The real history to know before you see The Promise – Time’s reference
Time U.S. news agency has made a reference to the Armenian Genocide film “The Promise”, underlining the historical evidence the film is based on. The source notes that the film screening coincides with the annual day of the Armenian Genocide remembrance in Armenia on April 24.
“On that day in 1915, hundreds of Armenian intellectuals were arrested in what is believed to be the start of what's widely known as the Armenian genocide, though the use of that terminology remains controversial more than a century later,” the article reads.
The author of the article notes that during World War I, the Ottoman government's ruling party concocted a plan to eradicate their Armenian population, the largest Christian minority in Turkey at the time. The plan led to laws permitting the confiscation of Armenians' property and the deportation of these citizens, by methods including marches to concentration camps in the Syrian desert during which many died along the way.
“There were about 2.1 million Armenians living in the Ottoman empire in 1914, and about 387,800 by 1922,” the article states.
The source notes that since then, Armenians have been trying for decades to get Turkish authorities — and other authorities around the world — to recognize the treatment of Armenian citizens of the Ottoman Empire as a genocide.
“Barack Obama broke his campaign promise to call the killings "genocide," referring to the incident in a speech for Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day as "the first mass atrocity of the 20th century,” reads the article, adding that at least 26 countries have recognized the "Armenian genocide" as such, according to the Armenian National Institute.