Politics & Government

Protest Organizer Calls for Obama to Acknowledge Armenian Genocide

Said Nora Hovsepian, board member for Armenian National Committee of America's West Region: "We want to end Turkey's gag rule on American foreign policy."

In front of Sony Pictures Studios, a group of Armenian-Americans gathered in the hundreds to call President Barack Obama to "honor his campaign promise" to acknowledge the World War I killing of millions of Armenians as genocide. 

Ottoman Turks swept through eastern Anatolia between 1915 and 1923, killing upward of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I; however, the current Turkish government objects to the killings being called a “genocide.” In a 2008 campaign stop, Obama said the genocide "is not an allegation, a personal opinion or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.'' Since his election, however, he has not used the term "genocide.''

At a remembrance ceremony of the massacre last year, he called it "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century.

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"In that dark moment of history, 1.5 million Armenians were massacred or marched to their death in the final days of the Ottoman Empire,'' he said.

Patch caught up with Nora Hovsepian to get her take on the killings that have had a personal mark on her family. 

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Stay tuned to Patch for more protest footage, including interviews from not only Armenian-Americans but also immigration rights activists. 


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