FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — People all around the world on Monday marked a dark day in World history.
The Armenian genocide started 108 years ago.
Community members gathered at Fresno State to commemorate the lives lost.
On this day in 1915, the Ottoman Empire started arresting Armenians.
One and a half million lost their lives during World War I.
Those who attended the event laid out flowers around the Armenian Genocide Monument.
A religious service followed the event.
The killing and deportation of Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 1900s was remembered Monday in Southern California, home to an enormous Armenian American community that only recently has been able to celebrate U.S. recognition that the systematic oppression was genocide.
Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was marked in the Los Angeles region by big rallies and marches long before 2021, when President Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to use the word “genocide” to describe the campaign of violence.
For decades, the White House had avoided using using the term for fear of alienating Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire and a NATO ally. The government of Turkey vehemently rejected Biden’s use of the word.
Biden on Monday issued a statement renewing a pledge to never forget.
“On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople — the start of a systematic campaign of violence against the Armenian community. In the years that followed, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths — a tragedy that forever affected generations of Armenian families,” Biden said.
More than 200,000 people of Armenian descent are estimated to live in Los Angeles County, where April is celebrated as Armenian History Month.
The suburban city of Glendale is a center of the community, and a small section of Los Angeles is known as Little Armenia, where a crowd gathered Monday on Hollywood Boulevard.
Traditional annual remembrance activities on or around the day include protests outside the Turkish Consulate in Beverly Hills and a ceremony at the towering Armenian Genocide Martyrs Monument on a hilltop in suburban Montebello.
The Glendale and Los Angeles school districts closed schools Monday in observance of the day. Last week, the LA district Board of Education voted to support the inclusion of an Armenian check box on the U.S. Census questionnaire so that officials can better serve the population.
BAKU, April 23. /TASS/. Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that the decision to establish a checkpoint on the Lachin corridor was legitimate and slammed Armenia’s statement on this matter as an attempt to meddle in its domestic affairs.
“The Armenian foreign ministry’s statement is yet another attempt to interfere into Azerbaijan’s domestic affairs and its is unacceptable. <…> The Azerbaijani’s side’s legitimate decision to establish a border checkpoint in its territory is in conformity with all principles and norms of international law,” it said in a statement.
The ministry said that Yerevan’s accusations that Baku has violated its commitments under the trilateral statement are ungrounded. “Under the trilateral statement, Azerbaijan undertook to guarantee safe movement of people, vehicles and cargoes along the road linking Lachin and Khankendi (known as Stepanakert in Armenia). This commitment includes measures to prevent abuses of the Lachin road. Apart from that, the establishment of a checkpoint at the beginning of the road introduces no changes into the traffic regime,” it stressed.
Baku also lambasted Yerevan’s statements that the establishment of the checkpoint is geared to launch “ethnic purges” as groundless and absurd. “We state once again that there are all the conditions for transparent, safe and orderly movement of Armenian residents of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region via this checkpoint in both directions,” the ministry stressed.
According to the ministry, the statement by the foreign ministry of Armenia, “which boycotted peace talks, indicates its intentions to use this as a pretext to undermine efforts toward the resumption of talks.”
“We recommend the Armenian side drop such provocations, demonstrate a responsible approach to the efforts toward building its relations with Azerbaijan on the principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of states, instead of using various pretext to hamper peace talks,” it stressed.
09:17,
YEREVAN, APRIL 25, ARMENPRESS. United States Vice President Kamala Harris has commemorated the victims of the Armenian Genocide.
“Today, we honor the 1.5 million lives lost during the Armenian genocide. As we reflect on that painful moment in history, let us renew the pledge to never forget, and let us rededicate ourselves to speaking out against hate in all its forms,” Harris tweeted on April 24, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day.
Azerbaijan said on Sunday it had established a checkpoint on the only land route to the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a step that was followed by claims of border shootings by both Azeri and Armenian forces.
Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its 120,000 inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians and it broke away from Baku in a war in the early 1990s.
Azerbaijan said it had established a checkpoint on the road leading to Karabakh, a step it said was essential due to what it cast as Armenia’s use of the road to transport weapons.
Azerbaijan “took appropriate measures to establish control at the starting point of the road,” the foreign ministry said.
“Providing border security, as well as ensuring safe traffic on the road, is the prerogative of the government of Azerbaijan, and an essential prerequisite for national security, state sovereignty and the rule of law.”
Armenian officials said Azerbaijan was installing what they cast as an illegal checkpoint at the Hakari bridge in the Lachin corridor, the only road across Azerbaijan that links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pictures of the bridge posted on social media by Azeri officials showed one side of it blocked by vehicles and soldiers.
Armenia’s defense ministry said a soldier named Artyom Poghosyan was killed at around 0750 GMT when Azeri forces opened fire on an Armenian position in Sotk, an Armenian village east of Lake Sevan. Azerbaijan denied it killed the soldier.
Azerbaijan then claimed that Armenian soldiers fired on Azeri units at around 1110 GMT in the Lachin district, a claim Armenia denied.
In 2020, Azerbaijan retook territory in and around the enclave after a second war that ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire upheld by Russian peacekeepers.
Azeri civilians identifying themselves as environmental activists have been facing off since Dec. 12 with Russian peacekeepers on the Lachin corridor.
Armenia says the protesters are government-backed agitators who are effectively blockading Karabakh. Azerbaijan denies blockading the road, saying that some convoys and aid are allowed through.
In recent months Armenia has repeatedly called on Moscow to do more to support the peace and ensure unfettered access between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabak through the Lachin Corridor.
