Ryde City Council unanimously passes Motion marking 90th Anniversary of Armenian Genocide
RYDE: This evening Ryde City Council unanimously passed the following
Motion commemorating the Armenian Genocide, moved by Independent Councillor Mr Sarkis Yedelian:
That this Council:
(1) acknowledges this year as marking the occasion of the 90th anniversary commemoration of the Genocide of the Armenians
perpetrated by the then Ottoman Government between the years 1915-1922;
(2) joins
with the Armenian community of Ryde in honouring the memory of the 1.5
million men, women and children who died in the first genocide of the twentieth
century;
(3) recognises
24 April every year as a day of remembrance of the Armenian genocide;
(4) condemns
the genocide of the Armenians and all other acts of genocide committed as the ultimate act of racial, religious
and cultural intolerance;
(5) calls
on the Commonwealth Government to officially condemn:
(i) the genocide
of the Armenians
(ii) any attempt to
deny such crimes against humanity.
On April 24 of this year, on the eve of the 90th anniversary of the ANZAC landings, Armenians the world
over, including the many thousands of Armenian-Australians living in Ryde, will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Armenian
genocide. In 1915, and in anticipation of the Allied invasion, the Ottoman Empire set in motion a plan to exterminate the
entire Christian Armenian population living on their ancestral lands of Eastern Anatolia, part of what is today the Republic
of Turkey. This state-sponsored program resulted in the brutal extermination of some 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children.
Clr Yedelian said - ”As the first Australian
Councillor of Armenian ancestry, and a son of survivor of the Armenian Genocide, I feel honoured to have moved this Motion. The importance of this Commemorative Motion, however, goes beyond the Armenian-Australian
Community, many thousands of who call the City of Ryde home.”
“In stark contrast to post-Nazi Germany which has acknowledged and sought to atone for the crimes of the Nazi
regime, successive Turkish governments have refused to come to terms with their own history.
The “industry of genocide denial” by successive Turkish States, has set a very dangerous precedent, which
has already been relied upon by at least one mass murderer, Hitler, for his genocidal crimes, and which cannot be left without
redress” Yedelian added.
As the City of Ryde has one of the largest and growing Armenian-Australian constituencies, it fitting that Ryde Council
has added its name to the growing list of multi-national, national, state/provisional and municipal legislative bodies (including
the NSW Parliament) that have commemorated and reaffirmed the historical truth of the Armenian Genocide, and which have provided
a resounding response to Hitler’s self-justifying question in 1939 before he embarked on his genocidal deeds during
World War II – "Who remembers now the destruction of the Armenians?"
As with a similar motion passed unanimously by the NSW Parliament in 1997, Ryde Council Motion also calls on the Federal
Parliament to add its voice to this important call.
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