Armenian Genocide denier to address a conference in Ottawa

03 November, 2006

Prof. Guenther Lewy, one of a few remaining non-Turkish deniers of the Armenian Genocide, has been invited to present a “special lecture” on “Ottoman Armenian question” at a conference organized by Turkish-Canadian Advocacy Group in Ottawa on November 3, 2006.

Prof. Lewy’s denial of the Genocide is based primarily on a notion of uniqueness and unprecedentedness of the Holocaust. He is also known as a staunch denier of planned and systematic nature of Nazi persecutions of Gypsies during the World War II.

Prof. Gregory H. Stanton, founder and president of Genocide Watch, founder and director of the Cambodian Genocide Project, founder and chairman of the International Campaign to End Genocide and vice-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, summed up Lewy’s work on the Armenian Genocide in these words: “I read the article by Guenter Lewy … . I am appalled. It is such a blatant denial article that I am amazed that the Middle East Quarterly published it. Lewy's article is directly contrary to the official opinion of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, passed by unanimous resolution, declaring that the Armenian massacres were genocide, and that attempts to deny that fact have no basis in sound scholarship.”

Despite the inclusion of an Armenian item in the programme, and another one on Turkey’s relations with its neighbours, neither the Armenian Embassy, nor the Canadian Armenian organizations have been invited to participate in the conference.

In view of the controversy surrounding the event, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada withdrew its previously announced co-sponsorship and downgraded the level of its presence at the conference.

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