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FRANCE CONSIDERS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-genocide-20111221,0,417412.story
Dec 20 2011
CA
France may soon make it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide. If
stating even an incorrect view of history is a crime, it amounts to
preemptive censorship. The bill should be voted down.
The killing of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915
was an act of genocide. The Holocaust was a fact. Yet Americans are
free to deny the reality of either - or make outlandish assertions
of all kinds - without facing punishment by the state. Residents
of France will be denied that privilege if its parliament adopts a
wrong-headed bill to criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide.
On Thursday the lower house of France's parliament will debate a bill
that would punish those who deny the genocide with a year in prison
and a $58,000 fine. Turkey is livid, just as it is when legislation is
proposed in the U.S. Congress to declare the killings a genocide. It
has threatened "grave consequences" to the French-Turkish relationship
if the bill is approved and warns that it will raise the issue of
violent French colonialism in international forums.
Turkey's sensitivity to the term "genocide" is nothing new, nor is
the warning of a diplomatic rupture if another nation dares to use
that word. That's not the reason to oppose the bill. The reason the
French bill deserves condemnation is that it would be a monstrous
violation of free speech.
France is not the only European country to take a narrower view of
freedom of expression than the United States does, but to make it
a crime to state a view about history - even an incorrect view -
is an especially egregious act of preemptive censorship. Political
correctness is one thing when it holds sway in the culture, politics
or academe and quite another when it dictates how the criminal law
is conceived and enforced.
Some would say that it's presumptuous for Americans to lecture the
people of a fellow democracy about the rights they accord their
citizens. But robust freedom of expression isn't some American fetish.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers."
That the killing of Armenians was not an example of genocide is
an opinion. We disagree with it, but it deserves protection, not
punishment.
From: Baghdasarian
Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-genocide-20111221,0,417412.story
Dec 20 2011
CA
France may soon make it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide. If
stating even an incorrect view of history is a crime, it amounts to
preemptive censorship. The bill should be voted down.
The killing of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915
was an act of genocide. The Holocaust was a fact. Yet Americans are
free to deny the reality of either - or make outlandish assertions
of all kinds - without facing punishment by the state. Residents
of France will be denied that privilege if its parliament adopts a
wrong-headed bill to criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide.
On Thursday the lower house of France's parliament will debate a bill
that would punish those who deny the genocide with a year in prison
and a $58,000 fine. Turkey is livid, just as it is when legislation is
proposed in the U.S. Congress to declare the killings a genocide. It
has threatened "grave consequences" to the French-Turkish relationship
if the bill is approved and warns that it will raise the issue of
violent French colonialism in international forums.
Turkey's sensitivity to the term "genocide" is nothing new, nor is
the warning of a diplomatic rupture if another nation dares to use
that word. That's not the reason to oppose the bill. The reason the
French bill deserves condemnation is that it would be a monstrous
violation of free speech.
France is not the only European country to take a narrower view of
freedom of expression than the United States does, but to make it
a crime to state a view about history - even an incorrect view -
is an especially egregious act of preemptive censorship. Political
correctness is one thing when it holds sway in the culture, politics
or academe and quite another when it dictates how the criminal law
is conceived and enforced.
Some would say that it's presumptuous for Americans to lecture the
people of a fellow democracy about the rights they accord their
citizens. But robust freedom of expression isn't some American fetish.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this
right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to
seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and
regardless of frontiers."
That the killing of Armenians was not an example of genocide is
an opinion. We disagree with it, but it deserves protection, not
punishment.
From: Baghdasarian