Armenians in France and throughout the world last week reacted with utter indignation towards the Constitutional Council’s scandalous decision rejecting the genocide denial bill.
The French National Assembly and Senate recently adopted a bill that would penalize—with a year in jail and $60,000 fine—anyone denying those genocides recognized by the government. France officially recognizes the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide.
Even though the bill did not specifically mention the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish government did everything short of declaring war against France to undermine its adoption, thereby identifying itself as the perpetrator of one of the two genocides. After failing to block the adoption of the bill by the two chambers of the French legislature, Turkey and Azerbaijan, its junior partner in the crime of genocide denial, left no stone unturned to have the law declared unconstitutional.
Turkey applied all kinds of pressure on French legislators to collect the necessary 60 or more signatures needed to appeal the adopted bill to the Constitutional Council. Ironically, while the Turkish government was announcing a boycott of French companies, a Turkish group was hiring a high-powered French lobbying firm to assist in the hunt for signatures. Azerbaijan joined in this sinister lobbying effort by inviting six French Senators to Baku to collect their rewards for having signed the appeal. By hook or crook, the Turkish authorities and their French surrogates succeeded in enticing 142 of over 900 members of the French legislature to file an appeal with the Constitutional Council on Jan. 31, 2012.
Clearly, this was an unacceptable intrusion into France’s domestic affairs. Rather than allowing the Turkish ambassador to pressure members of the legislature to sign the appeal to the Constitutional Council, France should have expelled him for violating his diplomatic mandate. Turkey should not be permitted to dictate French laws!
The Constitutional Council is a hodge-podge of 11 retired individuals of various backgrounds. It includes two French presidents, two judges, three legislators, and four government officials. A major controversy erupted when a French newspaper revealed that several members of the council, including its chairman, had serious conflict of interest problems in reaching a fair decision. Some had made prejudicial statements on this issue while serving in the legislature; others have business ties with Turkey; and most shockingly, one of them, Hubert Haenel, is a member of the Bosphorus Institute, a French-Turkish think-tank that lobbied against the genocide denial bill!
Under such scandalous conditions, most council members should have disqualified themselves from sitting in judgment on this issue. After these embarrassing disclosures, two council members withdrew from deliberating on the genocide bill, and former President Jacques Chirac was reportedly too ill to attend the session.
On Feb. 28, the Constitutional Council’s eight remaining members ruled that the bill— approved by the Parliament and Senate—penalizing genocide denial was unconstitutional because it violated French laws on freedom of speech.
This was a shocking decision for two reasons:
1) Several members of the Constitutional Council violated the law themselves by sitting in judgment on an issue in which they had a clear bias or conflict of interest; and
2) They ruled the genocide denial bill to be unconstitutional supposedly because it restricted free speech, while leaving intact another law that penalized denial of the Holocaust. The council members failed to explain why penalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide was a restriction on freedom of expression while penalizing denial of the Jewish Holocaust was not. All genocide victims merit equal protection under the law. There should be no double standards!
Unlike the United States, France has several laws that restrict freedom of expression. Why is that when it comes to punishing deniers of the Armenian Genocide, the council members all of a sudden become staunch defenders of free speech?
French Armenians should take up all legal and political measures to reverse the council’s unfair and illegal decision. They could file a lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights against the Constitutional Council as well as introduce a new bill in the French legislature.
Since the two leading French presidential candidates have pledged to bring up this bill again after the upcoming elections, this issue will not go away until a law is adopted penalizing Armenian Genocide denial. Turkey must not be allowed to export its denialist policies to European shores.
Harut Sassounian
Classic Turkish tactics. I suppose the shame of that nation has been such a great burden to them that they cannot help but continue, what has become a tradition, to carry on their forefathers role of historical distortion.
I never imagined that an entire country could kick and scream like babies in order to deny truth. It’s crazy because the country that reported the most abuses was perhaps the United States of America. With all of the missionary reports of deportation, rape and killings coming into ambassador Henry Morgenthau’s office, it’s amazing that the Turks were still insisting innocence after the facts.
Still, one need look no further than Operation Nemesis, which I’m unhappy hasn’t been made a movie yet….probably because of the classic Turks wanting to further deny history and facts and willing to pay hollywood execs not to fund such a picture.
Why can’t ARmenians and Greeks file an IDENTITY THEFT charges in the International Court against turkish governments and ottoman empire?
The proof: If today’s turks are real turks then why do they not look like the rest of the turkic people, such as Mongolians?
The only peoples whose identity was stolen was the Kurds who were referred to as ” mountain Turks.” And those days thankfully are over. So are Turks stealing their own identity? Centuries ago we looked Asian, yes, but centuries ago we also were not Muslims- what is your point? Voluntary and forced ethnic mixing between Turks and others makes today’ Turks stealing the identity of the people their ancestors mixed with? So then are the Swiss stealing the identity of the Germans, French, and Italians making up that country by calling them Swiss?
“turks” of “turtkey” today have as much turkic/asiatic dna in them as armenians;
yes, very little
“Centuries ago we looked Asian”
no, centuries ago you looked like the same way you look like today
come on RVDV, i know you are smarter than that
that was not one of your better posts
oh and btw, “turkishness” (as it is known and understood today) is a relatively recent Implementation (thanx to the ‘young turks’ & the super “turk” ataturk);
definitely not centuries old
furthermore, even the invention of turkishness came out of europe, and it was absolutely not by turkic individuals
True LNG.. agreed
RVDV– the point is Germans, French and Italians do not scream foul play everytime another country recognizes the Genocide and those countries do not present whats not theirs as theirs.. like in the Turks case.. Turkey itself is build on nothing but OTHERs wealth and riches.. nothing original what Turkishness as you say can offer.. so comparing others with Turks is nothing but another cheap game…sorry..
