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HOLOCAUST DENIAL PUNISHED, NOT ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
IAGS (International Association of Genocide Scholars) considers
denial of Genocide perpetuation of it. On 23rd of January Human
Rights Association, Turkey, and the Center for Truth Justice Memory
held a press conference and issued a press release, announcing that
as an intervening party they will take part in the Perincek case of
Genocide denial. It is posted in Keghart.com for the record along
with Kamo Mayilian's and Nora Koloyan-Keuhnelian's articles. The
trial took place on January 28, 2015 as scheduled and it may take up
to six months for the release of the verdict.-Ed.
Press Release
On January 28, 2015, the lawsuit Dogu Perincek v. Switzerland will
begin retrial in the Grand Chamber, which acts in the capacity of
court of appeals for the European Court of Human Rights.
It is now common knowledge that in 2005, Dogu Perincek traveled to
Switzerland, which has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and
passed a law criminalizing its denial, in order to issue declarations
in Bern and Lausanne where he impugned the Armenian Genocide as
a fabrication. In 2007, Perincek was found guilty of deliberately
violating national law and convicted by the court of Lausanne. Upon
Perincek's appeal, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in his
favor in 2008 and found that the court of Lausanne had violated the
freedom of expression principle enshrined in the European Convention
of Human Rights, article 10.
The Human Rights Association sent a letter to the Swiss Federal Office
of Justice in 2014, demonstrating in detail how the denial of the
Armenian Genocide incites hostility toward Armenians and imploring
Switzerland to appeal the ECHR decision. Switzerland's subsequent
appeal and request for retrial were accepted in June 2014.
The first hearing of the said retrial will take place on January
28, 2015.
The Human Rights Association from Turkey joined The Center for
Truth Justice Memory and the Toronto-based International Institute
for Genocide & Human Rights Studies to appeal to the ECHR in July
to present a Third Party Opinion File, i.e., to be accepted as
intervening party. The ECHR approved this request by the three human
rights organizations.
We have explained in this file that the denial of the Armenian
Genocide provokes ethnic hatred in Turkey and encourages anti-Armenian
elements. Neither the ECHR ruling and nor the file we have presented
as third party concerns itself with the historical reality of the
1915-1917 massacres or their precise legal definition. The crux of the
issue lies in the fact that Perincek's declarations are conducive to
racism and discrimination. In this sense, the retrial in the Grand
Chamber carries special significance as a precedent in addressing
denial, minimization, and justification in a context outside of
the Holocaust.
The ECHR decision had restricted denialism and discrimination to their
effect on Swiss Armenians and disregarded Perincek's leadership of
the Talat Pasha Committee, as well as the fact that his refutations
of the genocide as an international lie have direct bearing on the
Armenians of Turkey even if they were pronounced in Lausanne. We
have therefore argued in our file that Perincek's declarations do
not only concern the definition of events, but also commit the crime
of discrimination; that the ruling must take into account Perincek's
position as a prominent politician from Turkey, the head of the Labor
Party, and the leader of the Talat Pasha Committee--as well as that
Committee's objectives and operations.
Yes, the act that was found criminal according to the Swiss law
was committed on Swiss soil, but the Talat Pasha Committee and its
leaders, including Perincek, have been conducting operations in Turkey
and targeting Turkish society. The recipient of their message--that
those who listen to Armenians will be subject to intervention and
retribution, even if they are at the other ends of the world--was
Turkish society. The same Turkish society that is being targeted
by this message has been fueled by hostility toward Armenians and
other non-Muslim peoples for generations. Anti-Armenian sentiments
and thoughts have been exacerbated throughout Republican history
by the constant dogma, mass media dissemination and educational
indoctrination of the notion that the eradication of the Ottoman
Armenian population and civilization is a lie.
Denialism does not simply consist of declarations along the lines of
"no genocide has taken place." Denialism requires the justification of
the irreversible and inexpiable eradication of a people: The notion
that "it is Armenians who are responsible for the events," namely
that Armenians had deserved eradication, that they had "stabbed Turks
in the back" and collaborated with the enemy, has always been and is
still perpetually reiterated in classrooms, university conferences,
TV series and programs, and books.
