Taner Akçam - The Young Turks' Crime against Humanity

Dr. Taner Akcam of Clark Univeristy presents some of the findings from his new book, The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire. Based on his research into WWI-era documents contained in the Ottoman Archives, Akcam demonstrates that the Armenian Genocide, in which well over one million Armenian and Assyrian Christians were massacred, was the result of a specific policy decision by the Ottoman government to pursue "ethno-religious homogenization" in Turkey as early as 1913. Because the empire could not reconcile calls for freedom from its Christian subjects with its Islamic legal system and culture, it opted to eradicate its Christian population. Taner Akcam was the first Turkish historian to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and escaped from imprisonment for his political views in Turkey early in his career. This talk is part of Christian Solidarity International's Spring 2012 lecture series on the Future of Christians in the Middle East. http://www.middle-east-minorities.com