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Azerbaijanis Protest French Vote On Armenian Genocide

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  • Azerbaijanis Protest French Vote On Armenian Genocide

    AZERBAIJANIS PROTEST FRENCH VOTE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

    NOW LEBANON.com
    Dec 22 2011

    Activists in Azerbaijan held a rare street rally on Thursday in protest
    against the French parliament's vote on a law making it illegal to deny
    that the mass killings of Armenians during World War I was genocide.

    Around 50 people from Azerbaijani diaspora and war veterans' groups
    demonstrated outside the French embassy in Baku, shouting slogans like
    "People of France, stop Sarkozy!" and "The French parliament should
    be fair!"

    A statement was read out at the protest saying that the law would
    restrict freedom of speech and is aimed at courting the Armenian
    community in France, whose votes are being sought by President Nicolas
    Sarkozy's UMP party ahead of elections next year.

    The French bill proposes to make it a crime to deny the century-old
    deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of Turkish
    Ottoman forces amounted to a genocide.

    Turkic-speaking, mainly Muslim Azerbaijan is an enemy of Armenia and
    a close ally of Turkey, which rejects the genocide allegation.

    Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a war in the 1990s over the disputed
    territory of Nagorny Karabakh, and no final peace deal has yet been
    signed despite years of negotiations.

    An official at the Azerbaijani presidential administration said on
    Wednesday that there was no genocide of Armenians.

    "Their claim is fabricated and has nothing to do with historical
    reality," said the official, Ali Hasanov.




    From: A. Papazian
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