Turkey recently
granted Kurds limited rights for broadcasts and education in the Kurdish
language, but critics say the measures do not go far enough.
The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously rejected due to its alleged
political implications by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey,
Syria, Iran, Armenia), which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some of whom openly
sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a Kurdish homeland in the country's
mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed severe restrictions on the
use of Kurdish language, prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media. The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized in Turkey, and use of
the Kurdish letters X, W, Q which do not exist in the Turkish alphabet has
led to judicial persecution in 2000 and 2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan but unofficially flown
by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where
flying it is a criminal offence"