On April 23, an event dedicated to the memory of the Armenian Genocide victims took place in the Kurtuluş district of Constantinople. According to Civilnet, local media reported this.
The memorial event was held at the initiative of the “Greens” and “Left Future” parties. Participants of the event came forward with slogans such as “An end must be put to the politics of enmity and hatred, racism must not be tolerated.”
In addition, at the Armenian Şişli cemetery, the memory of Sevag Balıkçı and his father, Karpis Balıkçı, was honored; both died on April 24, in different years. Sevag Balıkçı was killed in 2011 in Batman during military service, by a bullet from a fellow soldier.
Formerly Tavalas, today Kurtuluş, is the district where, since the beginning of the 20th century, the arrests of Armenian intellectuals were initiated and carried out most actively. On the night of April 23-24, 1915, the Ottoman authorities arrested around 250 Armenian writers, journalists, artists, businessmen, and persons of other professions in Constantinople. The following day, the persecutions against Armenians continued. By April 24, the number of those already exiled had reached around 2,234.
Diyarbakır Bar Association Called for Initiating a Truth-Revelation Process
On the occasion of the commemoration of the victims’ memory, the Diyarbakır Bar Association issued a statement. The organization emphasized, for a democratic, just, peaceful future and the protection of human rights, the necessity of confronting past human rights violations, massacres, and social upheavals that took place.
The statement noted that “April 24, 1915, was the beginning of the most painful disaster in Turkey’s social history,” when the Armenian population, especially the intellectuals, were exiled from the city of Istanbul. The organization called for initiating a truth-revelation process.
