guardian.co.uk<\/p>\n
Friday 5 March 2010 12.11 GMT<\/p>\n
Repression of 2.5 million people in Ottoman empire dates back to
\nautonomy movement in late 19th century
\n![\"Ottoman](\"http:\/\/static.guim.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/3\/5\/1267790311115\/Ottoman-soldiers-pose-wit-001.jpg\")
\nOttoman soldiers posing in front of hanged Armenians in 1915. A US
\ncongressional committee yesterday voted to label the Ottoman empire’s
\nactions as genocide. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Armenia believes Turkey committed genocide in the deaths of at least
\n1 million Armenians when they were deported from Turkish Armenia in
\n1915, and welcomes the non-binding resolution passed by the US house
\nforeign affairs committee.<\/p>\n
Repression of the 2.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman empire dates
\nback to 1894-96 under Sultan Abdulhamid, when Armenians in the eastern
\nprovinces, encouraged by Russia, began agitating for autonomy.<\/p>\n
Abdulhamid cracked down on separatist sentiment by encouraging
\nnationalistic feelings against Armenians among neighbouring Kurdish
\ntribesmen.<\/p>\n
A combination of Kurdish persecution and a rise in taxes led to an
\nArmenian uprising that was brutally suppressed by Turkish troops
\nand Kurdish tribesmen in 1894. Thousands of Armenians were killed
\nand their villages burned. Two years later, another revolt broke
\nout when Armenian rebels seized the Ottoman bank in Istanbul. More
\nthan 50,000 Armenians were killed by mobs apparently co-ordinated by
\ngovernment troops.<\/p>\n
Those death tolls were dwarfed by the killings during the first world
\nwar, when Armenians from the Caucasus formed volunteer battalions
\nto help the Russian army against the Turks. Early in 1915, these
\nbattalions organised the recruiting of Turkish Armenians from behind
\nTurkish lines.<\/p>\n
The Young Turk government reacted by ordering the deportation of the
\nArmenian population to Syria and Palestine. About 1 million died from
\nstarvation or were killed by Arab or Kurdish tribes along the route.<\/p>\n
Many survivors fled to Russian Armenia where, in 1918, an independent
\nArmenian republic was established. Armenia won independence when the
\nSoviet Union fractured in 1991.<\/p>\n
Turkey accepts that atrocities took place but argues that there was
\nno systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenians. It puts the
\nnumber of deaths during 1915 at around 300,000 and says many innocent
\nMuslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.<\/p>\n
The legal definition of genocide is found in the 1948 UN convention
\non the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.<\/p>\n
Article two of this convention defines genocide as “any of the
\nfollowing acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
\na national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing
\nmembers of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
\nof the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
\ncalculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
\npart; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
\n[and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”<\/p>\n
Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for
\nInternational Peace in Washington DC, said that “the overwhelming
\nhistorical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was
\ngenocide”. He nevertheless opposes the US ruling as a needless
\npolitical manoeuvre.<\/p>\n
Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay are among <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mark Tran guardian.co.uk Friday 5 March 2010 12.11 GMT Repression of 2.5 million people in Ottoman empire dates back to autonomy movement in late 19th century Ottoman soldiers posing in front of hanged Armenians in 1915. A US congressional committee yesterday voted to label the Ottoman empire’s actions as genocide. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images Armenia believes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":67744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,846],"tags":[145,1571,78,151,120,1153,1018],"class_list":["post-17420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenian-question","category-business","tag-barack-obama","tag-ahmet-davutoglu","tag-ergenekon","tag-genocide","tag-gulen","tag-politics","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmore than 20 countries which have formally recognised genocide against
\nthe Armenians. The European parliament and the UN sub-commission on
\nprevention of discrimination and protection of minorities have also
\ndone so.https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2010\/mar\/05\/history-armenia-turkey-genocide<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n