As human rights advocates across the world commemorated on April 24 the 106th anniversary of the 1915 Armenian Genocide committed by Ottoman Turkey, a Turkish nationalist MP was threatening an Armenian MP with murder.
On April 27, Umit Ozdag, an independent member of Turkey’s parliament and a professor of political science, retweeted a statement by Garo Paylan, who is an Armenian MP from the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Ozdag referred to Talat Pasha (1874-1921), one of the primary architects of the Armenian Genocide, which resulted in the systematic extermination of around 1.5 million Armenians. He wrote on his Twitter account, threatening Paylan:
Imprudent, provocative guy. If you are not so pleased, go to hell. Talat Pasha did not drive out the patriotic Armenians, but those who shot them from behind like you do. When the time comes, you too will and must have a Talat Pasha experience.
At least 12,300 people “liked” Ozdag’s tweet as of May 2.
Talat Pasha was the Minister of the Interior of the Ottoman Empire and one of the authorities who assumed primary responsibility for the planning and implementation of the Armenian Genocide. Ozdag’s threatening tweet was in response to this statement by Paylan:
106 years later, we are [still] walking the streets named after Talat Pasha, the architect of the genocide. We teach our children in schools called Talat Pasha.
[Imagine] what kind of a Germany it would be if there were streets named after Hitler in Germany today and if children there studied at schools named after Hitler. That’s the Turkey we are living in today.
Paylan was referring to the fact that many streets, schools and other venues across Turkey are named after the government and military authorities who planned or implemented the Armenian Genocide.
Paylan responded to Ozdag on his Twitter:
The remnant of the mentality that exterminated my people says “we will do it again.” You shot us and did we not die? We did, but those who survived have never left the struggle for justice. They won’t quit after me [I am gone] either. The conscientious majority of this country have not left the [struggle] to fascists like you, and they will not do that.
Falsely claiming that Paylan has ties with groups such as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (or ASALA, which operated in the 1970s and 80s), and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Ozdag continued targeting Paylan with genocide denialist and racist slurs referring to Paylan’s blood:
A remnant of Dashnaks, an extension of ASALA, a supporter of the PKK. You killed hundreds of thousands of Turks, and shot our army from behind. The perpetrators were punished. Nobody touched the patriotic Armenians. But in your blood the Dashnak-ASALA-PKK virus is circulating. You are a ferocious enemy of the Turkish nation.
Turkey’s Human Rights Association (IHD) Co-Chair and lawyer Eren Keskin then called on prosecutors to open an investigation against Ozdag for his statements inciting violence:
We, as IHD’s Commission against Racism and Discrimination, will file a criminal complaint against Umit Ozdag. I wish a “true legist, prosecutor” would step up before we do, and open an investigation… Here is hoping.
As no public prosecutor has filed a complaint against Ozdag, Keskin took action and announced that the IHD filed a criminal complaint against Ozdag for “threatening” Paylan, “publicly provoking hatred and hostility” and “committing the crime of discrimination.”
However, it is very unlikely that Ozdag will be held accountable for his genocidal remarks, because his views are in line with those of the Turkish government. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan himself said on April 26 that it was Armenians who committed massacres against “millions of defenceless civilians.”
“Millions of Turks and Kurds, all civilians, were massacred by Armenian gangs,” Erdogan falsely claimed. This allegation has been historically dismissed, but Erdogan continued the narrative. “Feeling unsatisfied, Armenian gangs did not refrain from massacring Greeks in the vicinity of Trabzon and Jewish citizens of the Ottoman State in Hakkari,” he added.
These words demonstrate the scope of the irrationality of historic revisionism in Turkey. The victims are rewritten as the perpetrators and the perpetrators are labeled as the victims. Left is right and right is left. Everything is upside down.
Historical facts, however, clearly demonstrate what happened during the genocide. Beside Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other non-Muslims (such as Yazidis in Ottoman Turkey and Jews in Palestine before the establishment of the modern State of Israel) were targeted. It was a systematic attempt first by the Ottoman authorities and then by Turkish nationalist leaders to wipe out non-Muslims — particularly the indigenous Christians — from their ancient homeland. Honest historians agree on these historical realities. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, for instance, reported in 2007:
The Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire between 1914 and 1923 constituted a genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.
Yet 106 years after the genocide, the victims’ descendants are still targeted by the Turkish government, the political elites and the media. Armenians were the group exposed to the most hate speech by the Turkish media in 2019, according to the Hate Speech and Discrimination Media Discourse annual report by the Hrant Dink Association.
“Hate speech leads to hate crimes and our country lives in a climate of hate,” Paylan told the news site Gazete Duvar. “The whole political sphere ignores hate speech. Hate crimes are becoming commonplace. 106 years ago, genocide also took place in such an atmosphere of hate.” Paylan emphasized that crimes which have remained unpunished will be repeated.
He continued: “Özdağ takes this courage from the [existent] climate of hate. I am not afraid of it. If they kill, we will die, but we will never leave this country to the fascists. I engage in politics knowing this… Armenians are constantly subjected to hate crimes and hate speech in Turkey, including the 6-7 September pogrom in Istanbul [in 1955],” Paylan said. “My father was subjected to the same hate speech. And I am subjected to hate speech as a member of the third generation… We have been living the Talat Pasha experience for 106 years.”
