SYDNEY: The New South Wales Young Liberals have added their voice to growing calls for Prime Minister Scott Morrison to accurately characterise the events of 1915-1923 as Genocide, with a letter addressed to their party’s federal leader ahead of the 106th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).
The NSW Young Liberals are the youth wing of the Liberal Party of Australia, actively engaging young people aged between 16-30 in the political process.
Their letter calls upon Prime Minister Morrison to correctly characterise, as he did in 2011, the systematic mass murders in 1915 as what they were – a genocide of over 1.5 million Armenians, and over 1 million Assyrians and Greeks, perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire.
The letter also highlights the unique and special link between the horrors of the Armenian Genocide and the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli.
The letter reads: “Australia’s own history is tied to the atrocities that occurred. Amidst the fighting of World War I, many ANZACs bore firsthand witness to the genocide. Veterans of the Gallipoli Campaign, Sir Stanley Saviage and Robert Nicol aided in the rescue of at least 45,000 Armenian and Assyrian refugees fleeing persecution in 1918.”
“The NSW Young Liberal Movement joins with the Armenian National Committee of Australia, the Armenian diaspora and the global community in calling for you on behalf of the Commonwealth of Australia to correctly, unequivocally and formally recognise the Armenian Genocide.”
In 2016, the NSW Young Liberals unanimously recognised the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides at a New South Wales Young Liberal Council Meeting.
The ANC-AU welcomed the continued support from the NSW Young Liberals.
“We thank Ms De Yi Wu, President of the NSW Young Liberals, for this unwavering and robust statement calling for Scott Morrison’s formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide,” said ANC-AU Executive Director, Haig Kayserian.
“It is great to see some of this country’s most politically engaged youth, many of whom are potential future leaders of our nation, are taking a stern stand on this issue and calling for the Federal leader of their own party to recognise the first Genocide of the 20th century,” said ANC-AU Executive Director Haig Kayserian.
In early April, the Armenian National Committee of Australia wrote to Scott Morrison, requesting his unequivocal statement on the 106th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Since then, the New South Wales Ecumenical Council of 16 churches, Christian Charity Barnabas and the New South Wales Armenia-Australia Friendship Group, and Kurdish Lobby Australia, among others, have called for a change in Australian foreign policy wording to include the word Genocide when referencing 1915.
The Armenian-Australian, Assyrian-Australian and Greek-Australian communities have united under the Joint Justice Initiative banner, announcing a #SpeakUpScoMo March for Justice in Sydney and Melbourne on 24th April 2021.
Armenian National Committee of Australia