Hostility toward Armenians is not confined to mere words but also
takes lives. In this context of discrimination and ethnic hatred,
Armenians were attacked and Hrant Dink, the founder and director of
Agos, was the victim of an assassination whose perpetrators have yet
to be brought to justice. Armenian private Sevag Å~^ahin Balıkcı
was shot dead in 2011 by another soldier in Batman, where he was on
military duty, specifically on the day of April 24, the universal
commemoration day marking the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
Court proceedings have met with significant public distrust, while the
press has indicated that commanders pressured privates to testify that
the incident was "an accident." Furthermore, the "Hodjali Protests"
of February 27, 2012, which took place in the central Taksim square
and featured as a speaker the Minister of Internal Affairs, displayed
banners proclaiming "You Are All Armenians, You Are All Bastards."
Within the span of two months from 2012 to 2013, the Samatya district
of Istanbul, which is densely populated by Armenians, saw similar
and successive attacks on elderly Armenian women--among them the
murder victim Maritsa Kucuk, whose bones were smashed and entire
body relentlessly stabbed. And on February 23, 2014, banners saying
"Long Live Ogun Samasts, Damned be Hrant Dinks" were displayed,
unprohibited, in front of the newspaper Agos.
In sum, genocide denial is the chief, most fundamental basis for the
state-sanctioned threat to existence under which Armenians continue
to live in Turkey.
As two human rights associations that have witnessed first-hand and
up close the provocation of ethnic hatred by anti-Armenian acts and
declarations, we, the Human Rights Association and the Center for
Truth Justice Memory, consider it our natural duty, as per our raison
d'être and field of operation, to present our observations to the
European Court of Human Rights in order to contribute to the making
of a fair and just decision.
Finally, we insist yet again: Denial causes hatred and hatred kills.
We defend the inalienability of the right to live in safety, unafraid
of tomorrow, and hope that the European Court of Human Rights will,
in the name of the universal law of human rights, obstruct discourses
that incite acts in violation of this inalienable right.
Amal Clooney Takes on Armenian Case
Kamo Mailyan, Toronto, 14 January 2015
Amal Clooney, a prominent international and human rights expert,
George Clooney's wife, has taken on the protection of the Armenian
side in the "case of Dogu Perincek," The Telegraph reports.
Dogu Perincek, a representative of the Left-wing Turkish Workers'
Party, was found guilty by the Swiss court during a visit to
Switzerland in 2008 for denying the fact of the Armenian Genocide
1915, perpetrated by the government of Ottoman Empire with a plan
of exterminating the whole Armenian race (as it was later described
by New York Times). During his visit to Switzerland, Dogu Perincek
called the Armenian Genocide 1915 "an international lie" and was
fined by the Swiss court for denial.
Dogu Perincek appealed the Swiss court's decision to the European
Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled that the Swiss court had
violated the right of free expression.
The ECHR's ruling is challenged by the Armenian party. The case will
be heard in Strasbourg by ECHR. The first hearing is scheduled on
January 28.
Amal Clooney will work in a team with Geoffrey Robertson, who
wrote a book called "An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers
the Armenians?" Amal Clooney has been involved in high profile
international cases, some of which include representation of the
Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange, as well as Yulia Timoshenko
of Ukraine.
Among questions to be asked to the ECHR should be whether its decision
is not a dual standard. If the ECHR determines and reaffirms that the
Swiss Courts' decisions have limited the right of free expression,
this will result in a strong case law and precedent that can be
used to combat strict limitation on freedom of expression by the
Turkish government through its Article 301, which limits not only
recognition of the Armenian genocide by individuals inside Turkey but
has even strictly controlled public opinion in relation to this matter
(however, it cannot stop future criminalization and punishment for
genocide denial).
In fact, Dogu Perincek can be found guilty for perpetrating/an attempt
of genocide through denial. The Genocide Watch establishes that
the 8 stages of genocide, commonly adopted and used by scholars and
historians, include: 1. Classification (of culture as "them and us");
2. Symbolization (giving names to a national group such as the "Jews"
or "Gypsies"); 3. Dehumanization (when one group denies the humanity
of another); 4. Organization (planned by a party such as a state); 5.
Polarization (extremists drive the groups apart); 6. Preparation
(victims are identified based on their religious or ethnic identity);
7. Extermination (massacres start and turn into a mass killing legally
called a "genocide"); and 8. DENIAL (which is a stage that always
follows a genocide).
According to the classification above, Dogu Perincek committed a
genocide / genocidal act through denial.
