PRESS OFFICE
Armenian Holy Apostolic Church Canadian Diocese
Contact; Deacon Hagop Arslanian, Assistant to the Primate
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont Quebec H2V 3H2
Tel; 514-276-9479, Fax; 514-276-9960
Email; adiocese@aol.com Website;

Bishop Galstanian urges Canadian Parliamentarians to vote for M-380

On Tuesday April 20 2004, the Primate of the Armenian Holy Apostolic
Church Canadian Diocese addressed a letter to the members of the House
of Commons of Canada urging them to vote in favor of M-380 Armenian
Genocide.

Upon the directive of His Eminence Bishop Bagrat Galstanian the
Diocesan faithful contacted Members of Parliament in their areas to
urge them to vote for M-380.

During telephone conversations with Ministers and Parliamentarians,
Bishop Galstanian expressed gratitude and thanks for their attention
and urged them to vote for the Armenian Genocide resolution. Serpazan
told the MP’s “If the Canadian parliament recognizes the Genocide of
April 24, 1915 the Armenian community in Canada will warmly welcome
and deeply appreciate the wisdom and courageous act of the Government
of Canada, which will be a clear expression of Canada’s strong
commitment to human rights and justice”.

The copy of His Eminence Bishop Bagrat Galstanian’s letter is attached

ARMENIAN HOLY APOSTOLIC CHURCH CANADIAN DIOCESE
615 Stuart Avenue, Outremont, Quebec, Canada H2V 3H2
Tel: (514) 276-9479 Fax: (514) 276-9960
Email: adiocese@aol.com Web:

House of Commons
Ottawa

Honorable members of the Canadian Parliament,

As the Primate and the spiritual leader of the Armenian Church of
Canada, I have the unique privilege and the pleasure to extend sincere
salutations to all distinguished members of the Canadian House of
Commons, and to express on behalf of all Canadian Armenians our
heartfelt appreciation of your resolve to debate in the Canadian
Parliament openly and objectively the recognition of the historical
fact of the Armenian Genocide.

Three generations after that fateful event, the Genocide remains a
deeply imbedded wound in the Armenian psyche. The wound has not
healed, because this injustice of unprecedented magnitude has not been
recognized and acknowledged by the perpetrator and by the
international community as a crime against mankind and a violation of
a fundamental standard of humanity.

Moreover, in a cruel campaign of denial, the perpetrator continues the
genocide by killing the memory of the victims. Indeed, as genocide
scholar Professor Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University states, “denial
is the final stage of genocide, because it strives to reshape history
in order to demonize the victims and rehabilitate the perpetrators.”

There are no two sides of this story. Hundreds of news accounts
published in the international media during the First World War,
numerous eye witness accounts of foreign missions and survivors –
including our parents and grandparents, thousands of state archives
around the world, scores of declarations by esteemed historians have
repeatedly established beyond a shred of a doubt, that a
state-sponsored, premeditated, meticulously planned and brutally
executed scheme of ethnic cleansing was carried out in 1915 through
1923 by the Ottoman Turkish government over its Armenian citizens
living on their ancestral homeland, who aspired only the dignity of
living like a human being. The 1915 genocide of the Armenians was the
culmination of 600 years of oppression and a diabolic attempt for a
final solution by the Ottoman authorities to the European insistence
of introducing reforms that would guarantee the most basic human
rights of minorities in Ottoman Turkey.

Dear parliamentarians,

You do not have to look far for an evidence of the Armenian
Genocide. Look at the galleries of this House, full of representatives
of the Canadian Armenian community. There are hundreds of similar
communities dispersed around the world, from the far-east to the far
west, members of the Armenian Diaspora that was created as a result of
the Genocide. The throbbing pain they have inherited from their
tormented parents and grandparents, yearns for recognition of the
truth and for justice.

France and Switzerland were the latest of more than 15 states, who
courageously defied threats and blackmail, and sided with the truth
and justice.

Honorable members of the House of Commons,

Show to the world once more that Canada upholds international ethics,
believes in human and social rights and strives for consolidation of
peace based on justice. Vote for the recognition of the Armenian
Genocide. God bless you all.

Prayerfully,

Bishop Bagrat Galstanian Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church
of Canada

DIVAN OF THE DIOCESE

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress