Human Rights Defender of Armenia Anahit Manasyan sent a message on the occasion of the 108th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
"Today marks the 108th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and all Armenians and the civilized world are commemorating the memory of the holy martyrs of the Armenian Genocide, the first genocide of the 20th century.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey were subjected to mass crimes organized by the Young Turks government: brutal murders, forced deportation and torture. On April 24, 1915, hundreds of Western Armenian intellectuals were arrested and murdered.
Despite the presence of continuously improving international frameworks for the protection of human rights and the rule of law, the rights of people forcibly displaced from their native homes and subjected to inhuman tortures and atrocities have not been restored to date. Impunity for such acts inevitably leads to new crimes.
Even though the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted on December 9, 1948, there is a danger of new genocides and other crimes against humanity in different corners of the world today. The threat of ethnic cleansing continues to be relevant for the Armenian people as well, as evidenced by the 44-day Artsakh war of 2020 and the policy of Armenophobia of the Azerbaijani state.
Today, we bow to the memory of the holy martyrs of the Armenian Genocide, and reaffirm our commitment to condemn the crime, recognize the truth, and to restore justice. We consider it necessary to combine all our efforts to prevent similar crimes in the modern civilized world, and to implement adequate policies for this purpose."
