Garo Paylan, the brave Turkish-Armenian MP representing the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party of Nations (HDP) in the Turkish Mejlis, continues his great struggle against denial and for the solution to Armenians’ problems in cooperation with other nations under Turkey’s pressure.

During a May 2 discussion on depriving certain Turkish MPs of immunity held during the session of the Turkish Mejlis’s Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Turkish-Armenian MP, who is fighting for preservation of the type, identity, language and spirit of the Armenians and also coordinates the activities of Armenian schools in Turkey, was subject to an attack planned by members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) for, as Paylan said, being Armenian and raising Armenian issues and human rights issues. It is a pain to see that the representatives of the ruling political party can’t tolerate the Turkish-Armenian MP who freely expresses his views. Perhaps the attack was followed by Paylan’s speech in which he proposed to the Grand National Assembly to launch an investigation and find out the motives behind the murders of seven Armenian MPs represented in the Ottoman Parliament between 1908 and 1915 and show their portraits, considering the disclosure of those responsible for the murders that took place over 100 years ago, the revelation of the bodies of Armenian parliamentarians and proper burials of those bodies a “matter of honor” for the Turkish parliament. From the podium, Paylan touched upon the events that took place in the 1900s and declared that at the time, every fifth person of the population of the Ottoman Empire was Armenian and that hundreds of Armenian intellectuals, including the mentioned seven parliamentarians were arrested, as well as exiled and killed on Aprirl 24, 1915.

Garo Paylan finds that Turkey must first realize the crime of genocide, the Armenian identity must be radicalized as necessary and the country must not show an inimical attitude towards Armenia. Garo calls on all Armenians and Armenian political parties to go and lead the struggle for a solution to the Armenian Cause in Turkey, the place where the crimes against humanity were committed. Following the example of Hrant Dink, Sevag Balkician and Sevan Nishanian, the unwavering human rights activist and the inheritor of the oppressed and confiscated Armenian cultural assets, Garo Paylan continues the century-old struggle against Anti-Armenianism and racism that began after the Armenian Genocide.

Garo Paylan, who is following in Hrant Dink’s footsteps, believes that with his help and the help of his supporters and partisans, there will come a day when all Turks will recognize the crime of genocide. The Turkish government needs to realize that it can’t silence the voice of justice by repressing and attacking and that there will be more Armenians like Garo in the future.

E. Baghdasaryan