Saturday 23 January 2010

Holocaust Memorial Day & Petition

On 27 January 2010, National Holocaust Memorial Day will be commemorated in London.

We expect that yet again the Armenian Genocide will not feature in the program or be mentioned.

Yet this event aims to ensure that all the lessons from the past are learnt and that the past is not

repeated in the future.

How can this be achieved if the first genocide of the 20th century is not remembered or recognised?

There are a number of developments in the UK to address this.

A Bill has been introduced in the House of Commons as well as an Early Day Motion.

A Hrant Dink commemoration took place there on 19 January in the House of Commons, the third

anniversary of his murder for mentioning the events of 1915.

A legal opinion by an eminent jurist, “Was there an Armenian Genocide?” has been circulated to

MPs, MEPs, peers, political organisations, and NGOs.

It is the British government that shapes this country's policy and the approach to Holocaust

Memorial Day.

Could you please help to change this by signing the following electronic petition that goes straight

to10 Downing Street.

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to officially and publicly condemn the Armenian Genocide as such.”

Click on http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/genocide2010/

Then perhaps you would be kind enough to ask your friends and colleagues to do the same.

To quote:

"Times change, but as other civilised nations recognise, the universal crimes of genocide and torture

have no statute of limitations. Judge Balthazar Garzon, in opening his investigation of the crimes of the

Franco era, declared that their perpetrators should have no posthumous impunity: the same might be

said of the authors of the Armenian Genocide."

Geoffrey Robertson QC, Legal opinion on the Armenian Genocide, October 2009.



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