Adam Schiff: Turks aimed at destroying Armenian history, culture, faith

15/12/2011

PanARMENIAN.Net – American diplomats, members of Congress and presidents have consistently pressed other governments to respect and protect their minorities, U.S. representative Adam Schiff said from the House floor before it voted to pass the Return of Churches Resolution (H. Res. 306) calling on the Republic of Turkey to end all religious persecution and to return stolen Christian church properties.
The legislation now awaits Senate action.

“For more than two centuries our nation has stood for tolerance of other faiths, and the promotion of religious freedom,” Rep. Schiff said. “This resolution is in the finest tradition of advocacy for those whose voices have been silenced. I am proud to be an original cosponsor and am pleased that the House passed the Return of Churches Resolution to shine light on the unacceptable violations and intolerance of religious freedom in Turkey,” Rep. Schiff said.

“From the spring of 1915 and continuing for the next eight years, the forces of the Ottoman Empire – police and military – engaged in a genocide of the Armenian people living within the borders of their dying empire.
“When it was over, more than 1.5 million men, woman and children had been killed in the first genocide of the Twentieth Century. They were beaten, shot, marched to their deaths through scorching deserts or across frigid mountains and left where they fell. Families and entire communities were destroyed as the Ottomans did everything in their power to make a people disappear.

“But the physical near-annihilation of the Armenian people was not enough to satisfy the Turks’ desire to wreak vengeance on Armenia, which was the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion in AD 301. Their campaign against the Armenians was broader and was aimed at destroying not only the Armenian people, but also their history, their culture and their faith.

“When Ottoman forces began to massacre their Armenian neighbors ninety-five years ago, there were nearly 2,000 Armenian churches in what is now Turkey. Fewer than 100 remain standing and fully functioning today. One of the world’s oldest Christian communities has, for the most part, disappeared from its ancestral homeland.

“While the Armenian Genocide stands as a singular event, the persecution of the Armenians has continued and much of it centers on the Armenians’ status as a Christian minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim country, where discriminatory laws are used to confiscate church property and prevent free worship. And other Christian communities, especially the Greek Orthodox, have also been the victims of Turkish intolerance,” he said.

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