On April 24, Lithuania, along with many countries of the world, will commemorate the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking the first systematic genocide of the 20th century, begun in 1915 in the then Ottoman Empire.
In 1915, on the night of April 23rd to 24th (this night is called Red Sunday), the Ottoman government imprisoned about 250 Armenian intellectuals – priests, lawyers, poets, painters, musicians, journalists and parliamentarians – and gradually killed them. This was the beginning of the Armenian genocide, which claimed more than 1.5 million lives.
To commemorate this date, the Seimas Group for Inter-Parliamentary Relations with the Republic of Armenia issued a statement.
“Members of the Group for Interparliamentary Relations with the Republic of Armenia in the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, commemorating the 106th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and expressing solidarity and justice in respect of innocent victims of the genocide, urges all states that have not yet done so to recognize this historical fact,” said Raimundas Lopata, Chairman of the Group, during the sitting of the Seimas.
In solidarity with Armenian people, the Seimas condemned the Armenian Genocide, committed by the Turks in the Ottoman Empire in 1915, in a statement adopted on 15th December, 2005.
