Mike Levin: “this year I once again come before the Senate to pay tribute to those who lost their lives or were forced from their…”

“this year I once again come before the Senate to pay tribute to those who lost their lives or were forced from their homeland as a result of the horrific genocide perpetrated against the Armenian people from 1915 through 1923. During those years, the Turkish Ottoman government used the outbreak of World War I as a pretext for subjecting its citizens of Armenian descent to deportation, abduction, torture, massacre, and starvation. The land on which some of the Armenians had lived for generations was expropriated from them. It is imperative for the American people and for people around the world to commemorate this tragedy, with the hope that by remembrance we will advance the day when the world will no longer witness such horrors. Over one million Armenians perished as part of a deliberate campaign of murder in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians, given that they were neither Turks nor Muslims, were treated as threats, even though the Armenians had been exemplary citizens and had lived together peaceably with their Turkish neighbors for centuries. April 24th is the date chosen to commemorate this genocide, since it was on that day in 1915 that government leaders rounded up 300 Armenian leaders, writers, thinkers and professionals for their deportation and for many, their deaths. While the preeminent members of the Constantinople's Armenian community were being rounded up on that day, 5,000 others were slaughtered in their homes and on the streets.”