The term Genocide was coined by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, whose family was one of the victims of the Jewish Holocaust. By defining this term, Lemkin sought to describe Nazi politics of systematic murder, violence as well atrocities committed against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. Combing ‘geno,’ from the Greek word for race or tribe, with ‘cide,’ from the Latin word for killing, he created the word ‘Genocide’. The following year, the International Military Tribunal at Nurenberg charged top Nazi officials with crimes against humanity. Although, the word Genocide was included in the indictment, it was as a descriptive and not as a legal term.

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. See whole text

The Convention defines Genocide as an international crime, which signatory nations undertake to prevent and punish. According to the Convention, Genocide is one of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a.     Killing members of the group;

b.     Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c.     Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d.     Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

e.     Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

After the adoption of the convention some scholars have suggested other more inclusive definitions.

In 1959 Pieter Drost, a legal scholar defined Genocide as “The deliberate destruction of physical life of individual human beings by reason of their membership of any human collectivity as such”.

Israel Charny, the Editor of the Encyclopedia of Genocide in two volumes, suggests that “Genocide in the generic sense is the mass killing of substantial numbers of human beings, when not in the course of military action against the military forces of an avowed enemy, under conditions of the essential defenselessness and helplessness of the victims”.

The UN convention does not include the killing of the members of political groups in the definition of Genocide, but many genocide scholars argued for the inclusion of that point in the definition. The prominent Genocide scholar and sociologist Leo Cuper noted that in the contemporary world, political differences are at least as significant a basis for massacre and annihilation as racial, national, ethnic or religious differences. In response to the omission of political groups from the Convention definition of Genocide, Ted Gurr and Barbara Harff have coined the new term Politicide.

Haykazn Mihrdat was born in 1864 in Constantinople (Ottoman Empire), social-political figure, national deputy, president of the “Aharonyan akumb” (Aharonyan club) in Peshiqtash. He was a victim of the Armenian genocide.

November 10, 2011On November 9, 2011, the granddaughter of Fridtjof Nansen Marit Greve, with the Norwegian delegation, visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex ...

November 10, 2011On November 7, 2011, Asya Darbinyan, a graduate research fellow at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, recently spent four days at the Armenian Research Center conducting research for her dissertation on Near East Relief orphanages ...

November 9, 2011On November 6, 2011, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna Head of the Russian Imperial House visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, put flowers at the eternal fire and honored the memory of the innocent victims with a minute of silence ...

October 25, 2011On October 25, 2011, the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John A. Heffern accompanied by his spouse Mrs. Libby Dowling Heffern, visited ...

October 13, 2011 On October 13, 2011, Secretary General of Interpol Ronald Noble visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex and put flowers at the memorial of the Armenian Genocide victims ...

August 31, 2011 On August 30, 2011, the regular meeting of the MFA senior staff and the heads of the diplomatic missions started in the Conference Hall of the K. Demirjian Sports and Concert Complex ...

August 27, 2011 Dr. Hayk Demoyan, director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, has become a new member of the Genocide Education Project’s (GenEd) advisory board ...

July 11, 2011 Fanny Ardant, the world known French actress, who visited Yerevan in the framework of the 8th edition of “Golden Apricot” Yerevan International Film Festival, visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial ...

June 30, 2011 Director of AGMI H.Demoyan and Deputy Director of AGMI S.Manukyan had a meeting with ambassador of RA in Russia Oleg Yesayan in Moscow. During the meeting the projects and cooperation ...

June 17, 2011 Minister of French Cooperation Henri de Raincourt visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, within the framework of his official visit to Armenia on June 16-17, and put a wreath at the memorial of the Armenian Genocide victims ...

June 17, 2011 The delegation headed by President of Brest Regional Executive Committee in Belarus Konstantin Sumar visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex. Mr. Konstantin Sumar put a wreath at the memorial of the Armenian Genocide victims ...

June 10, 2011 Thomas O. Melia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of USA, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor visited Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex, put flowers at the eternal fire ...

June 09, 2011 Dr. Ara Sanjian, the Associate Professor in Armenian and Middle Eastern History from University of Michigan - Dearborn had a meeting in the Armenian Genocide Museum & Institute with the staff of AGMI ...

June 01, 2011 The deputy-director of AGMI Suren Manukyan participated on conference dedicated to 150th anniversary of Fridtjof Nansens held in a city of Kharkiv, Ukraine ...