ArmInfo. Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations in France (CCAF) denounces the decision by the Cologne City Council to dismantle the Memorial to the Armenian Genocide.
"By acting in this way, Cologne not only violates the memory of the victims, but also becomes complicit in the crime, which represents tacit encouragement for future generations," CCAF said in a post on Twitter.
The monument in Cologne was erected on April 15, 2018 by activists from the initiative group "Remember the Genocide". The one and a half meter steel sculpture was installed near the Cologne Cathedral near the Hohenzollern Bridge. The triangular pyramid is topped with a bronze garnet pierced with a point. "This pain affects us all," reads the inscription on the memorial, engraved in Armenian, English, German and Turkish.
Since then, the monument has been erected and dismantled several times after protests by Turkish nationalists. After the march of Turkish nationalists, including supporters of the racist far-right groups "Ulku Ocaklar?" and DITIB, at the end of October the city decided: "The monument must be dismantled." It was dismantled on December 21.