Over a century after the genocide, Turkey not only aggressively denies the genocide, but also falsely portrays Armenians as the perpetrators and threatens them with more murders. Meanwhile, the “Free World” stands idly by.
Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist formerly based in Ankara.
mortimer says
That was a very clear death threat from Umit Ozdag, an independent member of Turkey’s parliament and a professor of political science. He should know better. If making death threats is illegal in Turkey (and I presume it is), the police should charge him immediately.
Umit Ozdag speaks as someone who believes in the validity of Islamic genocide as part of jihad. How does an educated man with top academic credentials get such GENOCIDAL IDEAS?
Clearly, Umit Ozdag knows the Islamic source texts. Moreover, he uncritically accepts the WWI Turkish propaganda that says Turkish Armenians were planning a revolt. The Turks learned that Russians were conscripting Armenians into the Russian army (i.e. Armenians who lived on the other side of the border in Soviet Russia) … which the Russians had a legal right to do.
There was no planned or actual revolt by Armenians or other Turkish Christians against their country.
Umit Ozdag repeats blanket slanders and should not be allowed to get away with his WWI propaganda. Turkey should make reparations to all Christian families hurt by the genocides.
gravenimage says
All true, Mortimer.
But sadly I very much doubt that Turkey under Erdogan is going to charge a Muslim threatening an Armenian.
This, from Umit Ozdag’s Wikipedia page:
After US President Joseph Biden formally recognized the massacres of Armenians as a genocide on April 24, 2021, Özdağ affirmed his support for the actions of the Ottoman state on Twitter by posting a photo of the Three Pashas, writing “I remember with mercy Talaat, Enver and Cemal Pashas who took the necessary precautions against those [Armenians] who shot the Turkish army from behind by cooperating with the enemy. We would do it again today.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cmit_%C3%96zda%C4%9F#Support_for_Armenian_Genocide
Of course, this ludicrous claim that it was actually minority Armenians who threartened Turks is absurd. Besides, linking this to WWI is also ridiculous, since the Armenian Genocide began in the mid-1890s and continued until 1924.
John says
And islam again committed GENOCIDE when it fought for Hitler’s Holocaust murdering Bosnian and Serbian Jews and Christians in WW2 under the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini , who also mentored Yasser Arafat. See the True islamic path.
gravenimage says
True. There were Muslim SS divisions.
born saturday says
the incarnation of barbarocity, the new ottomaniac empire chalifate of the phycho head terrorist sultan, looses no chance in expressing its nomadic looting traditions that horify anyone discovering it beneath the veil created by the western leaders and it self…millions fall victims of some sort, and that includes its fanatical bloodthirsty citizens who are hypnotised in their hunger to serve to death the interests of the islamic leadership… the whole of the west is shocked by the terrorist orders of the sultan and falls victim with fear and disgust…. this is where the appeasment method leads when you have dealings with the religion of satan… the world sleeps the hypnoses of television and sold off networks instead of realising that there is only one way to go for humanity and we are being led like sheep to the cliff…..
Boycott Turkey says
Turkey wants to finish what it started in 1915 and kill all Armenians Ozdogs comment just shows there true intent they want to wipe out not only Armenians but Greek Cypriots and Greeks to I think Armenia should really build up its military get a nuclear weapon same as Greece nobody else will come and save Armenians and Greeks from Turkey the West and Russia are both Pro Turk But Turkey hates both countries and is using this to there advantage Turkey is playing both sides
GreekEmpress says
+1
gravenimage says
Turkish MP Threatens Armenian MP with Murder
“Imprudent, provocative guy. If you are not so pleased, go to hell. Talat Pasha did not drive out the patriotic Armenians, but those who shot them from behind like you do. When the time comes, you too will and must have a Talat Pasha experience.”
…………………….
Just appalling. Umit Ozdag is denying the Armenian Genocide and threatening to give Garo Paylan more of the same–as well as blaming him for the genocide.
As bizarre as this is, it is actually very common with pious Muslims. You see this all the time re the Holocaust–enraged denials that it ever happened, and at the same time threatening Jews with ‘finishing the job’, and saying that Jews brought things on themselves.
And can you imagine members of parliament–or a senate, or diet, or other political body–threatening their colleagues in such a manner? Even in these sadly less-than-civil days in politics there is nothing like this threatening murder in the civilized world.
Thanks to Uzay Bulut for this article.
seabird says
Ozdag conveniently “forgets” that prior to the genocide, Armenian males were conscripted into the army then taken out for “road work” and murdered leaving their families defenseless in their villages.
They were never a threat to the State.
He also “forgets” that talat pasha himself (along with other CUP-young Turk leaders)
we’re sentenced to death by their own Govt. in 1919 under charges of wartime profiteering and “massacres of Armenians and Greeks” as well as other charges.
Turkish soldiers died by the 10’s of thousands because those criminals and traitors sold-off their armies gear and supplies leaving them to die in the snow of hypothermia and diseases without even boots, medication or proper clothing.
Ozdog (and the Turkish Govt.) doesn’t want you to know that about their “heroes” so they blame those deaths on Armenians.
Garo Paylan is one of the bravest men I’ve ever heard of and Uzay Bulut one of the bravest women and a fine journalist.
OLD GUY says
A death threat from a muslim/islamic leader is not news, it’s a daily occurrence. Turkey is headed down a long dark road with its islamic dominated political system.