A black and white landscape photograph showing five people being executed by hanging on individual tripod scaffolds. Crowds, visible in the foreground and the background, stand watching the event. Trees and a crenellated tower of Istanbul University can also be seen in the background. Original caption: 'Armenians being hanged, Stamboul' [Istanbul].

The Ottoman Empire was a multiethnic entitiy with many different peoples within its territories, including sizeable minorities of Armenians, Kurds and Greeks. Persecution of Armenians, including sporadic massacres, had been a feature of the empire during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The First World War made the Turkish authorities fearful of an Armenian 'fifth colulmn' within the empire and calls for an independant Armeanian state, resulting in state-sponsored mass killings between 1915 and 1923. Up to 1.2 million people were killed. This included public executions, as that shown here, but also death marches through the Syrian desert, often involving women, children and the elderly. This photograph may show the execution of 20 Hunchakian activitists who were hanged in Beyazit Square in Istanbul on 15 June 1915.

These events are often refered to as the 'Armenian genocide', including by many academics and the governments of countries that have passed formal genocide recognition resolutions. The Turkish government, however, rejects the label of 'genocide' and the subject remains highly controversial in Türkiye.