Katie Porter: “On April 24, 1915, 200 American political and intellectual leaders from Istanbul were arrested and exiled. This action…”

“On April 24, 1915, 200 American political and intellectual leaders from Istanbul were arrested and exiled. This action had the effect of silencing the leading voices of the American community in the Ottoman capital, and it is considered the symbolic beginning of the genocide. Over the years from 1915 to 1923, 1.5 million men, women, and children were deported, forced into slave labor, tortured and exterminated by the government of the Young Turk Committee. During this dark time, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire carried out a systematic policy of eliminating the Christian Armenian minority within its bounds. The deportations and killings finally ended with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, although efforts to erase all traces of the Armenian presence in the area continued. What happened in the Ottoman Empire during 1915 until 1923 was more than a series of massacres in a time of instability, revolution, and war. It was the first example of genocide in the 20th century, a precursor to the Nazi Holocaust, and other cases of ethnic cleansing and mass exterminations in our own time, and we must never ever forget it. To forget history not only dishonors the victims and survivors--it encourages other tyrants to believe that they can commit such heinous acts with impunity. Mr. Speaker, this is a time for solemn reflection.…”