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FRENCH PARLIAMENT DEBATES ARMENIAN "GENOCIDE BILL"
Monsters and Critics.com
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1682302.php/LEAD-French-parliament-debates-Armenian-genocide-bill
Dec 22 2011
Paris - Thousands of people demonstrated outside France's National
Assembly on Thursday, as parliamentarians prepared to vote on a bill
that would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered a genocide
at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
The demonstrators, mostly French people of Turkish origin, waved
Turkish and French flags and placards denouncing the bill. The police
estimated their numbers at around 4,000.
'History must not serve politics,' one placard read.
'Fishing for votes must not be done at the expense of a country's
history,' another one read.
The controversial bill proposes to punish people who deny or minimize
genocides with a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (59,000
dollars).
France recognizes two events as genocides: the Nazi Holocaust of Jews
during World War II and the mass killings of Armenians in eastern
Turkey during World War I.
A separate law already criminalizes Holocaust denial.
In Turkey, the bill is seen as an attempt by President Nicolas
Sarkozy's party to curry favour with a small but influential Armenian
diaspora ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.
'It's not because a powerful lobby says it (genocide) that I will
say it,' Halil Karayel, who lives in the eastern city of Strasbourg,
told dpa.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenian citizens of the Ottoman
Empire were either killed or died of neglect on deportation marches
to the Syrian desert in 1915-18. Before becoming president in 2007,
Sarkozy had promised to push through legislation on genocide denial.
Turkey rejects the genocide tag. Ankara says some 300,000 Armenians
died, and argues that it was largely the result of unrest during
the war following the invasion by Russian forces of eastern Turkey,
where most Armenians lived.
The bill, which was proposed by a member of the ruling Union for a
Popular Movement, enjoys the backing of most French lawmakers.
Some members of the UMP have opposed the bill, however.
UMP deputy Michel Diefenbacher told the assembly, which was only
about one-third full for the vote, that he opposed any attempt by
France to impose its reading of history on another sovereign state.
Once approved by assembly members, the bill will go to the Senate.
Thursday's debate was broadcast live in Turkey, where the government
has already warned of 'grave' consequences for Franco-Turkish relations
if the assembly approves the bill.
A delegation of Turkish parliamentarians travelled to Paris this week
to lobby against the vote but failed to convince the government to
call it off.
The standoff is the latest to rock Franco-Turkish relations, which
have already soured over Sarkozy's resolute opposition to Turkey
joining the European Union.
French European Affairs Minister Jean Leonetti has downplayed the
possible fallout with Turkey, telling France Inter Radio that its
threatened reprisals were 'empty threats.'
Monsters and Critics.com
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1682302.php/LEAD-French-parliament-debates-Armenian-genocide-bill
Dec 22 2011
Paris - Thousands of people demonstrated outside France's National
Assembly on Thursday, as parliamentarians prepared to vote on a bill
that would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered a genocide
at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
The demonstrators, mostly French people of Turkish origin, waved
Turkish and French flags and placards denouncing the bill. The police
estimated their numbers at around 4,000.
'History must not serve politics,' one placard read.
'Fishing for votes must not be done at the expense of a country's
history,' another one read.
The controversial bill proposes to punish people who deny or minimize
genocides with a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros (59,000
dollars).
France recognizes two events as genocides: the Nazi Holocaust of Jews
during World War II and the mass killings of Armenians in eastern
Turkey during World War I.
A separate law already criminalizes Holocaust denial.
In Turkey, the bill is seen as an attempt by President Nicolas
Sarkozy's party to curry favour with a small but influential Armenian
diaspora ahead of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections.
'It's not because a powerful lobby says it (genocide) that I will
say it,' Halil Karayel, who lives in the eastern city of Strasbourg,
told dpa.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenian citizens of the Ottoman
Empire were either killed or died of neglect on deportation marches
to the Syrian desert in 1915-18. Before becoming president in 2007,
Sarkozy had promised to push through legislation on genocide denial.
Turkey rejects the genocide tag. Ankara says some 300,000 Armenians
died, and argues that it was largely the result of unrest during
the war following the invasion by Russian forces of eastern Turkey,
where most Armenians lived.
The bill, which was proposed by a member of the ruling Union for a
Popular Movement, enjoys the backing of most French lawmakers.
Some members of the UMP have opposed the bill, however.
UMP deputy Michel Diefenbacher told the assembly, which was only
about one-third full for the vote, that he opposed any attempt by
France to impose its reading of history on another sovereign state.
Once approved by assembly members, the bill will go to the Senate.
Thursday's debate was broadcast live in Turkey, where the government
has already warned of 'grave' consequences for Franco-Turkish relations
if the assembly approves the bill.
A delegation of Turkish parliamentarians travelled to Paris this week
to lobby against the vote but failed to convince the government to
call it off.
The standoff is the latest to rock Franco-Turkish relations, which
have already soured over Sarkozy's resolute opposition to Turkey
joining the European Union.
French European Affairs Minister Jean Leonetti has downplayed the
possible fallout with Turkey, telling France Inter Radio that its
threatened reprisals were 'empty threats.'