In a full-page ad in The New York Times’ Saturday paper, The Armenian Educational Foundation featured a letter written by Kim Kardashian, who is of Armenian decent.
Kardashian originally published the letter in April on her app, which was a response to The Wall Street Journal‘s choice to run an advertisement from Fact Check Armenia, a group dedicated to denying that the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government in 1915 was a genocidal act.
Saturday’s ad criticized both Fact Check Armenia and The Wall Street Journal for publishing the ad.
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“Money talks, and right now it’s talking crap,” Kardashian wrote. She continued, “My family and I are no strangers to BS in the press. We’ve learned to brush it off. Lies make good headlines, good headlines make great covers, great covers sell magazines. But when I heard about this full-page ad that ran in The Wall Street Journal denying the Armenian genocide, I couldn’t brush it off.”
“For The Wall Street Journal to publish something like this is reckless, upsetting, and dangerous. To profit from genocide, it’s shameful and unacceptable,” she added.
The ad in question, which ran in the paper on April 20, prominently displayed the words “Truth – Peace” above a hand coloured in to show the Turkish flag, flashing a peace sign.
Fact Check Armenia argues on its website that the events that took place in 1915 should not be considered genocide.
“Despite the propaganda being pushed by powerful and well-funded Armenian diaspora, the series of events in 1915 and beyond resulted in losses of life on both sides of the conflict,” the website states.
The mother of two went on to retweet an image of the ad from a fan account on Sunday; it’s the only public acknowledgement she’s made of her letter.
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A spokesperson for The Wall Street Journal defended the ad that ran in April, telling the New York Daily News, “We accept a wide range of advertisements, including those with provocative viewpoints. While we review ad copy for issues of taste, the varied and divergent views expressed belong to the advertisers.”
Addressing the response from The Wall Street Journal, Kardashian said in the New York Times ad that it wasn’t “provocative” to run ads denying the Armenian genocide, but it was “totally morally irresponsible and, most of all, it’s dangerous.”
Kardashian continued, “If this had been an ad denying the Holocaust, or pushing some 9/11 conspiracy theory, would it have made it to print?”
Most historians agree that mass killings constitute the use of the word “genocide,” as do 29 counties, according to the Armenian National Institute. A UN declaration in 1948 defined genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Turkey and Azerbaijan are the only nations to directly disapprove of the term.
Canada formally recognized the Armenian genocide in 2004.
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This is not the first time Kardashian has spoken about the Armenian genocide. In an essay for Time magazine last year, she encouraged Obama to “use the word ‘genocide.'” She also once again expressed why it’s so important for the situation that happened in Armenia to be recognized.
“The whole point of remembering the genocide is to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she wrote at the time. “A million-and-a-half people were brutally massacred, and a country can just pretend like it never happened? I don’t think that’s right.” She also added, “Now is the time to speak out, and every little bit helps. I will continue to ask the questions and fight for the genocide to be recognized for what it was.”
The 35-year-old reality star took the family’s hit show, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, to Armenia in 2015 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians at the hand of the Turkish government.