Although it was possible for Armenians to achieve status and wealth in the Ottoman Empire, as a community, they were accorded a status as second-class citizens (under the Millet system) and were regarded as fundamentally alien to the Muslim character of Ottoman society. In 1895, demands for reform among the Armenian subjects of the Ottoman Empire lead to Sultan Abdul Hamid's decision to suppress them resulting in the Hamidian massacres in which up to 300,000 Armenians were killed and many more tortured. In 1909, a massacre of Armenians in the city of Adana resulted in a series of anti-Armenian pogroms throughout the district resulting in the deaths of 20,000–30,000 Armenians. During World War I, the Ottoman government massacred between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians in the Armenian genocide. The position of the current Turkish government, however, is that the Armenians who died were casualties of the expected hardships of war, the casualties cited are exaggerated, and that the 1915 events could not be considered a genocide. This position has been criticized by international genocide scholars, and by 28 governments, which have resolutions affirming the genocide.