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ANKARA: Swiss To Ask European Court To Review 'Genocide' Denial Case

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  • ANKARA: Swiss To Ask European Court To Review 'Genocide' Denial Case

    SWISS TO ASK EUROPEAN COURT TO REVIEW 'GENOCIDE' DENIAL CASE INVOLVING TURKISH POLITICIAN

    Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
    March 12 2014

    ZURICH - Reuters

    Switzerland will ask the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to
    review a case involving a Turkish politician who denied that mass
    killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 amounted to genocide,
    the Justice Ministry said March 11.

    A Swiss court had fined the leader of the leftist-nationalist Workers'
    Party (İP), Dogu Perincek, who publicly denied that the Ottoman
    Empire had perpetrated the crime of genocide against the Armenian
    people in 1915 during conferences in Switzerland in 2005.

    The European court, which upholds the 47-nation European Convention on
    Human Rights, said in December 2013 that a Swiss law against genocide
    denial violated the principle of freedom of expression.

    The ECHR ruling stated that "the free exercise of the right to openly
    discuss questions of a sensitive and controversial nature is one of
    the fundamental aspects of freedom of expression and distinguishes
    a tolerant and pluralistic democratic society from a totalitarian or
    dictatorial regime."

    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 Justice
    Ministry said in a statement.

    Perincek, who was handed an aggravated life sentence in the Ergenekon
    coup plot trial, as part of the Ergenekon network, was released from
    prison recently, on the grounds that the case had not been concluded
    legally and that his detention period had surpassed five years.

    March/12/2014

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