System Of A Down singer heads to Congress
Serj Tankian tries to push Armenian Genocide Resolution to vote

System Of A Down singer Serj Tankian took part in a rally earlier this week to convince Congress to bring an Armenian Genocide Resolution to a vote.

The frontman joined members of the Armenian National Committee of America, the Armenian Youth Federation and his own Axis Of Justice organisation outside Congressman Dennis Hastert's office in Batavia, Illinois on Tuesday (September 27).

Tankian then read a heartfelt letter which was delivered to Hastert's office in support of the pending legislation, which would officially recognise Turkey's alleged slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.

According, to MTV News, the singer took part in the rally after promising his 97-year-old grandfather he would do his best to convince Hastert to bring the Armenian Genocide Resolution to vote.

The resolution passed the bipartisan International Relations Committee and now Hastert can either bring it to the House Of Representatives for a vote or let it expire.

Tankian said: "It's all in his hands, he's the man. The thing is that a similar resolution was going around in 2000 as well and he was the speaker of the House then, but at the time (President Bill) Clinton had written a letter asking him not to bring it up to vote, citing concerns that had to do with Turkey. In 2004 he also had the opportunity to bring another resolution to vote on ... and that didn't happen either."

He added: "I'm sure that there's a lot of lobbying going on from the Bush administration, from the military-industrial complex that sells a lot of weapons to Turkey, and a whole host of corporate lobbyist firms that don't want this thing to pass, but the truth has to come out, and more so in a democracy than anywhere else. So we're fighting the good fight."

Hastert has not yet commented on the issue.

taken from NME

via Mikey