On the 107th Anniversary of the Ottomans’ Genocide against the Armenian… Crimes against humanity do not have a statute of limitations

These days, the Armenian people in their motherland and expatriate countries commemorate the 107th anniversary of the Armenian genocide by the Ottomans, which began on this day of 1915 and claimed the lives of more than one and a half million innocent people.

 

Although many years have passed since the Ottomans committed this crime, its reverberations continue until today throughout the world as one of the most heinous abuses, and violations  committed against all humanity and repeated in our present time by the Recep Tayyip Erdogan regime, against  the peoples and states of the region , following the policy of  his Ottoman ancestors.

 

The term “genocide” is the most eloquent to describe the crimes and violations committed by the Ottomans against Armenians between the spring of 1915 and the autumn of 1916, where they perpetrated the most heinous cases of persecution, murder and massacres against Armenians, as well as forcibly removing tens of thousands of children from their families.

 

The Ottomans did not only kill men, women and the elderly, but also pursued a policy of mass deportation from Anatolia to other areas, and during forced marches across the desert, convoys of survivors of older persons, women and children were brutally attacked by criminal gangs and civilians, robberies, rape, extortion, torture and murder.

 

Armenian historians emphasize that the Ottoman forces at the time systematically targeted their predecessors with murder, arrest and displacement, which necessitates classifying these acts as genocide deserving of recognition by the Turkish regime and providing compensations that Erdogan’s regime continues to persist in denying, rejecting, which approved by several Western States despite its constant acclaim and defense of human rights.

 

One of the regime’s greatest fears of recognizing the Armenian genocide may be that it will prompt other States and groups to adopt similar demands. The Ottomans have committed a long series of massacres and crimes against many peoples in the region. The current regime continues to follow the same approach and commits violations and crimes against the States and peoples of the region, primarily the Syrian people, who are currently suffering the consequences of Turkish and American occupation of their lands, natural resources, and wealth.

 

Although years and decades have passed since the genocide, it is still present with its heinous and bloody images in the world’s mind. This unequivocally confirms that the crimes against humanity committed by the Ottomans and currently perpetrated by Erdogan’s regime in northern Syria, the Israeli occupation entity in Palestine, the occupied Syrian Golan and the United States in many countries of the world cannot fall by the statute of limitations.

 

Amal Farhat