Armenian youths in Turkey have launched a protest campaign against the demolition of Camp Armen, the Armenian orphanage that housed hundreds of Armenian children in summer sessions. The Armenian community demands the orphanage be preserved and handed over to it. This does not sound likely, but it is significant as being the first street protest by Turkey's Armenians to express their demands in recent times.

Camp Armen symbolizes the long saga of the deportation and massacres Armenians suffered on Anatolian soil. Its history starts with the purchase of a plot of land by Gedikpasa Armenian Protestant Church from a private party to house Armenian orphans who lived in Anatolia and were labeled as "sword leftovers" by the Armenians. The orphanage camp was built in 1962 by the orphans themselves under supervision of a master builder.

The existence of the orphanage camp, where 1,500 children were housed and educated, was endangered by a decision by the Court of Appeals in 1974, ruling that foreign foundations cannot own immovable property. The state, empowered by the court decision, seized the orphanage in 1986 and returned the property to its original owner free of charge, including the buildings on it.

The owner couldn’t cope with the implications of owning an orphanage camp and immediately resold it. The new owners, once they found out the background of the orphanage camp, also sold the property without touching it. The property remained abandoned, untouched for a while. In 2008, the Aydinlar family, one of the richest families in Turkey, bought the property and this year decided to build on the lot.