Well, I’ve been involved for a period of time and interested in Armenia for a number of reasons, obviously there is the question of identifying things like the Armenian Genocide and I thinks that’s something that has a lot of emotion in the US as well. But when I met Ruben [Vardanyan], he wanted to talk about finding a version of Armenian history where we can talk about the great things that have happened and looking forward. And I thought – what a great idea to be able to find people who risked their lives at times, certainly give up virtually everything in their life in the service and help of others, and to find a way to celebrate that in the name of Aurora, in the name of looking back in the way.
Turkish denialism (and its international helpers) will not let her or us come to rest. (Just take a look at the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s website on the topic). Turkish denialism says, “She probably did not die. Well, perhaps she did but it was really her own fault because the Armenians were in open rebellion against the state.”
As a second lieutenant in the German army stationed in the Ottoman Empire in April 1915, Wegner took the initiative to investigate reports of Armenian massacres. Disobeying orders intended to stifle news of the massacres, he collected information on the Genocide and took hundreds of photographs of Armenian deportation camps, primarily in the Syrian desert. Wegner was eventually arrested, but not before he had succeeded in channeling a portion of his research material to Germany and the United States through clandestine mail routes. When he was transferred to Constantinople in November 1916, he secretly took with him photographic plates of images he and other German officers recorded.
The killing of more than 200 Armenian intellectuals on April 24, 1915 is regarded as the start of the massacre that is widely viewed by historians as genocide. But modern Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, vehemently rejects the charge.
We also call on the government of Turkey to respect and realize fully the legal obligations which it has undertaken including those provisions, which relate to the protection of cultural heritage and, in particular, to conduct in good faith an integrated inventory of Armenian and other cultural heritage destroyed or ruined during the past century.
The most substantive manifestation of Genocide victims commemoration is building a powerful state, with lessons learned from history, and finally, will be able to distinguish the enemy and the friend from the one who uses. Otherwise, the only occasion of consolidation and solidarity will remain April 24, slogan of which will become “We remember and retreat” in terms of present-day policy constant development.
“Why should we leave women’s talent? Survey showed, when women are free to choose, governments are more responsive, when people’s rights are equal, more stable and states are at peace. I don’t say women are better, than men, excuse me guys, but in many fields, where there are women, more success is recorded,” Soderberg said.
Callimachi has exposed the horrific institutionalization of sex slavery by ISIS, linked child labor in gold mines in Senegal to banks in Switzerland, and revealed massacres committed by government forces from the Ivory Coast to Mali. At a time when risks to journalists are at an all-time high, Callimachi is driven by a deep-seated motivation to tell these stories.
Muslim Turkey denies that the massacres, at a time when Ottoman troops were battling Russian forces in the east of the empire, constituted genocide. It says there was no organized campaign to wipe out the Armenians, who are Christians, and no evidence of any such orders from the Ottoman authorities.
Launched by the 100 Lives initiative, which aims to create awareness of the Armenian Genocide, the winner of the prize then hands the money to an organisation of their choice.
