1899.23

[Introducing Minas Tchéraz to the audience. Speech of thanks.]

In: Conférence Arménienne à Amsterdam par Monsieur Minas Tchéraz sous la présidence de M. le Dr. A. Kuyper membre des Etats Généraux des Pays Bas. Sujet: La Conference de la Paix et les massacres Arméniens.

Amsterdam/Pretoria, Librairie Höveker & Wormser [1899], pp. [3]–7, 30–32.

Introductory and concluding remarks by Kuyper on the occasion of a lecture held by the Armenian exile Minas Tchéraz in Amsterdam on July 7, 1899. Kuyper’s remarks amounted to an unvarnished protest against the authorities in The Hague. On May 30, 1899, the police in The Hague had prevented Minas Tchéraz from delivering a speech about the unimaginable history of suffering that Armenian Christians had experienced under Turkish authorities. Tchéraz, who had come to the Netherlands in order to submit a request in the name of Armenian exiles to the Peace Conference in The Hague (see 1899.05), had been invited to give a lecture by the Christian Young Men’s Association in The Hague. The request was declared inadmissible by the Peace Conference and now his right to speak in the Netherlands was also refused (see 1899.30, pp. 567–572).

After the lecture, which was organized by Kuyper acting in association with two other members of the Second Chamber in order to salvage their national honor, Kuyper declared in his passionate closing remarks that he—together with those present and the whole of Dutch society—stood in solidarity with the afflicted and tortured Armenian people.

A Dutch translation of his introductory and concluding remarks was printed in De Standaard 28 (1899), no. 8390, July 10, 1899.