Another precedent the ECHR shall take into account is the fact that
negating the Holocaust, a horrible crime against humanity and a
genocide that followed the first genocide of the 20th century (the
Armenian Genocide 1915) and took the lives of six million Jews, is a
punishable offense in many countries. The ECHR should be prepared to
answer the question what makes the Armenian case different. Is there
any step out of the eight steps of genocide described above that does
not exist in the Armenian case? Or, maybe because we are "ARMENIANS"?
Nowadays different pro-government groups in Turkey are discussing
the possibility of granting diplomatic immunity to Dogu Perincek,
obviously understanding that this is a case that they are going to
lose, and they will have to be prepared to protect their official.
Likewise, Turkey granted diplomatic immunity to Egemen Bagis, its
EU Minister, to protect from potential liability stemming out of an
investigation by Zurich prosecutors after genocide denial comments by
Egemen Bagis at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2012,
which were found as a violation by the anti-racism legislation of
Switzerland.
The two cases are very similar, and a question the ECHR should be
asked is how many more officials are going to be "saved" by Turkey
through giving diplomatic immunity after a crime/violation is made,
and whether it can be viewed as retrospective and be applied for the
time when the real violation/crime was made.
Clooney goes to court for Armenia
Nora Koloyan-Keuhnelian, Al-Ahram, Cairo, 5 February 2015
International human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin Clooney and UK
barrister Geoffrey Robertson appeared at the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, last week. They were representing
Armenia in the century-old dispute between Armenia and Turkey over the
1915 genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks against the Armenians,
in which 1.5 million people died.
The case comes following an appeal by Switzerland to the ECHR after a
previous ruling that the right of the leader of the Turkish Workers
Party, Dogu Perincek, to express his views had been violated by a
Swiss court.
In 2007 Perincek was sentenced to four months in prison after saying
the Armenian Genocide was an "international lie" at a conference in
Lausanne in 2005. Denial of the genocide is against Swiss law.
In 2008 Perincek appealed to the ECHR, citing his right to freedom of
expression, and in December 2013 the ECHR found in Perincek's favour.
Turkey and Armenia then became parties to the case, and the appeal
against the 2013 decision began last week.
In her opening statement, Clooney said the judge's decision in the
2013 case was "simply wrong," but added that in bringing the appeal
Armenia did not want to prohibit free speech. "Armenia is not here
to argue against freedom of expression any more than Turkey is here
to defend it. This court knows very well how disgraceful Turkey's
record on freedom of expression is," she said.
As many observers have noted, Turkey's claim to defend free speech is
ironic at best. In December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
arrested opposition journalists and accused them of "forming a
terrorist organisation" and "trying to seize control of the state."
Only last week, Turkish authorities arrested a former Miss Turkey
for "insulting" Erdogan by quoting him in a poem published on social
media. In September 2014, the US-based Human Rights Watch also said
that Erdogan and the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party
were taking far-reaching steps to weaken the rule of law, control the
media and clamp down on critics and protesters, stating that these
"changes are really worrying."
Paparazzi who filled the courtroom for the appeal appeared to be
more interested in the fact that one of the two lawyers is the wife
of actor George Clooney than the case being heard.
Lawyers Robertson and Clooney atthe European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg, France
Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee
of America (ANCA), told Al-Ahram Weekly that the media storm in no
way distracted from the importance of the case. "Armenians worldwide
welcome Amal Clooney and Geoffrey Robertson's compelling presentation
of the facts, the law and the morality of Armenia's case against the
denial of the Armenian Genocide," he said.
Their stature as international human rights lawyers will help focus
the world's attention on this still unpunished genocide, he said,
brining Turkey's denial campaign into the light of day and contributing
to the growing international consensus that there must be resolution
of the crime, Hamparian added.
Some observers say that the case may be understood to be about freedom
of expression and that the judges may again decide against Switzerland,
though this should in no way be seen as endorsing Turkey's views on
the genocide.
Others say that denying the genocide should be understood as a hate
crime under Swiss law in the same way that denying the Holocaust is
a punishable offence in many countries. One judge at the court said
that Perincek's case remains strong because it turns on freedom of
speech and not the genocide.
In his remarks to the court, Robertson described Perincek as a
"vexatious litigant pest" and he questioned why the court was "giving
comfort to genocide deniers."
