Father sues Turkish Education Ministry over Armenian 'genocide' DVD

[WriteDown]

Source: The Times

A father is suing the Turkish Education Ministry for forcing his 11-year-old daughter to watch a “racist” and “disturbing” film countering claims that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against Armenians in 1915 with graphic allegations of Armenian atrocities against Turks.

The landmark case takes on what human rights activists have called the State's militarist policy of brainwashing Turkey's schoolchildren to the point of racist paranoia, aiming to preserve a nationalist status quo criticised by the European Union, which Turkey is keen to join.

“My daughter was very disturbed and frightened by the documentary and kept asking me if the Armenians had cut us up,” said Serdar Kaya, an ethnic Turkish doctor, who is suing the ministry and the child's school for inciting racial hatred.

“There are many mass graves, bones and skulls in the DVD. They have interviewed old grandads who inspire confidence and compassion. When they say things like 'They cut off his head' and 'They used it instead of firewood', that is bound to stay with the children,” Serdar Degirmencioglu, a psychologist, told the Armenian newspaper Agos when news first broke that the documentary was being shown to primary school children - including ethnic Armenian Turks...

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article5818155.ece

---

At this point, Turkey should be nowhere near obtaining EU membership.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Man, some people are bound and determined to carry that karmic burden with them forever.

Unfortunately, with even the Dutch practicing a new kind of ethnic/religious bigotry, I do not see how the EU is going to be able to set a good example for Turkey. So many in Europe are all We hate anyone who isn't ethnically homogeneous with us right now.

[WriteDown]

5. Europe has pretty much been that way forever....

Turks in Germany can attest to that.

[armodem08]

2. This kind of shit is worse than denying the genocide took place.

This is actively inciting hatred of Armenians in a new generation AND making them think that the Armenian Genocide never took place. I've met otherwise decent and friendly Turkish foreign exchange students who were certain that the genocide had never taken place.

This school indoctrination is the reason why. They get the kids early, in this case 10 or 11, and basically brainwash them. Telling an 11 year old kid that the crazy Armenians had cut people up and burnt them in the fire? That's scary shit for any kid. When you get them to believe in that, it's easy to convince them that there was no genocide, despite ample available evidence to the contrary.

[dipsydoodle]

3. I was told when I was only 11 or 12 years

back in the mid fifties, first hand by a friend's father , that when they ran out of rats and the occasional dog to eat the Armenians needed to turn cannibal out of necessity to survive. Human flesh tastes like pork apparently. Folk of that age would never ever have forgiven the Turks for the genocide of the Armenians.

Yes of course the family's name ended .......ian.

[Hope And Change]

4. It`s called brainwashing and it has apparently backfired.Good to see the Turks object to this...

racist documentary.I lift my hat off to them.