Armenian groups expand initiative
By Keith O’Brien, Globe Staff
Less than 24 hours after Watertown pulled out of a popular program, national Armenian leaders prepared yesterday to target the No Place For Hate program elsewhere unless the program’s sponsor, the Anti-Defamation League, is willing to acknowledge the Armenian genocide.
Some residents of nearby Arlington have already begun mobilizing to end their town’s involvement in the No Place For Hate program, launched there just two months ago. Two politicians — state Representative Rachel Kaprielian, a Watertown Democrat, and Watertown Councilor Marilyn Petitto Devaney — vowed to lobby local communities that have the program and send a message that other towns, not just Watertown, oppose the ADL’s position.
“The Armenian community is completely up in arms about it,” said Hilda Silverman, an Arlington resident who hopes to put the issue before town officials soon. “There’s just massive mobilization, and the ADL’s position is indefensible, I think. What can they say? They can change. They can say it’s a genocide. Otherwise, it’s all gobbledygook.”The controversy over No Place For Hate, a national program that had encountered no controversy until now, centers on what critics say is the ADL’s refusal to acknowledge the genocide. While saying that mass killings took place in the last century, the ADL’s leadership has said it has no position on pending federal legislation to recognize the Armenian genocide.
From 1915 to 1923, Ottoman Turks massacred as many as 1.5 million Armenians in what is now modern-day Turkey.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/08/16/pressure_mounting_on_adl_program/
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