"What is really worrying are the vast errors of Chamber 2, which we
urge the Grand Chamber to correct, in the fact that they promote
the idea that the Holocaust is the only real genocide ... it is
wrong to excuse or to minimise other mass murders on the grounds of
racist religions because they had fewer victims or different methods
of killing.
"What matters to Armenians, to Jews, to Bosnians and Cambodians, to
Rwandan Tutsis and today to Yazidis is not the manner of their death
or whether an international court has convicted the perpetrators,
but the fact that they were targeted as unfit to live because they
were Jews or Armenians or Yazidis.
"The reasoning in this judgement [in 2013] damages the vital human
rights cause of genocide prevention ... That there is any doubt
about the truth of the Armenian Genocide should not feature in its
[the court's] reasoning. It was not, as genocide deniers pretend,
a tragedy. It was a crime, an international crime of genocide."
In the past many observers, including British prime minister Winston
Churchill, described the events as the "Armenian Holocaust." Robertson
recently published a book titled An Inconvenient Genocide: Who
Now Remembers the Armenians? The book argues that the 1915 events
constituted a crime against humanity, known today as genocide.
Robertson will also be a speaker at an international conference
marking the centenary of the Armenian Genocide in New York in March.
Diaspora Armenians are organizing events across the world to mark the
centenary of the genocide in April. However, in what is being seen as
a cynical move, Erdogan last month sent invitations to more than 100
international figures, including Armenian President Serj Sarkissian,
asking them to participate in the centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli
which will be marked in Turkey on the same day as the genocide
centenary. The move is seen as an attempt to distract attention from
the centenary of the genocide, which Turkey continues to deny.
Amal Alamuddin Clooney, 37, is the daughter of a Lebanese family. Her
father is a Druze businessman who moved to London when Amal was a
child, after the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. She has previously
acted in other high-profile cases, including those involving former
Libyan intelligence chief Abdallah Al-Senussi and WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange.
"The case of Dogu Perincek shows that Turkey's walls of denial are
crumbling and Ankara's obstruction of justice will be the next to
fall," Hamparian told the Weekly.
http://www.keghart.com/Perincek-Trial
From: Baghdasarian
IAGS (International Association of Genocide Scholars) considers
denial of Genocide perpetuation of it. On 23rd of January Human
Rights Association, Turkey, and the Center for Truth Justice Memory
held a press conference and issued a press release, announcing that
as an intervening party they will take part in the Perincek case of
Genocide denial. It is posted in Keghart.com for the record along
with Kamo Mayilian's and Nora Koloyan-Keuhnelian's articles. The
trial took place on January 28, 2015 as scheduled and it may take up
to six months for the release of the verdict.-Ed.
Press Release
On January 28, 2015, the lawsuit Dogu Perincek v. Switzerland will
begin retrial in the Grand Chamber, which acts in the capacity of
court of appeals for the European Court of Human Rights.
It is now common knowledge that in 2005, Dogu Perincek traveled to
Switzerland, which has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and
passed a law criminalizing its denial, in order to issue declarations
in Bern and Lausanne where he impugned the Armenian Genocide as
a fabrication. In 2007, Perincek was found guilty of deliberately
violating national law and convicted by the court of Lausanne. Upon
Perincek's appeal, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in his
favor in 2008 and found that the court of Lausanne had violated the
freedom of expression principle enshrined in the European Convention
of Human Rights, article 10.
The Human Rights Association sent a letter to the Swiss Federal Office
of Justice in 2014, demonstrating in detail how the denial of the
Armenian Genocide incites hostility toward Armenians and imploring
Switzerland to appeal the ECHR decision. Switzerland's subsequent
appeal and request for retrial were accepted in June 2014.
The first hearing of the said retrial will take place on January
28, 2015.
The Human Rights Association from Turkey joined The Center for
Truth Justice Memory and the Toronto-based International Institute
for Genocide & Human Rights Studies to appeal to the ECHR in July
to present a Third Party Opinion File, i.e., to be accepted as
intervening party. The ECHR approved this request by the three human
rights organizations.
We have explained in this file that the denial of the Armenian
Genocide provokes ethnic hatred in Turkey and encourages anti-Armenian
elements. Neither the ECHR ruling and nor the file we have presented
as third party concerns itself with the historical reality of the
1915-1917 massacres or their precise legal definition. The crux of the
issue lies in the fact that Perincek's declarations are conducive to
racism and discrimination. In this sense, the retrial in the Grand
Chamber carries special significance as a precedent in addressing
denial, minimization, and justification in a context outside of
the Holocaust.
