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AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 21, 2009
california legislature
—
2009
–
10 regular session
Assembly Joint Resolution  No. 14
Introduced by Assembly Member Krekorian(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member De Leon
coauthors:Assembly Members De Leon, Lieu, and Portantino
)
(Principal coauthors: Senators Cogdill
, Liu,
and Simitian)April 14, 2009Assembly Joint Resolution No. 14
—
Relative to the ArmenianGenocide.
legislative counsel
’
s digest
AJR 14, as amended, Krekorian. Armenian Genocide: Day of Remembrance.This measure would designate April 24, 2009, as
“
California Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915
–
1923.
”
It wouldmemorialize the Congress and the President of the United States to actlikewise to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.
Fiscal committee:   no.
12345678WHEREAS, The Armenian people, living in their 3,000-yearhistoric homeland in eastern Asia Minor and throughout theOttoman Empire, were subjected to severe persecution and brutalinjustice by the rulers of the Ottoman Empire before and after theturn of the 20th century, including widespread massacres,usurpation of land and property, and acts of wanton destructionduring the period from 1894 to 1896, inclusive, and again in 1909;and
Corrected 4-22-09
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See last page. 98
 
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839WHEREAS, The horrible experience of the Armenians at thehands of their oppressors culminated in 1915 in what is known byhistorians as the
“
First Genocide of the Twentieth Century,
”
andas the prototype of modern day mass killing; andWHEREAS, The Armenian Genocide began with the arrest,exile, and murder of hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, and
including
business, political, and religious leaders, starting onApril 24, 1915; andWHEREAS, The regime then in control of the empire, knownas the
“
Young Turks,
”
planned and executed the unspeakableatrocities committed against the Armenian people from 1915 to1923, inclusive, which included the torture, starvation, and murderof 1,500,000 Armenians, death marches into the Syrian Desert,the forced exile of more than 500,000 innocent people, and theloss of the traditional Armenian homelands; andWHEREAS, While there were some Turks and others whojeopardized their safety in order to protect Armenians from thecrimes being perpetrated by the Young Turk regime, the genocideof the Armenian people constituted one of the most egregiousviolations of human rights in the history of the world; andWHEREAS, The United States Ambassador to the OttomanEmpire, Henry Morgenthau, Sr., stated
“
Whatever crimes the mostperverted instincts of the human mind can devise, and whateverre
f
nements of persecutions and injustice the most debasedimagination can conceive, became the daily misfortunes of thisdevoted people. I am con
f
dent that the whole history of the humanrace contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacresand persecutions of the past seem almost insigni
f
cant whencompared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915. Thekilling of the Armenian people was accompanied by the systematicdestruction of churches, schools, libraries, treasures of art, andcultural monuments in an attempt to eliminate all traces of a noblecivilization with a history of more than 3,000 years
”
; andWHEREAS, In discussing World War I, President TheodoreRoosevelt wrote that
“
... the Armenian massacre was the greatestcrime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condoneit ... the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means thatall talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievousnonsense
”
; and
98
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AJR 14
 
123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839WHEREAS, Winston Churchill wrote:
“
As for Turkishatrocities: ... massacring uncounted thousands of helplessArmenians, men, women, and children together, whole districtsblotted out in one administrative holocaust
—
these were beyondhuman redress
”
; andWHEREAS, Contemporary newspapers like the New York Times commonly carried headlines such as
“
Tales of ArmenianHorrors Con
f
rmed,
”
 
“
Million Armenians Killed or in Exile,
”
and
“
Wholesale Massacre of Armenians by Turks
”
; andWHEREAS, Adolph Hitler, in persuading his army commanderson the eve of World War II that the merciless persecution andkilling of Poles, Jews, and other peoples would bring no retribution,declared,
“
Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of theArmenians?
”
; andWHEREAS, Unlike other peoples and governments that haveadmitted and denounced the abuses and crimes of predecessorregimes, and despite the overwhelming proof of genocidal intent,the Republic of Turkey has inexplicably and adamantly denied theoccurrence of the crimes against humanity committed by the YoungTurk rulers, and those denials compound the grief of the fewremaining survivors of the atrocities, desecrate the memory of thevictims, and cause continuing trauma and pain to the descendantsof the victims; andWHEREAS, The Turkish Government has engaged in concertedefforts to revise history through the dissemination of propagandafalsely suggesting that Armenians were responsible for their fatein the period from 1915 to 1923, inclusive, and by the funding of programs at American educational institutions for the purpose of furthering the cause of this revisionism; andWHEREAS, The Republic of Turkey has been condemned byAmnesty International and other human rights organizations formaking free speech a crime by enacting Article 301 of the TurkishPenal Code, which makes
“
public denigration of Turkishness ...the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutionsof the State, the military or security structures
”
punishable byimprisonment, and has used this device to harass, intimidate,prosecute, and imprison Turkish citizens who have written orspoken honestly about the Armenian Genocide, including NobelPrize winning author Orhan Pamuk; and
98
AJR 14
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