Armenian genocide denial is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on April 24, 2023.
Article milestones Date Process Result February 10, 2021 Good article nominee Listed February 13, 2021 Guild of Copy Editors Copyedited May 13, 2021 Featured article candidate Promoted A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 24, 2021. The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that Turkish schoolchildren are taught that the Armenian Genocide never happened and instead, Armenians committed genocide against Turks? Current status: Featured article

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The text says he was "buried as a national hero" but that is just an ordinary tomb that carries no text/memorial to promote his war crimes, and thus I believe that is a biased approach. The Monument of Liberty, built in 1911, has no direct correlation with war criminals - if it were, it would have been demolished by the British occupation forces, which held the city under control for five years, after the Istanbul trials for conviction of war criminals. AscendencyXXIV (talk) 03:24, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At a minimum, he had a state funeral... (t · c) buidhe 04:15, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the Suny quote in the lead very famous? If not, I don't see why it would be due. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:54, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why would it need to be a famous quote? Seems like a succinct summary of the issue by a notable scholar who published a book on the history of the Armenian Genocide. – notwally (talk) 15:05, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a pretty strong claim, and also reads to me as a bit rhetorical. It would be better to represent a scholarly consensus in WIkipedia's own voice than to put this quote in the lead. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:08, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you check the body there are other researchers that are quoted saying the same thing less succinctly. (t · c) buidhe 13:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I don't see where they are. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:12, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are at least three other sources cited in the "Examination of claims" section that support the same point—that deniers claim that Armenians brought the violence upon themselves. (t · c) buidhe 16:42, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That doesn’t amount to “there was no genocide, and the Armenians were to blame for it”—it would be more clear to just state in Wikipedia’s voice that deniers claim that Armenians brought the violence upon themselves. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 17:26, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you check the footnotes one of these is Chorbajian 2016, p. 167, where the following quote is provided "Denial of the Armenian Genocide, therefore, consists of a two-pronged complementary, yet also contradictory, argument we can call 'They Brought It on Themselves and It Never Happened'."

Please help me understand what you think the factual difference is between that and what Suny wrote. (t · c) buidhe 20:50, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that buidhe, I hadn’t seen the footnote. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:56, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We currently have Proponents cite the doctrine of military necessity and attribute collective guilt to all Armenians for the military resistance of some, despite the fact that the law of war criminalizes the deliberate killing of civilians.[266][267] in the Examination of claims section.

There's a difference between interpreting the Armenian genocide in terms of post-WWII international humanitarian law (IHL) versus the IHL of 1915/1916. First Geneva Convention says nothing about the Ottoman Empire signing the 1864 convention. List of parties to the Geneva Conventions includes some references that might have the info about whether the Ottoman Empire signed the 1864 convention. The Turkish Red Crescent was formally created in 1868, and chances are that it may have influenced Turkish law prior to 1915.

Yurdakul+2020 state Importantly, the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian conflict was the first major war conducted by signatories of the 1864 First Geneva Convention, which made provisions for the treatment of wounded and sick soldiers and protection for those providing care. Although both the Ottoman Empire and Russia were signatories, ... This seems credible, but the source and date for the Ottoman Empire signing and ratifying (if ratification had a legal sense in the late 19th/early 20th century?) should be added somewhere appropriate in Wikipedia.

It looks to me that what is needed is that someone with access to the two (non-open access) sources should split this sentence into two, to something like (properly reworded):

1. Proponents cite ...
2. A. Dirk Moses and Geoffrey Robertson argue that in terms of the 1864 convention signed by several European powers and in 1882 by the US and in 1877 or earlier by the Ottoman Empire, and in terms of post-WWII and 2010s IHL, the deliberate killing of civilians is criminalized and is not accepted as part of military necessity; and collective punishment is [insert summary of Moses' point of view that collective punishment is invalid in genocide scholarship].