The ECHR decision had restricted denialism and discrimination to their
effect on Swiss Armenians and disregarded Perincek's leadership of
the Talat Pasha Committee, as well as the fact that his refutations
of the genocide as an international lie have direct bearing on the
Armenians of Turkey even if they were pronounced in Lausanne. We
have therefore argued in our file that Perincek's declarations do
not only concern the definition of events, but also commit the crime
of discrimination; that the ruling must take into account Perincek's
position as a prominent politician from Turkey, the head of the Labor
Party, and the leader of the Talat Pasha Committee--as well as that
Committee's objectives and operations.
Yes, the act that was found criminal according to the Swiss law
was committed on Swiss soil, but the Talat Pasha Committee and its
leaders, including Perincek, have been conducting operations in Turkey
and targeting Turkish society. The recipient of their message--that
those who listen to Armenians will be subject to intervention and
retribution, even if they are at the other ends of the world--was
Turkish society. The same Turkish society that is being targeted
by this message has been fueled by hostility toward Armenians and
other non-Muslim peoples for generations. Anti-Armenian sentiments
and thoughts have been exacerbated throughout Republican history
by the constant dogma, mass media dissemination and educational
indoctrination of the notion that the eradication of the Ottoman
Armenian population and civilization is a lie.
Denialism does not simply consist of declarations along the lines of
"no genocide has taken place." Denialism requires the justification of
the irreversible and inexpiable eradication of a people: The notion
that "it is Armenians who are responsible for the events," namely
that Armenians had deserved eradication, that they had "stabbed Turks
in the back" and collaborated with the enemy, has always been and is
still perpetually reiterated in classrooms, university conferences,
TV series and programs, and books.
Hostility toward Armenians is not confined to mere words but also
takes lives. In this context of discrimination and ethnic hatred,
Armenians were attacked and Hrant Dink, the founder and director of
Agos, was the victim of an assassination whose perpetrators have yet
to be brought to justice. Armenian private Sevag Å~^ahin Balıkcı
was shot dead in 2011 by another soldier in Batman, where he was on
military duty, specifically on the day of April 24, the universal
commemoration day marking the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
Court proceedings have met with significant public distrust, while the
press has indicated that commanders pressured privates to testify that
the incident was "an accident." Furthermore, the "Hodjali Protests"
of February 27, 2012, which took place in the central Taksim square
and featured as a speaker the Minister of Internal Affairs, displayed
banners proclaiming "You Are All Armenians, You Are All Bastards."
Within the span of two months from 2012 to 2013, the Samatya district
of Istanbul, which is densely populated by Armenians, saw similar
and successive attacks on elderly Armenian women--among them the
murder victim Maritsa Kucuk, whose bones were smashed and entire
body relentlessly stabbed. And on February 23, 2014, banners saying
"Long Live Ogun Samasts, Damned be Hrant Dinks" were displayed,
unprohibited, in front of the newspaper Agos.
In sum, genocide denial is the chief, most fundamental basis for the
state-sanctioned threat to existence under which Armenians continue
to live in Turkey.
As two human rights associations that have witnessed first-hand and
up close the provocation of ethnic hatred by anti-Armenian acts and
declarations, we, the Human Rights Association and the Center for
Truth Justice Memory, consider it our natural duty, as per our raison
d'être and field of operation, to present our observations to the
European Court of Human Rights in order to contribute to the making
of a fair and just decision.
Finally, we insist yet again: Denial causes hatred and hatred kills.
We defend the inalienability of the right to live in safety, unafraid
of tomorrow, and hope that the European Court of Human Rights will,
in the name of the universal law of human rights, obstruct discourses
that incite acts in violation of this inalienable right.
Amal Clooney Takes on Armenian Case
Kamo Mailyan, Toronto, 14 January 2015
Amal Clooney, a prominent international and human rights expert,
George Clooney's wife, has taken on the protection of the Armenian
side in the "case of Dogu Perincek," The Telegraph reports.