G
Gayane, I don’t know why exactly, but I found you ending your comment with “G” hilarious, so thank you for that :).
Do you also agree with LNGs first two comments?
There is no Swiss ethnic group, there is no Swiss language. Now comparing human rights records of the Swiss and Turks is just plain stupid, I won’t sugar coat it. However, the Germans, French, and Italian ethnic groups in Switzerland are called Swiss. That doesn’t mean the Swiss are STEALING their identity. Does Turkey try to steal aspects of Armenian and Greek culture- sure- with several foods that have been deemed Turkish this is true. But the Greek and Armenian and Kurdish influence in Turkish culture and every day life is the result of centuries of living in the realm of the same Turkish empire, not because Turks stole the identity of other people.
Glad you are so amused Rvdv. Would you rather me type Gayane vs G so you dont get confused?
I am sorry to burst your bubble but Turks didnt have anything of their own. They were wild tribes before they actually took anything civilized by force rape and murder
I know its dissapointing and its known fact Azeris and turks stole Armenian Greek and other Christians identity but i am sure you can handle the fact cause you are a Kurd and not a turk or Azeri. But then again you consider yourself a Turk. Again confused about that.
Gayane:
No, I actually found it funny. I wasn’t being sarcastic. And yeah, as a Kurd I can handle your misconceptions about Turkish culture.
RVDV,
“…centuries of living in the realm of the same Turkish empire”
yes, lived together for centuries, but why was it a turkish emp ?
because the guy sitting at the top ONCE had a turkic ancestor ?
because of 2-3 part turkic tribes started to call the place their new home ?
domestically it was called the Osmanli emp, and it was officially a muslim emp.
for me it is meaningless what an emp is called or it’s official identity
but, the point is it was not known as “the Turkish empire” in either case
swiss example is totally diiffferent
it woiuld be more relevant, if switzerland was made up of french, german, and italian speakers, but it was called “south germany”, and has german as the natiional identity (sole)
then the people living in the french and italian sections would be REALLY unhappy
LNG: Perhaps I should have said it in a better way. The Ottoman Empire was an empire ruled BY Turks. They considered themselves Ottomans first, you are right- the Turkish empire thing is the result of nationalist movement. (The Ottoman elites called themselves Ottomans, and called the regular Ottomans- Turks, which I find interesting considering all this Turkish ultra nationalism these days.) I’m pretty certain the other ethnic groups far outnumbered the Turks.
I may be wrong, but I think you are incorrectly using the words Turk and Turkic interchangeably. No matter what denialists on this forum may claim, Azeris for example are not Turks. They are a TURKIC ethnic group called the Azeris, but they are not the same as modern day Turks.
Mr. Sassonian
“”The council members failed to explain why penalizing denial of the Armenian Genocide was a restriction on freedom of expression while penalizing denial of the Jewish Holocaust was not””
Congratulation!!! You still pretend that you do not know the difference and why the court rejected the bill. At the end of the day, this is a war on paper and we do not mind to play with you
Oh stop the presses… Ladies and Gentlemen, J The TUrk has spoken again..
Please stop the presses.. and let us hear the honarary denialist speak his mind on the difference between the two GEnocides..
J the Turk .. we are all ears.. please enlighten us with your intelligence.. because apparently the world is just tooo stupid …
Go ahead and tell us the difference…
turk the John,
The difference between the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust is that ARmenians were slaughtered in their homeland.
Keep on visiting the ARmenian Weekly as much as you can. You will get a better education here that in your turkish univercities.
john the turk
You think yourself too smart, don’t you! France has recognized both Genocides. So tell us the difference now that you are so intelligent.
ok, i will state the obvious
jews are too “important” in this world (except in a few countries; like iran for example)…more important than ‘freedom of speech’
no one would dare overturn that law
that is one.of the reasons for the contradiction
I can’t argue with that LNG jan
But I am waiting on J The Turk’s response.. he thinks he knows everything so lets give him the opportunity to redeem himself.. i doubt it but hey worth a laugh..
LNG
Let our hero john the turk speak, please.
¨We don´t mind playing with you¨,J the turk writes. he must be incognizant of the fact that in that game¡play-as he describes it-we won a lot more than he can imagine..
1.Free advertisement to begin with , in world press (that is very stingy when it concerns Amenians, unless it is violent),Thus the man on the street in Helsinki or Johannesburg learnt a bit about the Armenian genocide having been recognized in many countries and now at stake penalization of denial of same.
2.Then again ,possibility of it being approved,prior to rejection CAUSED your leaders,such as interior Ministre such a panic as to incite tens of thousands of riff raf to go on Istanbulla streets and other towns in Turkey, which indeed may have caused doubt in the minds of all Euro- Ams,why this REACTION, if great Turkey is innocent and not guilty inheritor of a Genocide State!!!still denying it!!!
3.That tough stance of your countrymen further goes to show that instead of trying to sit and talk things over peacefully through intermediaries, that they <ARE aware of the forthcoming Tsunami around the corner and are doing everything to stop it. Believe it or not this kind of anti Armenian acts will not get great Turkey anywhere,just like it has failed many other instances in convincing many European countries to NOT recognize the Genocide they committed against us.
My comment to the:”The Constitutional Council ”
A shameful denial of truth! They have much in common as the pigs in the famous “Animal Farm”: I have the following paraphrased quote:
All Genocides are equal, but some are more equal than others.
Shame on you!!!!