AHEPA Requests President Biden to Recognize the Greek Genocide

The American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (Order of AHEPA) sent a formal request to President Joseph Biden, Jr., asking for the United States government to recognize the Greek Genocide.

In a June 7 letter, Supreme President George G. Horiates wrote, “President Biden, it is time the U.S. government recognizes the Greek Genocide that occurred 1914 to 1923 as a matter of affirming a historical truth and upholding a commitment to human rights as well a matter of education to prevent future atrocities from occurring.”

Supreme President Horiates cited resolutions passed by the U.S. Congress that referenced the United States’ history of providing relief to “the survivors of the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians,” and a 2007 International Association of Genocide Scholars resolution that affirmed that the “Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire constituted a genocide,” including Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, to justify the recognition.

He also conveyed the appreciation of the Greek diaspora to President Biden for the correct historical reference to Constantinople in the President’s April 24, 2021 statement recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

June 7, 2021

The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

President of the United States

The White House

Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden:

On behalf of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (Order of AHEPA), the nation’s leading Hellenic heritage service association for the nation’s millions of Americans of Hellenic heritage and Philhellenes, I write to request for the United States to formally recognize the Greek Genocide, the systematic extermination of between one million and 1.5 million indigenous Greek minority of the Ottoman Empire. This year, we commemorated the 102-year Pontian Greek Genocide as part of the larger Greek and Christian Genocide where hundreds of thousands of Pontian Greeks were murdered. More than one million more were forced to seek refuge in Greece as their homes and property were confiscated in addition to the destruction of Greek Orthodox churches in the area. Ottoman Turkey endeavored to destroy Hellenism – its history, culture, and language.

Under your leadership, AHEPA commended the U.S. government’s rightful recognition of the Armenian Genocide with your April 24, 2021, statement and with the overwhelming passage of the Armenian Genocide resolution by both chambers of the U.S. Congress in 2019. Also, in your statement, Greek Americans, Greeks across the globe, and philhellenes, appreciated the historical reference to Constantinople. Constantinople, as your correctly wrote, was the epicenter where intellectuals of all ethnicities gathered in addition to serving as a religious and spiritual center for all religions.

 Those congressional resolutions have recognized a campaign of genocide against Greeks by citing the United States’ history of providing relief to ‘the survivors of the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians.’

 Further, in 2007, the International Association of Genocide Scholars affirmed that the ‘Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire constituted a genocide,’ including Pontian and Anatolian Greeks.

President Biden, it is time the U.S. government recognizes the Greek Genocide that occurred 1914 to 1923 as a matter of affirming a historical truth and upholding a commitment to human rights as well a matter of education to prevent future atrocities from occurring. We welcome the opportunity to discuss this policy matter and request with the Administration. Thank you for your consideration.

Respectfully submitted,

George G. Horiates

Supreme President

Greek American Madeleine Singas confirmed for the New York State Supreme Court

New York.- (GreekNewsOnline)

New York State Senate confirmed on Tuesday the appointments of Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas and Administrative Judge Anthony Cannataro to serve on the court, both nominated by Governor Andrew Cuomo. According to Spectrum News, Greek American Singas’s confirmation took place over concerns raised by a progressive group of Democrats on Tuesday in the state Senate, based in large part on her record as a prosecutor on Long Island.

Several Democrats, including Sens. Alessandra Biaggi, Gustavo Rivera and Robert Jackson, questioned Singas’s prosecutorial background. The questions do not come in a vacuum: Lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled legislative chambers over the last two years have approved package after package of criminal justice law changes, reversing the tidal flow of laws they felt were tilted unfairly in favor of police and prosecutors.

Criminal justice advocates, including a public defenders organization, had also raised objections to Singas’s nomination, citing her work as a prosecutor. At issue, in part, are the reform measures addressing areas like bail and parole the Court of Appeals could one day address. At the same time, opponents pointed to two other former prosecutors sitting on the bench, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore and Judge Michael Garcia.

Singas had her defenders, including Sonia Ossorio, the president of NY NOW, who wrote an op/ed in her defense. And, highlight just how key they continue to be in the state Senate, relatively moderate suburban Democrats from Singas’s home county of Nassau backed her confirmation, including Sens. Todd Kaminsky and Kevin Thomas.

Singas defended her role as a local prosecutor, pointing to her work with establishing a juvenile justice reform program years before one was approved in Albany.

“I don’t think it’s fair to be placed into a box because of my profession, because of how I chose to conduct my public service,” Singas said at her Judiciary Committee meeting, “and I think that people should look at my record.”