International Coverage on the Topic of Armenian Genocide and "Aurora" International Humanitarian Award Ceremony

• 04.25.2016, 17:54
•  Europe,  America,  World

On April 24, the world's leading mass media wrote about the 101th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and its commemoration events.

Particularly the Huffington Post urged the United States to recognize finally the Armenian Genocide and called its denial simply a "political game". "The refusal to use the word "genocide" to describe the fate of Armenians over one century ago is bad enough; to refuse to do so after promising the Armenian community while campaigning for the presidency is another story," the newspaper writes.

British Reuters , in turn, paid individual attention to the policy of denial by Turkey, and wrote that the large Armenian community living in Turkey and especially in Istanbul, is concerned about the potential political pressure and about the day the authorities may force them to leave the country.

Along with the memory of the Genocide, the international press has referred to the "Aurora" International Humanitarian Award ceremony held on the evening of April 24 in Yerevan.

The Guardian, in particular, focused on the Oscar-winner actor George Clooney, chair of the Selection Committee, who made a touching speech at the ceremony. "The simple truth is that all of us here tonight are the result of someone’s act of kindness. We all stand on the shoulders of good people, who didn’t look away when we were in need. The Clooney family fled a famine in Ireland to come to the United States, where their very survival required a room, a meal, a helping hand. We call them refugees, but they’re just people, like you and me. And if you stand right in front of them and take a look deep into their eyes, you might just see an Irish farmer fleeing a famine. If we are to survive as a people, we simply can’t look away. Not from the people of Syria or South Sudan or the Congo," Clooney said.

The Independent reports that Clooney commemorated the memory of more than 1.5 million Armenian people, who were murdered in 1915 by awarding over $1 million to a Burundi woman who offered sanctuary to thousands of orphans during a civil war.

Then it notes that the slaughter of the Armenians on 24 April 1915 is viewed as the first massacre of the 20th century.

''Before Clooney handed over the award, he told the audience that Hitler reportedly said: "’Who remembers Armenia?’ The whole world,'' The Independent writes .

In turn the American CBS Los Angeles website wrote that Hollywood heavyweight is lending his voice to highlight the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians a century ago by Ottoman Turks.

''Clooney has been a prominent voice in favor of countries recognizing the killings as genocide, which the United States has not done,'' CBS reports.