April 24 of each year shall be the “California Day of Remembrance of the Armenian Genocide,” and the period beginning on the Sunday before that day through the following Sunday shall be the days of remembrance in this state, and shall annually be so proclaimed by the Governor, in memory of the 1,500,000 victims who were subjected to torture, starvation, and murder, including death marches into the Syrian desert, by the rulers of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and the exile of more than 500,000 innocent people during the period from 1915 to 1923, inclusive, and in honor of the survivors of those crimes against humanity.
(Added by Stats. 2005, Ch. 9, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 2006.)