WHY AND HOW TO CONTACT YOUR MP!

During the 27 June House of Commons meeting, John Belcrow MP was clear that MPs do respond to a stream of letters and protests.

Engagement from grass roots can ratchet an issue up the scale of political priorities.

They serve to focus and energise MPs on the topic.

Government ministers then notice the strength of feeling, particularly with a change in government.

He recommends that UK Armenians and their British friends keep up a flow of letters to their MPs.

Ruth Barnett, Holocaust survivor and educator, confirmed that this strategy is constantly used by the Jewish community to further their interests.

Is your MP amongst the new increased count of 149 MPs who have signed

Early Day Motion 357 on the Armenian Genocide?

[the gross number of signatories is 152 but two MPs were promoted and one died so by convention their names are removed from the count]

Please remind them to sign because the Houses of Parliament recess soon

(at best you have one week to do this to give the MP time to act).

This is a record number but we need far more to register the UK community's strength of feeling.

To identify your MP, click on http://www.upmystreet.com/commons/l/ and type in your post code.

Then email them - two suggested proforma letters that you could use follow

It really is that simple!

Please forward this email to friends and family.

Suggested Letter A (if you want to engage with your MP):

Dear ( name and surname of MP)

As your constituent, I write to ensure you are aware that Mr Bob Spink MP has presented an Early Day Motion ( EDM 357) that has already 149 MPs names against it .

Your name is not among that list and I urge you to sign it before the Summer Recess, giving it the opportunity to gather enough support to call for a Ten Minute Bill Rule about the recognition of the Armenian Genocide committed by the Ottoman Government of 1915.

I will be only too happy to provide you with all the necessary documentation, UNEQUIVOCAL EVIDENCE , statements made by International Scholars, books commissioned by the British Government of the day and a list of Resolutions and Adoptions by various Parliaments and Governments, including the Welsh Parliament and the European Council.

If you wish, I could meet you in your Surgery anytime during next week to discuss with you and hopefully convince you to sign EDM 357. It is of extreme importance to me .

Otherwise, I urge you to sign the Early Day Motion now.

Thank you

Yours sincerely

Suggested Letter B (if you want to write a letter only):

Dear ( name and surname of MP)

As your constituent, I write to ensure you are aware that Mr Bob Spink MP has presented an Early Day Motion ( EDM 357) that has already 149 MPs names against it

Your name is not among that list and I urge you to sign it before the Summer Recess.

That past British Governments have maintained a position of denial in the face of this obvious and self-evident truth is a blemish on the reputation of this country. Britain was the one of the first to identify and publicise what happened to the Armenians in 1915 as " New Crimes against Humanity and Civilisation" - the precursor of the modern term "Genocide)" - in a Joint Statement by the Allies in May 1915. Parliament at that time documented in detail the events in a Blue Book.

The government's argument that historians do not acknowledge the charge of genocide is contradicted by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the pre-eminent organisation on such matters, in the following terms:

"We note that there may be differing interpretations of genocide - how and why the Armenian Genocide happened, but to deny its factual and moral reality as genocide is not to engage in scholarship but in propaganda and efforts to absolve the perpetrator, blame the victims, and erase the ethical meaning of this history."

I urge you to sign the Early Day Motion now.

Thank you

Yours sincerely