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Turkish Legislator Proposes Bill That Says French Committed Genocide

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  • Turkish Legislator Proposes Bill That Says French Committed Genocide

    TURKISH LEGISLATOR PROPOSES BILL THAT SAYS FRENCH COMMITTED GENOCIDE IN ALGERIA

    AP Worldstream
    May 18, 2006

    A legislator from Turkey's ruling party on Thursday proposed a bill
    that would make it a crime to deny that France committed genocide
    against Algerians.

    The proposal was a tit-for-tat move, and the latest expression of
    Turkey's disapproval of NATO ally France, whose parliament on Thursday
    postponed voting on a similar bill that would make it a crime to deny
    that Turks committed genocide against Armenians around the time of
    World War I.

    Mahmut Kocak, a legislator from Turkey's ruling Justice and Development
    Party representing the city of Afyon, said his proposal included making
    May 8 of every year "The Genocide Carried out against the Algerians"
    day. Under Kocak's proposed law, anyone who denied that the French
    committed genocide against the Algerians could be put in jail and
    fined up to 100,000 Turkish lira (about US$70,000).

    Turkey's government has argued that designations of genocide should
    be debated by historians, and not legislated by politicians.

    Nonetheless, several countries, including France, have passed
    resolutions recognizing the killings of as many as 1.5 million
    Armenians in Turkey as genocide.

    The bill in the French parliament would have taken recognition one step
    further, however, by making it a crime to say Turks did not commit
    genocide, similar to a French law that makes it a crime to deny that
    Nazi Germans committed genocide against the Jews during World War II.

    Turkey vehemently denies that it committed genocide against Armenians,
    saying many were killed as the Ottoman Empire fell but it was not
    part of an organized genocidal campaign.

    The Turkish legislator's remark was aimed to hit a sore spot in
    French history.

    Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika recently said French
    colonization was a form of genocide for Algeria's culture and
    traditions, prompting the French foreign minister to warn him that
    "this type of term should never be overused.
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