Dogu Perincek, a representative of the Left-wing Turkish Workers'
Party, was found guilty by the Swiss court during a visit to
Switzerland in 2008 for denying the fact of the Armenian Genocide
1915, perpetrated by the government of Ottoman Empire with a plan
of exterminating the whole Armenian race (as it was later described
by New York Times). During his visit to Switzerland, Dogu Perincek
called the Armenian Genocide 1915 "an international lie" and was
fined by the Swiss court for denial.
Dogu Perincek appealed the Swiss court's decision to the European
Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled that the Swiss court had
violated the right of free expression.
The ECHR's ruling is challenged by the Armenian party. The case will
be heard in Strasbourg by ECHR. The first hearing is scheduled on
January 28.
Amal Clooney will work in a team with Geoffrey Robertson, who
wrote a book called "An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers
the Armenians?" Amal Clooney has been involved in high profile
international cases, some of which include representation of the
Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange, as well as Yulia Timoshenko
of Ukraine.
Among questions to be asked to the ECHR should be whether its decision
is not a dual standard. If the ECHR determines and reaffirms that the
Swiss Courts' decisions have limited the right of free expression,
this will result in a strong case law and precedent that can be
used to combat strict limitation on freedom of expression by the
Turkish government through its Article 301, which limits not only
recognition of the Armenian genocide by individuals inside Turkey but
has even strictly controlled public opinion in relation to this matter
(however, it cannot stop future criminalization and punishment for
genocide denial).
In fact, Dogu Perincek can be found guilty for perpetrating/an attempt
of genocide through denial. The Genocide Watch establishes that
the 8 stages of genocide, commonly adopted and used by scholars and
historians, include: 1. Classification (of culture as "them and us");
2. Symbolization (giving names to a national group such as the "Jews"
or "Gypsies"); 3. Dehumanization (when one group denies the humanity
of another); 4. Organization (planned by a party such as a state); 5.
Polarization (extremists drive the groups apart); 6. Preparation
(victims are identified based on their religious or ethnic identity);
7. Extermination (massacres start and turn into a mass killing legally
called a "genocide"); and 8. DENIAL (which is a stage that always
follows a genocide).
According to the classification above, Dogu Perincek committed a
genocide / genocidal act through denial.
Another precedent the ECHR shall take into account is the fact that
negating the Holocaust, a horrible crime against humanity and a
genocide that followed the first genocide of the 20th century (the
Armenian Genocide 1915) and took the lives of six million Jews, is a
punishable offense in many countries. The ECHR should be prepared to
answer the question what makes the Armenian case different. Is there
any step out of the eight steps of genocide described above that does
not exist in the Armenian case? Or, maybe because we are "ARMENIANS"?
Nowadays different pro-government groups in Turkey are discussing
the possibility of granting diplomatic immunity to Dogu Perincek,
obviously understanding that this is a case that they are going to
lose, and they will have to be prepared to protect their official.
Likewise, Turkey granted diplomatic immunity to Egemen Bagis, its
EU Minister, to protect from potential liability stemming out of an
investigation by Zurich prosecutors after genocide denial comments by
Egemen Bagis at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2012,
which were found as a violation by the anti-racism legislation of
Switzerland.
The two cases are very similar, and a question the ECHR should be
asked is how many more officials are going to be "saved" by Turkey
through giving diplomatic immunity after a crime/violation is made,
and whether it can be viewed as retrospective and be applied for the
time when the real violation/crime was made.
Clooney goes to court for Armenia
Nora Koloyan-Keuhnelian, Al-Ahram, Cairo, 5 February 2015
International human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin Clooney and UK
barrister Geoffrey Robertson appeared at the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, France, last week. They were representing
Armenia in the century-old dispute between Armenia and Turkey over the
1915 genocide committed by the Ottoman Turks against the Armenians,
in which 1.5 million people died.
The case comes following an appeal by Switzerland to the ECHR after a
previous ruling that the right of the leader of the Turkish Workers
Party, Dogu Perincek, to express his views had been violated by a
Swiss court.
In 2007 Perincek was sentenced to four months in prison after saying
the Armenian Genocide was an "international lie" at a conference in
Lausanne in 2005. Denial of the genocide is against Swiss law.
In 2008 Perincek appealed to the ECHR, citing his right to freedom of
expression, and in December 2013 the ECHR found in Perincek's favour.
Turkey and Armenia then became parties to the case, and the appeal
against the 2013 decision began last week.
