{"id":16166,"date":"2019-07-24T06:06:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-24T06:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ancnews.info\/?p=16166"},"modified":"2019-07-24T06:06:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-24T06:06:13","slug":"anca-armenian-prelacy-in-defense-of-christians-spotlight-plight-of-middle-east-christians-during-week-long-international-religious-freedom-focus-in-washington-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ancnews.info\/?p=16166","title":{"rendered":"ANCA, Armenian Prelacy, In Defense of Christians Spotlight Plight of Middle East Christians during Week-long International Religious Freedom Focus in Washington, DC"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, DC \u2013<\/strong>The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) joined with Eastern and Western U.S. leaders of the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America and In Defense of Christians last week for a Capitol Hill focus on the plight of Christians in the Middle East that coincided with the U.S. State Department\u2019s Second Annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Armenian Americans, we were proud to bring our contribution to last week’s religious freedom initiatives in Washington, DC – including through the lessons that can and must be drawn from our own Armenian experience in surviving genocide and challenging Turkey’s ongoing denials and obstruction of justice for this crime,\u201d noted ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian, who was invited to the Ministerial. \u00a0\u201cIt’s clear that we diminish U.S. credibility – profoundly undermining American global leadership on core atrocities prevention and religious freedom priorities – when, under heavy-handed public pressure, we grant a foreign power a high-profile veto over what the U.S. government can and cannot say about a known case of genocide. Turkey’s undemocratic and openly anti-American leaders revel in the public spectacle of having bullied and bribed the U.S. into silence over its sins for more than a century.\u00a0 It\u2019s time to end Turkey\u2019s gag-rule against honest American remembrance of the WWI-era genocide and exile of Armenian, Greek, Assyrian, Chaldean, Syriac, Aramean, Maronite, and other Christian nations.\u201d<\/p>\n