Turkish-American association reacts to US TV's broadcast on 1915 incidents

Tuesday, 09 March 2010 10:11

The senior official of a Turkish-American association said on Sunday that leading US TV channel CNN should be protested for its recent broadcast on the incidents of 1915.

CNN, which broadcasted a program titled "Scream Bloody Murder" in December 2008, has recently re-run the production which assesses incidents such as the Holocaust, deceased Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's chemical attack against Iraqi Kurds, as well as the incidents that had taken place in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfour.

The program, presented by US journalist Christian Amanpour, briefly points to the incidents of 1915 as well, and alleges that "Christian Armenian citizens were killed and forced to migrate, and consequently, 1 million Armenian people died at the time".
Releasing a statement on CNN's program, Ali Çınar, vice president of the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), said that the timing of the broadcast was significant, and called on everybody to protest the TV channel immediately.

Çınar said "US TV channels' displaying a unilateral stance with the Armenian diaspora's financial support did not comply with objectivity and journalistic ethics".

Noting that CNN's broadcast would harm Turkish-US relations, Çınar said associating the incidents of 1915 with the Holocaust and with what had happened in Cambodia, Rwanda, Iraq and Darfour was a "major ignorance".

Çınar also said that the Turkish-American community would continue to react against the unilateral stance displayed by the US media on such matter.