HR 21
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 22, 2021
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON RULES
Ken Cooley, Chair
HR 21 (Nazarian) – As Amended February 12, 2021
SUBJECT: the Armenian Genocide.
SUMMARY: Recognizes April 24, 2021, as “State of California Day of Commemoration of the
106th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1923;” and, commends educators who
teach about human rights and genocide and intends for them to continue to enhance their efforts
to educate students at all levels about the experience of the Armenians and other crimes against
humanity. Specifically, this resolution makes the following legislative findings:
1) Armenians have resided in Asia Minor and the Caucasus for approximately four millennia,
and have a long and rich history in the region, including the establishment of many
kingdoms, and despite Armenians’ historic presence, stewardship, and autonomy in the
region, Turkish rulers of the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey subjected
Armenians to severe and unjust persecution and brutality, including wholesale massacres
beginning in the 1890s.
2) The Armenian nation was subjected to a systematic and premeditated genocide officially
beginning on April 24, 1915, at the hands of the Young Turk Government of the Ottoman
Empire from 1915 to 1919, inclusive, and continued at the hands of the Kemalist Movement
of Turkey from 1920 to 1923, inclusive, whereby over 1.5 million Armenian men, women,
and children were slaughtered or marched to their deaths in an effort to annihilate the
Armenian nation in the first genocide of modern times, while thousands of surviving
Armenian women and children were forcibly converted and Islamized, and hundreds of
thousands more were subjected to ethnic cleansing during the period of the modern Republic
of Turkey from 1924 to 1937.
3) California is home to the largest Armenian American population in the United States, and
Armenians living in California have enriched our state through their leadership and
contribution in business, agriculture, academia, government, and the arts, many of whom
have family members who experienced firsthand the horror and evil of the Armenian
Genocide and its ongoing denial.
4) Every person should be made aware and educated about the Armenian Genocide and other
crimes against humanity. The State of California has been at the forefront of encouraging
and promoting a curriculum relating to human rights and genocide in order to empower
future generations to prevent the recurrence of genocide.
FISCAL EFFECT: None
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None on file
 HR 21
Page 2
Opposition
California Turkish Alliance
Analysis Prepared by: Michael Erke / RLS. / (916) 319-2800