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SWITZERLAND TO ASK EUROPEAN COURT TO REVIEW 'GENOCIDE' DENIAL CASE
Today's Zaman, Turkey
March 12 2014
12 March 2014 /REUTERS, ZURICH WITH TODAY'S ZAMAN
Switzerland will ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to
review a case involving a Turkish politician who denied that mass
killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 amounted to genocide,
the Ministry of Justice said on Tuesday.
A Swiss court had fined the leader of the leftist Turkish Workers'
Party (İP), Dogu Perincek, for having branded talk of an Armenian
genocide "an international lie" during a 2007 lecture tour in
Switzerland.
The European court, which upholds the 47-nation European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR), said in December a Swiss law against genocide
denial violated the principle of freedom of expression.
In a press statement announcing the ruling, the court underlined
that the "free exercise of the right to openly discuss questions of a
sensitive and controversial nature was one of the fundamental aspects
of freedom of expression and distinguished a tolerant and pluralistic
democratic society from a totalitarian or dictatorial regime," and
that Perincek had not committed an abuse of his rights.
The ruling has implications for other European states, such as France,
which have tried to criminalize the refusal to apply the term genocide
to the massacres of Armenians during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning
in 1915 but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that
this constituted an act of genocide -- a term used by many Western
historians and foreign parliaments.
In requesting a referral of the case to the court's Grand Chamber,
Switzerland is primarily seeking to clarify the scope available to
domestic authorities in applying the anti-racism law, the Ministry
of Justice said in a statement.
From: Baghdasarian
Today's Zaman, Turkey
March 12 2014
12 March 2014 /REUTERS, ZURICH WITH TODAY'S ZAMAN
Switzerland will ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to
review a case involving a Turkish politician who denied that mass
killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 amounted to genocide,
the Ministry of Justice said on Tuesday.
A Swiss court had fined the leader of the leftist Turkish Workers'
Party (İP), Dogu Perincek, for having branded talk of an Armenian
genocide "an international lie" during a 2007 lecture tour in
Switzerland.
The European court, which upholds the 47-nation European Convention
on Human Rights (ECHR), said in December a Swiss law against genocide
denial violated the principle of freedom of expression.
In a press statement announcing the ruling, the court underlined
that the "free exercise of the right to openly discuss questions of a
sensitive and controversial nature was one of the fundamental aspects
of freedom of expression and distinguished a tolerant and pluralistic
democratic society from a totalitarian or dictatorial regime," and
that Perincek had not committed an abuse of his rights.
The ruling has implications for other European states, such as France,
which have tried to criminalize the refusal to apply the term genocide
to the massacres of Armenians during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians died in partisan fighting beginning
in 1915 but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and that
this constituted an act of genocide -- a term used by many Western
historians and foreign parliaments.
In requesting a referral of the case to the court's Grand Chamber,
Switzerland is primarily seeking to clarify the scope available to
domestic authorities in applying the anti-racism law, the Ministry
of Justice said in a statement.
From: Baghdasarian