Bay Area Armenian National Committee

The Bay Area Armenian National Committee (ANC-SF) is a grassroots public affairs organization serving to inform, educate, and act on a wide range of issues concerning Armenian Americans throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. More

The remaining Armenian and other Christian communities in Turkey face unfair official restrictions on their individual and communal rights on issues ranging from ownership of churches, selection of religious leaders and Christian education to freedom of expression and association.

Recent examples illustrating the Turkish government's attitude toward Armenians and the issue of the Armenian Genocide took place in 2001 with the arrests and prosecutions of Syriac priest, Father Yusuf Akbulut, and a Turkish human rights activist, Akin Birdal, simply for making statements about the Armenian Genocide during World War I.

Successive Turkish governments have also deliberately destroyed the immense cultural heritage of the Western Armenian homeland. This effort, alongside Turkey's ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide, represents the most recent stage of the Turkish government's systematic campaign to erase evidence of the historic Armenian presence in Eastern Anatolia.
 

		Position
	The State Departments should more carefully document and more vigorously protest the continued violation of the individual and community rights of the Armenian population in Turkey.  The U.S. Embassy in Ankara should, on an annual basis, monitor the condition of Armenian historical and cultural monuments throughout Turkey and report their findings to the Congress, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and the State Departments office on International Religious Freedom.