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FRANCE REJECTS LAW ON ARMENIA GENOCIDE
Peter Allen
The Evening Standard (London)
February 29, 2012 Wednesday
TURKEY was celebrating today after a hotly disputed new Bill making
it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide in France was rejected.
The Constitutional Council in Paris refused to ratify the legislation,
which states that 1.5 million Armenian Christians were slaughtered
by Ottoman Turks during the First World War.
Anyone who said otherwise faced a year in prison or a fine equivalent
to £40,000. President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose government had backed the
measure, was humiliated after the Council ruled that Parliament had
caused "unconstitutional harm to the exercise of freedom of expression"
by passing it.
He said he shared "the immense disappointment and the profound sadness
of all those who had welcomed with recognition and hope the adoption
of this law".
The council said that it was concerned "not to enter into the realm
of responsibility that belongs to historians".
Turkey had seen the measure as an insult when the French Senate passed
it last month and had suspended all military, economic and political
ties with Paris.
A government spokesman in Turkey said: "We consider the annulment of
the legislation by the Constitutional Council as a step that complies
with the principles of freedom of expression and research, the rule
of law and international law in France."
Peter Allen
The Evening Standard (London)
February 29, 2012 Wednesday
TURKEY was celebrating today after a hotly disputed new Bill making
it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide in France was rejected.
The Constitutional Council in Paris refused to ratify the legislation,
which states that 1.5 million Armenian Christians were slaughtered
by Ottoman Turks during the First World War.
Anyone who said otherwise faced a year in prison or a fine equivalent
to £40,000. President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose government had backed the
measure, was humiliated after the Council ruled that Parliament had
caused "unconstitutional harm to the exercise of freedom of expression"
by passing it.
He said he shared "the immense disappointment and the profound sadness
of all those who had welcomed with recognition and hope the adoption
of this law".
The council said that it was concerned "not to enter into the realm
of responsibility that belongs to historians".
Turkey had seen the measure as an insult when the French Senate passed
it last month and had suspended all military, economic and political
ties with Paris.
A government spokesman in Turkey said: "We consider the annulment of
the legislation by the Constitutional Council as a step that complies
with the principles of freedom of expression and research, the rule
of law and international law in France."