ArmInfo.The authorities [the government] are taking an absolutely unacceptable step against the Armenian identity and statehood of Armenia, considering the creation of a name list of 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide as "laying the real foundations associated with the Genocide," reads a statement by the ex-Ombudsman of Armenia, head of the Tatoyan Foundation, Arman Tatoyan.
"It is the Turkish government that constantly puts forward the idea of questioning the number of victims of the Armenian Genocide, thereby promoting its policy of denial.
Genocide scholars, like the states that recognized the Armenian Genocide, have never questioned the figure of 1.5 million victims. It was never even discussed.
Moreover, the number of victims has absolutely nothing to do with the crime of genocide. Genocide is the deliberate destruction of a group of people based on racial, ethnic, national or religious hatred, and not simply the killing or extermination of a certain number of people," Tatoyan noted.
In this vein, the human rights activist noted that this approach is also a blatant disrespect for the memory of innocent victims.
"The statement that the concepts "Metz Yeghern" and "Genocide" are identical is unacceptable. Equating these concepts is unacceptable both from the point of view of the interests of Armenia and the process of preventing international genocide. Genocide is a concept that has international legal recognition, This is an internationally recognized crime. For this purpose, a specific criminal punishment is defined, a mechanism of criminal prosecution. Moreover, it is the implementation of responsibility and punishment for the crime of genocide that is intended to prevent genocides.
"Eghern is just a word of the Armenian language, of Armenian meaning, having a predominantly historical and non-international legal meaning, not causing a crime and, therefore, having no legal significance," Tatoyan said.
The Armenian authorities, having surrendered Artsakh, began to undermine the foundations of Armenian identity. The Armenian authorities, led by Nikol Pashinyan, are promoting the rejection of their own centuries-old history, the rejection of their own coat of arms, anthem, and are now trying to conduct an audit of the issue of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, trying to justify the actions of the Turkish side, promoting Turkish narratives within the country.
We would like to add that footage recently leaked online showing how archival documents evidencing the genocide were destroyed at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, on the instructions of the institution's management.