AGENDA

Before the hearing of the public officials as part of Dink case started, Friends of Hrant made a press statement in front of Istanbul Court House.

We addressed two questions to two people, historian and former editor of Der Speigel Wolfgang Gust and historian Eric Weitz from City University of New York, who have been researching German complicity to the Armenian Genocide for many years.

“Sur Action Plan”, which was announced by Minister of Environment and Urban Planning Mehmet Özhaseki, has been criticized by NGOs and occupational organizations which are excluded from the process of project design. Referring to the plan, Chamber of Architects Diyarbakir Branch Chair Şerefhan Aydın says, “This is the first step of gaining unearned income and making benefits available.”

It is announced that Trans Pride March on June 19 and Pride March on June 26 in Istanbul will be held. After Orlando attack, there had been discussions whether the marches will be canceled.

The debate on “confrontation” is heated again after Bundestag's Armenian Genocide resolution. Germany is one of the remarkable countries in terms of reckoning and we talked to Prof. Nora Şeni from Paris VIII University about Germany's process of confrontation with Holocaust and what Turkey should do in order to confront with 1915.

Works of German theologian Lepsius, who sent reports to German politicians for warning them during the Armenian Genocide, revealed the fact that German officials had known the massacres but they hadn't done anything for preventing them. Director of Lepsius House Rolf Hosfeld talked about the influence of Lepsius' works on German society's current recognition and Germany's responsibility in the Armenian Genocide.

Vice President of Bundestag and Green Party member Claudia Roth wrote about the debates between Turkey and Germany on Armenian Genocide law.

Various people and institutions from Turkey, notably President Erdoğan, have been expressing their reactions against Cem Özdemir, sometimes through insults and racist statements. We talked to Özdemir about the developments that took place after June 2.

In Istanbul, near a bus station in Beyazit, a car bomb attack targeting a police bus killed 11 people, 4 of them being civilians. 36 people are injured.

President Erdoğan, after the Armenian Genocide resolution was passed in Bundestag, threatened to send Armenian citizens living Turkey to Armenia. Erdoğan made a similar statement in 2010.