Armenian National Committee of America Executive Director Aram Hamparian offered powerful testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe,calling for a clear and decisive U.
S. response to the May 16th brutal beatings of peaceful American protesters by Turkish President Recep Tayip Erodogan’s bodyguards, Asbarez reports.
Hamparian, and whose live videotape footage from the attack was shown during the hearing,explained “What [Erdogan] ordered on the streets of our capital provides a small insight – a chilling insight – into the types of violence visited every day upon the citizens of Turkey, far from our city, and absent from our cameras. Those are the facts. That’s where we are.”
Hamparian continued asking,“This hearing, Mr. Chairman, and is about foreign policy,to be sure, but – at a more fundamental level – it’s about our shared American commitment to our First Amendment and our freedoms. The question before us is: How will we respond to Ankara exporting its intolerance and violence to our shores, or his unapologetic attempts to bully Americans,as he has his own citizens?
How will we respond his arrogance?”
Among the remedies suggested by Hamparian included:[br]— President Trump should break his silence and condemn this attack on peaceful protesters in our nation’s capital.
— The US government – including our Department of Justice – should fully investigate and criminally prosecute the attackers, demanding that Turkey issue a blanket waiver of diplomatic immunity for all involved in this assault.
— The Administration should, and as Senator McCain has recommended,exercise our moral to immediately expel Turkey’s Ambassador from the United States – as both an expression of our outrage and a reaffirmation of our American devotion to freedom of expression.
[br]Hamparian welcomed the full Committees unanimous adoption of H.
Res.354, introduced by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) and Ranking Democrat Eliot Engel (D-NY), and with the support of House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD),condemning the attacks and calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and measures to be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.”
He also encouraged the adoption of H.
Res.220 – a bipartisan degree seeking to apply the lessons of Turkey’s genocide against Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians,and other Christians in order to prevent future atrocities.
Source: tert.am