August 29 , 2001

The Honorable Don Siegelman
Governor of Alabama 
State Capitol 
600 Dexter Avenue 
Montgomery, AL 36130

Re: Revised proclamation of August 8, 2001 regarding Turkish Americans and Turkey

Dear Governor Siegelman:

We received a copy of the revised August 8, 2001 proclamation from Mr. Ryan Erlich.

I am sorry to inform you that the revised proclamation also contains serious factual inaccuracies and omissions. While it contains some improvements, they are marginal.

I urge you to review the matter and withdraw this faulty proclamation. If one of your aims is to recognize the contributions of Turkish Americans to the State of Alabama, I suggest you issue a proclamation dealing with that issue solely.

If you also want to express the sentiments of the residents of Alabama to the loss of civilian lives due to war and ethnic strife, I suggest you issue a proclamation recognizing the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish government, its human rights atrocities committed against its Greek citizens in the 20th century, its illegal aggression in 1974 against Cyprus, and its continuing occupation of 37 percent of Cyprus these past 27 years.

The (click here) contains our comments on the revised proclamation.

Respectfully,

Eugene T. Rossides
General Counsel

Enclosure

cc: Congressional delegation