Azerbaijan said it set up a checkpoint Sunday on the Lachin corridor, the only land link between Armenia and the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
The two ex-Soviet Caucasus nations have fought two wars over Azerbaijan’s Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Sunday’s checkpoint is the first set up by Azerbaijan since the latest war ended in 2020 with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
“The units of the Azerbaijani Border Service established a border checkpoint on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, at the entrance of the Lachin-Khankendi road,” the state border service said, adding it was a response to a similar move by Armenia.
Baku and Yerevan went to war in 2020 and in the 1990s over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Under the ceasefire that ended the 2020 conflict, Azerbaijan is required to guarantee safe passage on the Lachin corridor, which is patrolled by Russian peacekeepers.
Azerbaijan, however, said it set up the checkpoint at 12:00 pm (0800 GMT) on Sunday “to prevent the illegal transportation of manpower, weapons, mines.”
The foreign ministry accused Yerevan of using the corridor for the rotation of army staff, “the transfer of weapons and ammunition, entrance of terrorists, as well as illicit trafficking of natural resources and cultural property.”
It said on Saturday it recorded military convoys entering Azerbaijan’s territory and “the construction of military infrastructure… at the point closest to the territory of Azerbaijan.”
The checkpoint was built “in light of these threats and provocations” and “shall be implemented in interaction with the Russian peacekeeping force.”
Tensions had been brewing around the Lachin corridor since last year.
In December, Azerbaijani activists blocked the Lachin corridor to protest what they claim was illegal mining.
Yerevan accused Baku of staging the demonstrations and creating a humanitarian crisis in the mountainous enclave.
Armenia has also accused Russia, embroiled in its Ukraine offensive, of failing to prevent the blockade.
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Reps. Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, Linda Sanchez, D-Whittier, and Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, Sens. Bob J. Archuleta, D-Pico Rivera, and Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles, Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian and Montebello Mayor David Torres were among the speakers at the 11 a.m. commemoration at the Montebello Armenian Genocide Monument in Bicknell Park.
The commemoration also included a religious ceremony, musical performances and placement of flowers.
The event was organized by the United Armenian Council of Los Angeles.
A rally seeking an immediate end to Azerbaijan’s blockade of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region is planned for 6 p.m. Sunday outside the Azerbaijan Consulate in Brentwood, organized by Unified Young Armenians, which is also organizing an “Armenian Genocide Commemorative Rally for Justice” at 10 a.m. Monday at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue in Little Armenia.
Glendale will conduct its 22nd annual Armenian Genocide Commemorative Event at 7 p.m. Monday at the Alex Theatre, with the theme, “The Armenian Experience Through the Lens,” celebrating the 100th anniversary of Armenian cinema.
On April 24, 1915, Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople, leading to an estimated 1.5 million people being killed. Turkey denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
YEREVAN, Armenia — About 10,000 people bearing torches on Sunday night marched through Armenia’s capital to commemorate the estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed in Ottoman Turkey more than a century ago.
The march from a central square to a sprawling memorial complex began with activists burning the flags of Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan have spiraled in recent months since the blockage of the road leading to the ethnic Aremenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan.
Historians estimate that, in the last days of the Ottoman Empire, up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in what is widely regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Armenians have long pushed for the deaths to be recognized as genocide.
While Turkey concedes that many died in that era, the country has rejected the term genocide, saying the death toll is inflated and the deaths resulted from civil unrest during the Ottoman Empire’s collapse.
Armenia on Monday formally observes Genocide Remembrance Day, marking the start of the killings in 1915.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/apr/23/torchlight-march-marks-mass-deaths-of-armenians/
Facebook has blocked the creation of profile frames to commemorate the 108th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute reported on Saturday.
“The Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute has prepared commemorative frames reading “I REMEMBER AND DEMAND” for profile pictures this year as well, however Facebook has blocked the feature to create frames,” it said in a statement.
The museum suggests using Photoshop to add the frames to photos before posting them on Facebook.
11:38,
YEREVAN, APRIL 22, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan sent congratulatory messages to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei and the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi on the occasion of the Islamic Eid al-Fitr holiday.
The Prime Minister’s message addressed to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution reads as follows,
“Your Eminence,
I convey my warm words of congratulations to you and the friendly people of the Islamic Republic of Iran on the occasion of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which symbolizes the end of self-purification and fasting. I wish that the symbolism of this bright holiday be an inseparable companion of the people of neighboring and friendly Iran.
The Government of the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people greatly value the warm Armenian-Iranian relations with a history of thousands of years, which today, standing as a bright example of the effective dialogue between Christianity and Islam, will conquer new horizons in the near future for the benefit of our peoples and for the sake of regional stability.
Taking this opportunity, I wish you plenty of sunshine and good health, and lasting peace to the people of Iran.
Please accept, Your Eminence, the assurances of my highest consideration”.
Nikol Pashinyan’s message addressed to the President of Iran reads as follows,
“Your Excellency,
I warmly congratulate you on the Islamic holy holiday of Eid al-Fitr. May the fecundity and blessings of this holiday always accompany the neighboring and friendly people of Iran.
Today, there are all prerequisites for the further strengthening of our steadily developing bilateral relations, anchored on the millennia-old rich history. I sincerely hope that due to political will and stable partnership, we will witness the expansion of cooperation between our two countries for the sake of the well-being of the Armenian and Iranian peoples and regional security.
Taking this opportunity, I wish you new achievements and lasting peace to the friendly people of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.”