Two Polish Seim commissions recognize Volhynia atrocity genocide of Polish population by Ukrainian nationalists.

Two Polish Seim commissions recognize Volhynia atrocity genocide of Polish population by Ukrainian nationalists. (Tass).

Two commissions (for links with the Poles and for culture and media) of the Polish Seim on Tuesday adopted a resolution recognizing genocide the atrocity committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the Poles in Volhynia, a region in the northwest corner of Ukraine, in 1943-1944 during WWII.

"We establish July 11 as an official day of mourning dedicated to the victims of genocide carried out by Ukrainian nationalists against the citizens of the [interwar] Second Polish Republic," the draft resolution said.

"The genocide carried out in 1943-1945 claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people, predominantly peasants. Their exact number is unknown. Many of them have not been buried with dignity until today," the draft said.

"The memory of the victims of those crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists 40 years ago has never been perpetuated and the mass killings have not been recognized genocide to match the historical truth," the resolution’s text stressed.

The Polish deputies also remembers the reprisals, which the Poles committed in retaliation in Ukrainian villages. "Remembering the crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists, we cannot keep silent about Polish retaliatory actions in Ukrainian villages which also claimed civilian lives," the document said. The Polish deputies expressed their gratitude to those Ukrainians who risked their lives to help the Poles. They suggested that the Polish president decorate them with state awards.

The deputies added a clause urging to establish and mark the places of fratricidal crimes and bury the remains of all the victims, if such are found, with dignity as well as to draw up the victims’ full list.

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) is an ultra-right political organization (banned in Russia) which operated predominantly in the territory of Western Ukraine during WWII.

In collaboration with German reconnaissance bodies, OUN fought against the Soviet rule. In February 1943, Ukrainian nationalists started mass extermination of the Polish population of Volhynia. The campaign reached its peak in July-August 1943. On July 11, 1943, the units of OUN - UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) attacked about 100 Polish populated localities and killed about 100,000 Poles, mainly women, children and old people.

The killings’ main purpose was to cleanse the territory of a future Ukrainian state from all non-Ukrainians.Read the full story here.

Islamist Turkish State opens a case to 'recover' the lands returned to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in recent years.

Islamist Turkish State opens a case to steal 'recover' the lands returned to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in recent years. (Fides).

Turkey has opened a case against the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, to cancel the legal acts with which some land were returned to the Orthodox Patriarchal See, in compliance with the laws providing restitution to the minority religious communities of goods seized in the past by the Turkish authorities. 

This was reported by local sources, consulted by Agenzia Fides. In particular, the intent is to re-expropriate the Ecumenical Patriarchate of a plot of 98 acres (approximately 40 hectares) in the Goksu area, and another area in Umit Tepesi, adjacent the Institute of Orthodox theology in Halki.

The procedural initiative is yet another case of harassment for legal and administrative channels implemented by the Turkish institutions against the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Turks in New York dance & "celebrate" 101 anniversary of slaughter, the Armenian Genocide.

Turks in New York dance & "celebrate" the 101 anniversary of slaughter the Armenian Genocide. (DM).

New Yorkers are left baffled as skywriters paint 'How happy is the one who says I am a Turk' in TURKISH in the sky above Manhattan - but Armenians are not amused.

New Yorkers gazed into the blue sky with bemusement as a skywriting plane carefully scribbled the phrase 'How happy Is the one who says, I am a Turk' in Turkish over Manhattan.

The phrase was coined by the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, in 1933 and was until recently an oath which every Turkish child was obliged to repeat twice a week at school.

But the plane then went on to scrawl more controversial slogans in the sky, including several which denied the Armenian genocide in 1915.

These included '101 years of geno-lie' and 'Truth=Peace' and the URL of a website which is designed to 'counter Armenian misinformation' about the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during and just after World War I.

Luke O'Brien tweeted: 'Nothing screams 'we have nothing to hide' than a denial over Manhattan.

Last year Kim Kardashian launched an outspoken attack on President Obama for refusing to use the word 'genocide' as he marked the 100th anniversary of the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians.Read the full story here.

Turkey calls joint ‘genocide’ remarks by Armenian and Greek leaders ‘pathetic’.

As of 2015 [update], the governments of twenty-six countries, including Russia, France, and Germany, as well as forty-three states of the United States of America, have recognized the events as 'genocide'. The governments of Turkey and Azerbaijan deny the Armenian Genocide.


 Turkey calls joint ‘genocide’ remarks by Armenian and Greek leaders ‘pathetic’. (HD).

Armenian and Greek leaders’ joint portrayal of the events that took place in Anatolia during World War I as “genocide” has deeply angered Ankara, which labeled their statement as “the product of a pathetic mentality.”

Titled “Regarding the Statements of the Greek Prime Minister Mr. Alexis Tsipras, and President Mr. Prokopis Pavlopoulos on the Occasion of the Visit of the President of Armenia Mr. Serzh Sargsyan, Referring to Historical Events During the Disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and Containing Grave Allegations Against Turkey and the Turkish Identity,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s reaction came in the form of an official answer to a journalist’s question by Spokesperson Tanju Bilgiç late on March 17.

“The statements in question are the product of a pathetic mentality proving that the relations and solidarity between Greece and Armenia are built upon a joint hostility and slander language directed against the Turkish identity,” Bilgiç said.

“Turkey and the Turkish people will never give credit to those bringing to the fore at every opportunity a dictum of history which is unlawful, disconnected with realities, one-sided and obsessive,” he concluded.

Greece says thousands of ethnic Greeks who had been living on the southern shores of the Black Sea for centuries were massacred in Turkey during strife that accompanied the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern Turkish state.

Armenia charges that as many as 1.5 million of its kin were victims of genocide during World War I under the Ottoman Empire.

Ankara rejects the “genocide” charge, countering that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose up against their Ottoman rulers and sided with invading Russian forces.

Tsipras was meanwhile quoted in media as speaking of “Greeks’ and Armenians’ history of suffering and persecution,” on the same occasion.

Tsipras said that both peoples were “victims of genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks during World War I,” according to Massis Weekly, an official publication of the Armenian Social Democratic Hunchakian Party.