We, the undersigned, call upon the United Nations, national governments, and relevant institutions to acknowledge the large-scale massacres, forced expulsions, and demographic destruction directed against Turks and other Muslim populations in the Balkans and Anatolia between 1821 and 1922.

According to demographic studies by Justin McCarthy, approximately 5.5 million Muslims were killed and roughly 5 million were displaced as refugees in the Balkans during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (representing 60%-80% of muslim population).  Historian Erik-Jan Zürcher estimates around 2.5 million Turk/Muslim deaths between 1914-1922 in Anatolia, representing ~15–20% of the population (rising to ~60% in Van province and similarly high rates in other conflict zones.)

These losses occurred through a series of documented events, including:

•  Massacres during the Greek War of Independence (notably Tripolitsa, 1821)

•  The Circassian expulsion and related deaths (1860s)

•  Atrocities during the Balkan Wars (1912–•  Systematic destruction of Muslim villages and civilian killings during the Greek occupation of western Anatolia (1919–1922)

•  Armenian revolutionary bands attacking Muslim villages East Anatolia in the 1890s (during uprisings such as Sasun) and continued into 1914–1915.  American officers Emory Niles and Arthur Sutherland, reporting in 1919, confirmed widespread destruction of Muslim quarters and killings in the Van–Bitlis region. Demographic studies record particularly high Muslim losses in Van province (~60%).

We request that these historical facts be recognized, studied, and commemorated alongside other large-scale human tragedies of the era, without denial or minimization.