Opinion
Sassounian: Does the French Law Penalizing Genocide Denial Restrict Free Speech?
The Armenian Weekly Magazine
April 2012
In recent months, this controversial topic has made worldwide headlines.
Beyond just a legal, ethical, and philosophical controversy, this issue has brought NATO allies France and Turkey to a major confrontation, disrupting their mutual political, economic, cultural, and military ties.
Let us briefly r
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I have a few questions.
“Based on this new EU initiative, Valerie Boyer, a French Parliamentary member, proposed a new law that would ban denial of all genocides recognized by France, without specifically mentioning the Armenian Genocide.”
“But, since France only officially recognizes two genocides—the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide—and Holocaust denial is already banned, the new law would effectively ban denial of the Armenian Genocide.”
The second set of quotes showed that the ban on denial all genocides recognized by France would effectively only ban the denial of the Armenian genocide. NOW…
“Notice how, once again, the text of this proposed law does not mention Turks or Turkey, nor even the Armenian Genocide.”
Did you not just say, literally a sentence ago, that the law would effectively only ban Armenian genocide denial, as it is the only genocide recognized by France without denial penalties? The wording may not have mentioned specifically the Armenian genocide but the law itself which I think the French intentionally tried to make vague, was essentially a law SOLELY on Armenian genocide denial.
Second issue: “Notice how, once again, the text of this proposed law does not mention Turks or Turkey”
Does a Holocaust denial bill need to explicitly say the Germans did it? Does the world not know the Germans did it? In this context, does the Turkish government not know that if a country recognizes and punishes AG denial that said nation is also saying “Turks committed a genocide” ??
Finally, continuation of my previous issue: ” identifying themselves as perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide.” (referring to Turkish government).
Was the Turkish response overdone due to their guilty conscious? Absolutely. But I believe in this context France identified the Turks as the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide. France recognizes the AG and had just passed a bill punishing it’s denial- France, not Turkey, identified Turkey as the perpetrators. What happened next was a weak attempt of “self defense” by the Turkish government.
@ RVDV,
I agree with your points, but most importanly you should also understand that the French law was not drafted to punish Turkish government, nor Turkish citizenes in Turkey! Nor to punish Genocide deniers outside France!
Though today ‘Crimes against humanity’ are punishable universally, due to WWII and world’s political turmoils and instabilities. Similarly, Turkish crimes against its own ethnic minorities were pushed aside either intentionally by many countries for other gains and Turkish delights offered by Turkish government.
Evidently, world’s human conscious (beside Turkey’s) is ripe enough to correct past mistakes, and Bills such as Switzerland, Slovekia and upcoming French and US Bills will only recognize the memory of millions butcherd by Ottoman Turks.
What will still ramain as a question, is Turkish human conscious!
I agree with your premise Sassoun, which is that it is incorrect to draw a direct analogy between the U.S. and French Constitution and their respective values.
In the U.S., for example, pornography, which is speech, does not receive the same level of protection as, say, political speech. U.S. citizens of the 18th century, by not providing complete protection to all forms of speech, recognized that some kinds of speech are more valuable and worthy of protection.
The French, and the French Constitution, may hold a different set of values. Just like pornography receives less protection in the U.S. — genocide denial would receive less protection in France because genocide denial is not valuable speech and so not worthy of protection.
But consider this: assuming Armenians want to be strategic here, on balance is it not better to allow deranged individuals to deny the genocide and thus indirectly give greater publicity and draw greater attention to the genocide itself? I can’t say I’ve decided which would be best.
@RVDV
The law does not explicitly mention “Armenian genocide.” It prevents, and I’m paraphrasing, speech that denies the occurrence of a genocide. The next question is, which genocide? Obviously if an deadly event has not been recognized by France as a genocide, it will likewise not be recognized as a genocide under the text of the law.
It would be as if the French passed a law saying, for example, “all fruit shall be taxed at 10%.” If apples are considered fruit when this hypothetical law passes, then apples are taxed at 10%. If one year later, France decides that tomatoes are also fruit, then tomatoes will also be taxed at 10%.
A law “SOLELY” on Armenian Genocide denial, would be a law that explicitly said, “we ban all forms of speech that denies the occurrence of the Armenian Genocide,” for example.
As for the law operating as a formal recognition that Turks committed the genocide against Armenians: first, France has already recognized this fact. The law would instead ban everyone, regardless of ethnicity or nationality, from denying the genocide. An Armenian for instance who denies the Armenian Genocide in France, would also be subject to the penalties.