Even apart from the possible anachronism, the current sentence is still rather a non sequitur. Boud (talk) 12:47, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Boud while many features of IHL date to much more recently than WWI, as Moses is quoted as saying and other sources agree, the deliberate killing of civilians has been illegal for longer than that, for example in the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. While researching this article I found many sources doing a more legal analysis and all of them concluded that the CUP actions were internationally illegal at the time. Your assumption that the only relevant international law is what the Ottoman Empire signed is also not correct in my view, since customary international law also exists. That's why instead of doing our own legal analysis we look to experts like Robertson, Lattanzi, various works examining the question of reparations, etc. I'm also not seeing how this is a non sequitur, but perhaps you have an improved phrasing in mind? (t · c) buidhe 23:21, 27 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Buidhe I forgot about customary international law - I do vaguely seem to recall having browsed that before. But law is generally not retrospective, AFAIK (keeping in mind my lack of legal qualifications). Reinterpreting mediaeval or ancient world mass atrocities as e.g. genocide requires warning the reader that this is a modern point of view, or a historian's (or s') point of view rather than a more legalistic point of view.

So how about something like Proponents cite the doctrine of military necessity and attribute collective guilt to all Armenians for the military resistance of some, despite the fact that since the early twentieth century, the law of war, in the sense of customary international law, excludes the deliberate killing of civilians from military necessity and criminalises collective punishment in the form of the deliberate killing of civilians.[266][267] or ... refuses to accept the deliberate killing of civilians as part of military necessity and criminalises collective punishment in the form of the deliberate killing of civilians.[266][267]

The non-sequitur aspect is that military necessity, per Wikipedia, excludes deliberate killing of civilians. If the "proponents" are correct, then the killings were proportionate and/or incidental. To put it another way, another example of the second half of the sentence that could make sense would be something like despite the fact that the killings of Armenians were mostly deliberate, non-proportionate, non-incidental killings and thus do not qualify as military necessity under customary international law definitions of military necessity of the 1910s or later although this doesn't clarify the issue of collective punishment. Maybe a different split into two (or three) sentences would be better: military necessity vs collective guilt/punishment, which are two different lines of reasoning (whether fallacious or valid under IHL). Boud (talk) 21:05, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Being criminal according to the laws of war != being a crime of genocide, which you are correct to note didn't exist at the time.

It's not that denialists argue that Armenians weren't a civilian population, as much as they insisted that the security of the empire depended on the mass deportation/killing of civilians. I can see how the reference to military necessity could be confusing to modern readers so I have reworded. (t · c) buidhe 22:57, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks clearer to me now. Boud (talk) 12:52, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Replace "as of 2024" by "as of 2025"? DJB008 (talk) 19:43, 6 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi.

The section Examination of [denialist] claims does not actually evaluate, appraise, or rebut the denialist claims: i.e., it doesn't state to what extent the denialist claims are true, false, or related to the crime of genocide.

@Buidhe. You removed some content from this section which made the assessment.

Simon Maghakyan...[states]...that the real or perceived security threat posed by the Armenians does not invalidate the criminality of their destruction. Proponents attribute collective guilt to all Armenians for the military resistance of some, despite the fact that the law of war criminalizes the deliberate killing of civilians.

How do you feel about re-incorporating parts that evaluate the argument that "[some or all] Armenians engaged in rebellion, therefore, genocide was justified, to protect the Turkish/Ottoman state."?

If we don't keep these rebuttals, then it's not really a section on the "examination of denialist claims", but rather a section listing the denialist claims. Greensminded24 (talk) 15:16, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that is a fair assessment since the claims are clearly identified as "denialist", and contrasted with the mainstream belief. The argument that genocide is justified is already addressed, although that's arguably an ethical argument rather than a factual one.

Keep in mind that the purpose of the article is not disproving Armenian genocide denial but explaining what it is. (t · c) buidhe 15:27, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can we then relabel this sub-section to "Rhetoric"? This is more consistent with article Gaza genocide denial. Greensminded24 (talk) 22:11, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No objection (t · c) buidhe 22:46, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]