On April 24th, two genocide commemoration events took place in Istanbul. They took place one after the other and in different locations around the city. The conference, which was organized by the Ankara Freedom of Thought Initiative, was heavily controlled by the police. The hotel was searched by both policemen and security dogs, metal detectors were set up at the entrance of the Princess Hotel(where the conference took place), and all attendees had to be cleared before they were allowed into the building.
Around 200 people attended the conference, the majority of which were intellectuals and activists who condemn the Armenian Genocide and support recognition, and a debate on whether or not Armenia should seek reparations took place. The debate was headed by Ismail Besikci, a scholar who spent years in Turkish prisons for speaking about the Kurdish involvement in the Armenian Genocide, Baskin Oran, a professor of political science, Sevan Nishanian, a Turkish-Armenian scholar who has written several books, Ragip Zarakolu, a publisher in Turkey who has been at the forefront of the struggle for Armenian Genocide recognition in Turkey for decades, and various others.
To read the full article, please click the link below.
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2010/04/28/ankara-conference/
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