The Armenian language course for Islamized Armenians has been continuing successfully in Istanbul for the past few months. As mentioned earlier, the course was introduced by graduate of the University of Oxford Hrak Papazian, who is originally from Beirut.

Months ago, Hrak managed to form a group of Islamized Armenians, including Armenians who were raised in Mush, Sasun, Adapazari and Bingiol, have been detached from the Armenian community, church and schools of Istanbul for years or have learned about their origin late for unknown reasons, writes tert.am.

Let us mention that it is impossible for Islamized Armenians to learn their native language at Armenian schools in Turkey due to, first and foremost, the country’s legislation. In accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Turkey, all citizens of the country shall be officially considered as Turks, and the Armenians, Greeks and Jews shall be considered as a religious minority.

According to points 37-45 of the third section of the Treaty of Lausanne, due to being considered as a religious minority, the Armenians have been entitled to learn their native language, which the Kurds, Zazas, Cherkezs, Lazs and all non-Turkish Muslims are deprived of.

Thus, only the sons of an Armenian Christian family can learn Armenian at Armenian schools of the community in Istanbul after submitting a baptism document.

All Armenians who have become Alevis and Muslims are actually not part of this process, and the only open “window” for those aspiring to learn Armenian is the open courses that some unions or individuals have been organizing over the past couple of years. Those courses were organized in Tigranakert, Dersim and Mush earlier.

These courses are very often discontinued due to lack of financial support.