ARMENIAN JOURNALISTS KILLED IN 1915 PUT ON “MURDERED JOURNALISTS” LIST
PanARMENIAN.Net
October 19, 2011 – 11:35 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Following the Contemporary Journalists’ Association
(CGD), the Turkish Journalists Association (TGC) has decided to
include the names of Armenian journalists killed during the 1915
Armenian Genocide in its list of “murdered journalists,” with a special
section of the Press Museum to be dedicated to the murdered Armenian
journalists, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
“What is important for us is that they are our colleagues; their
religion, language and race are irrelevant,” Ahmet Ozdemir, TGC’s
deputy secretary-general, said.
CGD added the names of 10 murdered Armenian journalists to its list
in recent months. The TGC, however, plans to add only two names:
Diran Kelekyan, an editor of the daily Sabah and Cihan journals, as
well as a writer and an academic; and Krikor Zohrab, a legal expert,
writer, journalist and three-time deputy in the Ottoman Parliament.
“We took journalism as the criterion. Persons who published poems and
discursions on newspapers do not carry significance for us in terms of
journalistic criteria,” Ozdemir said, adding that Zohrab and Kelekyan
were murdered for their professional journalistic activities.
CGD member Ahmet Abakay said: “We would like to make space for more
Armenian journalists as the CGD. We also came in very late, but we had
neither any documents nor any information. Official history concealed
the truth from us. It constitutes a crime to conceal from society the
names of these individuals who labored for the Turkish press. We are
going to continue waging this struggle.”