Armenians in US gripe ‘hate crimes’

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Two Armenian groups in the United States staged a protest on Jan. 31 over the recent killings of Armenian women in Turkey.

The Washington, D.C.-based Armenian Student Association (ASA) and DC Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) staged the protest near the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The protest came in the wake of four separate attacks on elderly Armenian women in Istanbul in the last two months, three of them staged in the Samatya neighborhood.

“The assault on helpless elderly Armenian women in Istanbul, one resulting in death and another in a lost eye, are heartbreaking,” radio broadcaster and writer David Barsamian wrote to Hürriyet Daily News. “The attacks must be seen in the context of racism.”

The attacks has fueled questions of racial motivations, but there are yet to be official confirmations to that end. On Feb. 1, daily Habertürk released a description of the alleged assailant involved in the four attacks.

Canadian pianist and Armenian Weekly writer Raffi Bedrosyan has called the attacks hate crimes, said: “Despite statements by police authorities, Istanbul are robbery-related, there is no doubt that they are racist hate crimes targeting defenseless Armenians as a message of intimidation.”