2025 -- S 1080

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     STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

JANUARY SESSION, A.D. 2025

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S E N A T E   R E S O L U T I O N

PROCLAIMING MAY 19TH OF 2025 AS "GREEK AND PONTIC GENOCIDE

REMEMBRANCE DAY" IN THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND

     Introduced By: Senators Raptakis, Gallo, and Tikoian

     Date Introduced: May 15, 2025

     Referred To: Recommended for Immediate Consideration

     WHEREAS, Rhode Island is proud to be the home of numerous ethnic communities,

many of whom have prospered and enjoyed the freedom and democracy upon which our nation

was founded; tragically, throughout history, the people of many countries have not realized the

same autonomy and equality; and

     WHEREAS, From 1913 until 1923, in a systematic attempt to exterminate the entire

Greek population in Pontus, Smyrna, Asia Minor, and Eastern Thrace of the Ottoman Empire

took place. The Ottoman Turks directed the killing of 353,000 Pontian and over one million

Anatolian and Asia Minor Greeks and over a million Armenians and Assyrians living in Pontos,

and an equal number who were forced to flee their homeland in one of the most condemnable

atrocities in the history of the world; and

     WHEREAS, The Ottoman and Kemals Neo Turks engaged in forced relocation, death

marches, starvation, slaughter, rape, forced conversion to Islam, conscription into labor

battalions, arbitrary executions, and destruction of Christian Orthodox cultural, historical and

religious monuments to ethnically cleanse the Greek population and perpetrate the first mass

genocide of the 20th century. Furthermore, the Armenian Genocide was conceived and carried

out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, and resulted in the deportation of nearly

2,000,000 Armenians, of whom 1,500,000 men, women, and children were killed, and the

remaining 500,000 survived but were expelled from their homes; and

     WHEREAS, It is vital and proper to remember those who lost their lives in the Greek

Genocide, and it is paramount that people of all nations look at this horrific event in our world’s

not-so-distant history as a way to learn a valuable lesson, in order that such atrocities are not

tolerated and are never committed again; and

     WHEREAS, It is likewise important to pay tribute to the survivors of this atrocious

period, as well as their descendants, who have made countless contributions to the enrichment of

our culture and our way of life here in the Ocean State and who stand as an inspiration to

oppressed people around the world; and

     WHEREAS, The year 2025 will be memorialized throughout the world as the symbolic

106th Anniversary of the Genocide of the Pontian Greeks. May we never forget the brutality the

Pontian Greeks experienced at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, and may we learn the hard

lessons from the past in order that the history of the Greek Genocide, and all Genocides, never

happen again; now, therefore be it

     RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island hereby joins the Greek-

American community on May 19th of each year in a solemn commemoration of the Greek and

Pontic Genocide of 1913-1923; and be it further

     RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to

transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to Miltiadis Tsavdaridis, President of the Pan-

Pontian Federation of the USA and Canada.

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