BRUSSELS, Belgium — On April 26, the Armenian community of Brussels in Belgium woke up in amazement after discovering that the monument dedicated to the victims of the Armenian Genocide had been spray-painted with crescent moon drawings and a sentence insulting the Armenian deputy of Turkey Garo Paylan. Paylan asked the Grand Assembly of Turkey on April 23 to recognize the Armenian Genocide, much to the chagrin of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The khachkar (cross-stone) was inscribed: “F–k Paylan.” This kachkar was inaugurated in 1997.
According to the European Armenian Federation for Justice and Democracy (EAFJD) and Committee for the Defense of the Armenian Cause (CDCA Belgium), this desecration is the work of the “Gray Wolves” movement.
Christos Doulkeridis, the mayor of Ixelles (Elsene), a municipality within the Brussels capital region, who dispatched a team to clean up the monument, said: “I will never be able to tolerate this kind of behavior. The police have opened a case and a repair will be carried out immediately.”
