Political Quotes

“I rise along with many of my colleagues, to commemorate the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1923. Many of us here are already quite familiar with the details: on April 24, 1915, 84 years ago this week, over two hundred Armenian religious, political, and intellectual leaders were executed by the Turkish government. This mass execution was not an isolated incident, but rather was the beginning of a systematic campaign perpetrated by the Ottoman Turk government. These executions had also been preceded by a historic pattern of persecution officially sanctioned by the Ottoman Sultan. To Armenians around the world, April 24th marks the start of an organized campaign by the government of Ottoman Turkey to completely eliminate the Armenian population from the Ottoman Empire. During the following eight years, from 1915-1923, 1.5 million Armenians lost their lives, whether directly or indirectly at the hands of the Ottoman government. I stand here before my colleagues to also praise the efforts that we make today to end persecution and genocide around the world. I rise not as a Democrat or a Republican, but as a human being, honoring the memory of those massacred, so that this will never happen again. It is our responsibility and obligation as humans to acknowledge these tragic events in history and to ensure that the memories of those massacred are honored and respected for all time.”