In her opening statement, Clooney said the judge's decision in the
2013 case was "simply wrong," but added that in bringing the appeal
Armenia did not want to prohibit free speech. "Armenia is not here
to argue against freedom of expression any more than Turkey is here
to defend it. This court knows very well how disgraceful Turkey's
record on freedom of expression is," she said.
As many observers have noted, Turkey's claim to defend free speech is
ironic at best. In December, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
arrested opposition journalists and accused them of "forming a
terrorist organisation" and "trying to seize control of the state."
Only last week, Turkish authorities arrested a former Miss Turkey
for "insulting" Erdogan by quoting him in a poem published on social
media. In September 2014, the US-based Human Rights Watch also said
that Erdogan and the ruling Turkish Justice and Development Party
were taking far-reaching steps to weaken the rule of law, control the
media and clamp down on critics and protesters, stating that these
"changes are really worrying."
Paparazzi who filled the courtroom for the appeal appeared to be
more interested in the fact that one of the two lawyers is the wife
of actor George Clooney than the case being heard.
Lawyers Robertson and Clooney atthe European Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg, France
Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee
of America (ANCA), told Al-Ahram Weekly that the media storm in no
way distracted from the importance of the case. "Armenians worldwide
welcome Amal Clooney and Geoffrey Robertson's compelling presentation
of the facts, the law and the morality of Armenia's case against the
denial of the Armenian Genocide," he said.
Their stature as international human rights lawyers will help focus
the world's attention on this still unpunished genocide, he said,
brining Turkey's denial campaign into the light of day and contributing
to the growing international consensus that there must be resolution
of the crime, Hamparian added.
Some observers say that the case may be understood to be about freedom
of expression and that the judges may again decide against Switzerland,
though this should in no way be seen as endorsing Turkey's views on
the genocide.
Others say that denying the genocide should be understood as a hate
crime under Swiss law in the same way that denying the Holocaust is
a punishable offence in many countries. One judge at the court said
that Perincek's case remains strong because it turns on freedom of
speech and not the genocide.
In his remarks to the court, Robertson described Perincek as a
"vexatious litigant pest" and he questioned why the court was "giving
comfort to genocide deniers."
"What is really worrying are the vast errors of Chamber 2, which we
urge the Grand Chamber to correct, in the fact that they promote
the idea that the Holocaust is the only real genocide ... it is
wrong to excuse or to minimise other mass murders on the grounds of
racist religions because they had fewer victims or different methods
of killing.
"What matters to Armenians, to Jews, to Bosnians and Cambodians, to
Rwandan Tutsis and today to Yazidis is not the manner of their death
or whether an international court has convicted the perpetrators,
but the fact that they were targeted as unfit to live because they
were Jews or Armenians or Yazidis.
"The reasoning in this judgement [in 2013] damages the vital human
rights cause of genocide prevention ... That there is any doubt
about the truth of the Armenian Genocide should not feature in its
[the court's] reasoning. It was not, as genocide deniers pretend,
a tragedy. It was a crime, an international crime of genocide."
In the past many observers, including British prime minister Winston
Churchill, described the events as the "Armenian Holocaust." Robertson
recently published a book titled An Inconvenient Genocide: Who
Now Remembers the Armenians? The book argues that the 1915 events
constituted a crime against humanity, known today as genocide.
Robertson will also be a speaker at an international conference
marking the centenary of the Armenian Genocide in New York in March.
Diaspora Armenians are organizing events across the world to mark the
centenary of the genocide in April. However, in what is being seen as
a cynical move, Erdogan last month sent invitations to more than 100
international figures, including Armenian President Serj Sarkissian,
asking them to participate in the centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli
which will be marked in Turkey on the same day as the genocide
centenary. The move is seen as an attempt to distract attention from
the centenary of the genocide, which Turkey continues to deny.
Amal Alamuddin Clooney, 37, is the daughter of a Lebanese family. Her
father is a Druze businessman who moved to London when Amal was a
child, after the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. She has previously
acted in other high-profile cases, including those involving former
Libyan intelligence chief Abdallah Al-Senussi and WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange.
"The case of Dogu Perincek shows that Turkey's walls of denial are
crumbling and Ankara's obstruction of justice will be the next to
fall," Hamparian told the Weekly.
http://www.keghart.com/Perincek-Trial
From: Baghdasarian