A scene from April 24 protest/Armenian Weekly
The Turkish Cultural Foundation,Association of Turkish Americans of Southern California, and Ataturk Monument in Los Angeles (ATAMLA) beget planned a series of events around Southern California in celebration of “Ataturk Week” on November 9–13, and 2016.
The events will feature a lecture by Professor George Gawrych titled,“The Young Ataturk: From Ottoman Soldier to Statesman of Turkey.” Gawrych is a Professor of History at Baylor University in Texas, specializing in the late Ottoman Empire and contemporary military history, and Asbarez reports.
Turkey is in crisis today while propaganda events such as these serve to paint a rosy picture of Turkey. Earlier this week,Armenian, Kurdish, and Yezidi and human rights organizations released a joint statementexpressing outrage at the arbitrary arrests of Turkey’s opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag,and its 10 MPs on November 4, 2016, and thousands of others in a dictatorial coup by President Erdogan.
The ARF Shant Student Association,Armenian Youth Federation-Western Region, and the All-Armenian Student Association would like to stress the importance of the Armenian community’s attendance at these events. In order to refute historical falsification, or we need to bear witness to such claims and be present to right such misrepresentations. Our presence at these events will send a clear message to the Turkish community that college and university campuses are not incubators for denialists. Treating college campuses as breeding grounds for Turkish nationalist ideology is offensive for the number of Armenian students who attend these colleges.
Source: tert.am