The father of a 11-year-old Turkish girl is suing the Turkish ministry of education for forcing kids as young as 6 years old to watch a graphically violent movie which attempts to justify the Turkish genocide of Armenians.
Sari Gelin, or "Blonde Bride", was commissioned by the Turkish General Staff and distributed in recent months by the education ministry. It is an attempt to counter what Turkey calls "baseless" claims that Ottoman Turks committed genocide against the Armenians in 1915. The DVD was sent to all elementary schools with a note instructing teachers to show it to pupils and report back. At the school of Serdar Kaya's daughter, children as young as six had to watch.
The films attempts to make the state's case that the Armenians betrayed the benevolent Ottoman Empire during World War I, siding with invading foreign forces and massacring thousands of Turks. The film claims the Armenians were "relocated" as a result of their actions. There is no mention of the hundreds of thousands who perished or were killed on the long march through the desert. Instead, elderly men relate how Armenians cooked Turkish babies alive and used civilians as firewood.
"The word Armenian is used very many times and always negatively," says Ayse Gul Altinay, a board member of the Hrant Dink Foundation.
"They're promoting discrimination, branding certain people as 'others' and teaching children to do the same. My daughter will not be part of this enmity." said Kaya. Kaya has applied to the courts to sue Education Minister Huseyin Celik, arguing the film incites ethnic hatred against Armenians.
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