Armenians commemorating victims of Armenian Genocide in Ottoman  Empire 

ArmInfo.Today, April 24, marks the 109th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide committed in Ottoman  Turkey in 1915. Today, Armenians all over the world pay tribute to the memory of the Holy Martyrs. On this day in Armenia, citizens bring flowers to the Memorial Complex in Tsitsernakaberd in order to  pay tribute to the innocent victims of the first mass murder of people based on ethnicity in human history.

In the evening, torchlight processions were held in Yerevan and in  several regions of the country to mark the 109th anniversary of the  Armenian massacre.

As a result of the genocide, 1.5 million people were massacred and  the same number of people were scattered throughout the world.  Thousands of Armenian manuscripts, hundreds of historical and  architectural monuments were destroyed, more than 60 Armenian cities  and 2.5 thousand villages were burned.

On April 24, 1965, demonstrations were organized in Soviet Armenia  demanding recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Thus, the wall of  silence created around this issue was destroyed. In 2015, the  Armenian Apostolic Church canonized the victims of the Genocide.

The Armenian genocide is recognized and condemned by many countries  of the world and influential international organizations. The  parliament of Uruguay was the first to officially condemn the  massacres of Armenians (1965). The extermination of the Armenians was  officially recognized as genocide (according to international  law[177]) and also condemned by France (1998, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2012,  Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland - National Council (lower house  of parliament), Sweden, Russia (1995), Poland , Lebanon (2000),  Italy, Lithuania, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus, Argentina (2 laws, 5  resolutions), Venezuela, Chile, Canada (1996, 2002, 2004), Vatican,  Bolivia (2014), Austria (2015), Luxembourg (2015), Brazil (2015),  Paraguay (2015), Germany (2016), Czech Republic (2017), Portugal  (2019), USA (in 35 states by law), Latvia.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by the European Parliament  (1987, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2015), the parliamentary coalition of South  American countries (Mercosur), the UN Subcommission on the Prevention  of Discrimination and the Protection of Minorities, the Parliament of  Latin America (2015). Recognition of the Armenian genocide is not  officially a prerequisite for Turkey's entry into the EU, but some  authors believe that Turkey will have to do so on the path to EU  membership.

The Turkish Republic spends heavily on PR denial campaigns and  donates to universities that provide credibility to the Turkish  position. Whenever parliaments or governments of different states  discuss the recognition of genocide, Turkey threatens them with  diplomatic and trade sanctions and repression of its own minorities.  In order to destroy traces of the physical presence of Armenians in  Turkey, monuments of Armenian architecture in the country are  systematically destroyed.

Deniers' arguments are usually modifications of one of the following  statements: the massacre of Armenians never happened in the Ottoman  Empire; the death of Armenians occurred due to negligence from hunger  and disease during their expulsion from the combat zone; there was no  deliberate policy on the part of the Young Turks to exterminate the  Armenians; The death of the Armenians was a consequence of the civil  war in the Ottoman Empire, which also killed many Turks.