Headquartered in Chicago, the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) is comprised of America’s most influential Muslim special interest groups, many of which are tied to foreign Islamic revivalist movements. This list includes the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America, the Muslim American Society (MAS), American Muslims for Palestine, and 14 other Islamist organizations.

Although these groups claim to pursue civil rights and social justice causes, they continue to pander to Turkey’s increasingly authoritarian regime by refusing to speak out against one of the greatest injustices in modern history. Writing on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 2015, USCMO sought to cast aspersions on historical Armenian grievances, suggesting that the jury is still out on the mass killings. Its statement warned that “characterizing the events of 1915 as genocide without proper investigation of these events by independent historians” would fail to produce “a just memory pertaining to these events.”

Yet, it is not a “just memory,” but an accurate one that Armenians have sought after all these years, and there is very little debate among historians regarding the authenticity of Armenian claims. On October 25, 1914, the Ottoman navy attacked Russian ports on the Black Sea, dealing a painful blow to Moscow trade. In a few months, Russia retaliated by mobilizing its army, and with help from Armenian militias from the Caucasus advanced into present-day northern Turkey.

On April 24, 1915, the Ottoman Turks responded by rounding up several hundred Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul. They were subsequently accused of treason, deported to Ankara, and interned or executed. Soon after, Istanbul ordered the deportation of 1.3 million Armenians. Considered a national security threat, Armenian deportees were force-marched an average of 700 kilometers to locations in northern Iraq and central Syria.

Western diplomats and missionaries residing in the region at the time documented horrors of murder and rape and spoke about an Ottoman state policy of Armenian extermination.