Genocide Remembrance Day
Genocide Remembrance Day (Armenian Եղեռնի զոհերի հիշատակի օր ) or genocide Einnerungstag is a national holiday in Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and is celebrated as Remembrance Day in California as well as the displaced Armenian diaspora around the world on April 24. He recalls the deportation of Armenian intellectuals of April 24, 1915 from the Ottoman capital Istanbul, which marked the beginning of the genocide of Christian Armenians.
General
The Memorial commemorates the 1915 arrested by the Deportation Act Armenian elite nationals in the Ottoman capital Constantinople Opel, most of whom were tortured or executed. Every year on this anniversary with funeral services and memorial services commemorating the victims of the Ottoman genocide of Christian Armenians from 1915 to 1923. In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, every year hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walk to the genocide memorial Tsitsernakaberd to lay a wreath at the eternal flame. The Armenian Apostolic Church carries on this day by no baptisms and marriages.
The same day was also chosen by the Assyrians / Syrians and the pontoon Greeks to commemorate the genocide of the Assyrians and the Greeks persecution in the Ottoman Empire.
History
The date was first determined by the Lebanese Armenians as Memorial Day for the 50th anniversary of the genocide in 1965. The same day, then experienced illegal demonstrations of Armenians in Yerevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia. Since the Armenian protests got out of control and peace was restored only with difficulty, allowed the Soviet leadership the establishment of the genocide monument Tsitsernakaberd until 1967.
On April 9, 1975, the House of Representatives of the United States adopted a joint resolution 148, April 24, the National Day of Remembrance of the inhumanity of man to man designated. The resolution commemorated the victims of genocide, especially those of Armenian descent, who succumbed to the 1915 genocide committed. However, the resolution failed in the Senate Judiciary Committee because of the strict rejection of President Gerald Ford, who saw this as a threat to the strategic alliance of the country with Turkey.
The recognition of this day took in the Diaspora as a result of revenge operations Armenian groups such as the Asala to, and the number of participants in genocide Day demonstrations in France alone increased from a few hundred to over ten thousand in the year 1981.
Soviet Armenia adopted on April 24 formally in 1988 as a public Memorial Day. In 1997, the California State Assembly on April 24 declared a day of remembrance of the Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1923, and the victims of the Sumgait pogrom in 1988, and the Baku riots of 1990.
Since the assassination of Armenian- Turkish Hrant Dink 2007 commemorative ceremonies in several Turkish cities will be held on April 24. It began on Taksim Square in Istanbul in 2008, and was held until 2013 in Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Diyarbakir, Urfa, Malatya, Tunceli and Mersin.
Memorials
Several monuments have been erected to commemorate the genocide of the Armenians:
- Tsitsernakaberd Genocide Memorial in Armenia
- Genocide Memorial Montebello Armenian Heritage Park in the U.S.
- Armenian memorial in Marseille and Lyon memorial to the Armenian genocide in France
- Armenian Genocide Monument Nicosia and Armenian Genocide Memorial Larnaca in Cyprus
- Wales Genocide Memorial in the UK