Azeris to mark Day of Genocide

On March 31 the Azerbaijan people will mark the Day of Genocide. This date has been observed since 1998, when President Aliyev issued an edict "On genocide of Azerbaijanis", the first document to give political and legal assessment to the atrocities perpetrated by Armenians in the name of their "great Armenia" obsession.
On this date in March 1918, a group comprising Bolsheviks and Dashnaks, Armenian nationalist party, under the pretext of a "struggle against counter-revolutionaries", launched a hideous plan of cleansing Baku of Azerbaijanis. Tens of thousands of Baku residents were slain, architectural monuments, mosques and schools looted and razed to the ground, the violence later spreading to Quba, Shamaxi, Kurdamir.
This continuous oppression led in 1919-1920 to the marking of March 31 as the Day of Prayer by the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democracy in the Islamic world.
In total, 2 million Azeris fell victim to the genocide unleashed by Armenians in the 19-20th centuries.
History
The signing of the Gulistan and Turkmenchay peace accords between Russia and Iran laid groundwork for a massive settlement of Armenians on Azeri soil and mass deportation of native Azeris.
This was a part of the deliberate campaign to establish an Armenian state in the South Caucasus, which involved a series of mass killings of Azeris by Armenian nationalists in 1905-1907 and in 1918-1920, and deportation of hundred thousand of Azerbaijanis from their historical lands in 1948-1953.
For example, 375,000 Azeris resided in the Iravan (Yerevan) province in 1916, their number tumbled to 12, 000 by 1920.
Pursuing the "Armenia without Turks" obsession, Armenians were aided by Russia and the former USSR. Throughout the 20th century Azerbaijanis have repeatedly been subject to extermination and persecution by Armenians. The Facts about eradication of Azerbaijanis and annexation of Azeri lands to Armenia were concealed for years, Armenians unleashed genocide first in Baku and then in other regions of Azerbaijan and the Caucasus. In late March-early April 1918, as a result of an unprecedented massacre spearheaded by Armenian Bolsheviks (Dashnaks), more than 15,000 innocent people were gunned down in Baku and adjacent villages.
From the late 1980s to early 1990s, tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis were brutally killed, while hundreds of thousands of others were made homeless as a result of Armenia's territorial claims on Azerbaijan instigated by the then leaders of the USSR. Over a million people have been made refugees and IDPs.
Remembering massacre victims
The Qarabag Liberation Organisation (QLO) has prepared a series of undertakings to honour the March 31 massacre of Azeris by armed Armenian Dashnaks in 1918 and remember on April 2 the seizure of Kalbacar District by Armenian militants in 1993. QLO press office told AssA-Irada that a series of measures had been arranged in co-operation with the World Azerbaijanis Congress and the CIS Union of Azerbaijani Organisations. A roundtable conference on Armenian terrorism is to be held on March 28, with the following refugee forum on March 29 and picket the UN Office in Azerbaijan and the Presidential Administration on April 2. QLO has applied in written to Baku Mayor's Office for sanctioning the picket. The Azerbaijani Diaspora is also about to hold appropriate actions in several big cities of Georgia, Russia and Europe.
Rally
A rally to honor Azeris massacred in 1918 is to be arranged in Istanbul, on March 31. The State committee on Azerbaijanis living abroad told AssA-Irada that the Azerbaijani Diaspora in Turkey has applied in writing to the governor-general of Istanbul for permission to set up a marquee at the city's square Taksim. It has been planned to expose, once the meeting is over, the savagery of Armenians in films, photos, scripts and other material of evidence. A petition, to be sent to international organisations for the recognition of March 31 as the day of massacre of the Azeris, are to be compiled after the meeting.
There are about 3 millions Azerbaijanis in Turkey, and the most powerful Azerbaijani Diaspora is active in that country.