A parade of the Ottoman military marching band (Mehter Takımı), originally scheduled to take place on Monday in Hollywood, has been cancelled by organizers due to pressure from US Armenian groups, Today’s Zaman reported.
Quoting remarks from an official at the Los Angeles Police Commission, the Los Angeles-based English-language Armenian newspaper Asbarez said the permit for the parade, scheduled for Oct. 3 on Hollywood Boulevard between Highland and La Brea avenues, was pulled Wednesday.
Hafsa Rai, a spokeswoman for the Pacifica Institute, which organized the event, told the Los Angeles Times that the uproar took the organization by surprise and that its mission is to promote intercultural dialogue.
"We are not here to offend anyone. That was never our intention," she said.
The march was meant to generate interest in the Anatolian Cultures Festival in Costa Mesa starting Oct. 6, which celebrates all cultures that have at one time lived in what is now Turkey, including Armenians, Rai said.
Since its announcement, the planned parade drew strong reaction from Armenian groups, including the Armenian Youth Federation and Armenian National Committee, which called the march "tantamount to hate speech and harassment." The federation had planned to protest the parade, organized via a Facebook page where the reaction among users was a mix of surprise and outrage.
In an announcement issued earlier this week, the influential US-based Armenian diaspora organization the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) also protested the event, saying “the nature and planned performance of the band are not only insulting but wholly unacceptable to the Armenian American community.”
Asbarez said on Thursday that the Armenian Youth Federation welcomed the cancellation of the event, and their planned protest was cancelled.
Armenian groups say up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed during World War I in a systematic genocide campaign perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey categorically rejects the charges, saying the death toll is inflated and that Turks were also killed as Armenians revolted against the Ottoman Empire in collaboration with Russian forces for an independent state in eastern Anatolia.
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