Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

BEIRUT: Activists Detained At Sit-In, In Protest Of Turkish Cultural

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • BEIRUT: Activists Detained At Sit-In, In Protest Of Turkish Cultural

    ACTIVISTS DETAINED AT SIT-IN, IN PROTEST OF TURKISH CULTURAL WEEK IN BEIRUT

    Menassat
    http://www.menassat.com/?q=alerts /6458-activists-detained-sit-protest-turkish-cultu ral-week-beirut
    April 29 2009

    BEIRUT, April 29, 2009 (MENASSAT) - Around fourteen feminist activists
    were temporarily detained by the Lebanese police on Wednesday night
    for protesting the opening of the Turkish Cultural week at the UNESCO
    palace in Beirut four days after the commemoration of the Armenian
    genocide.

    Tens of demonstrators gathered at the site for the inauguration
    ceremony and were approached by security forces shortly after they
    dropped a banner reading "Recognize the Armenian Genocide" before
    hundreds of diplomats and statesmen, according to a press release
    issued by the demonstrators.

    A member of the security forces proceeded by ripping the banner and
    some demonstrators were taken into custody at a police station near
    the UNESCO palace where they were held for approximately three hours
    until the ceremony had ended.

    The demonstrators believed that holding the Turkish Cultural week
    only days after the commemoration of the Armenian genocide was an
    "insult" and a "sign of disrespect to its memory."

    "The head of UNESCO came up to us and told us how hurt he was. I
    snickered and my friend told him 'well, my people have been hurting for
    94 years and this is what you care about? A diplomatic affair? Before
    your fellow citizens'? We shamed them, they said. I wonder if he
    realized how much he shamed me as a citizen when he disrespected my
    culture, our dead, our memory," detained demonstrator "Shantal P"
    wrote in her personal account of the sit-in.

    The day after the sit-in, "Shantal P" received a phone call from
    her mother. Had she heard about what happened at the sit-in, her
    mother asked?

    "Yes, I said. She (my mother) told me: 'your dad wished he was
    there.' I replied 'Mom I was there, it was our idea.' She was
    shocked. She finally asked: 'were you arrested?' I said yes. She
    laughed and told me she was proud."

    "I thought of the police officer that kept nagging and wanting to
    be right about all of us (demonstrators) being Armenian. I felt like
    saying 'my mom isn't Armenian and what makes her special is that she
    gets it. She gets the cause, our cause and like my friends she views
    it as something beyond race and ethnicity but instead as something
    fundamentally righteous, fundamentally human," wrote Shantal P.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Working...
X