SWISS ‘GENOCIDE’ TRIAL FOR TURK
Story from BBC NEWS:
europe/6424025.stm
Published: 2007/03/06 17:28:27 GMT
A Turkish nationalist leader has gone on trial in Switzerland for
denying that the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 amounted
to "genocide".
Dogu Perincek, 65, is accused under Swiss law of racial discrimination.
The Swiss parliament, along with more than a dozen countries,
recognises the killings as "genocide". Turkey firmly rejects the
"genocide" allegation.
The prosecutor in the city of Lausanne called for a six-month jail
sentence for genocide denial.
Dogu Perincek, head of the Turkish Workers’ Party, made the statements
in a public speech in Lausanne in 2005.
"I have not denied genocide because there was no genocide," he said
in court on Tuesday.
Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed in a genocide
by Ottoman Turks during World War I, either through systematic
massacres or through starvation. More than a dozen countries, various
international bodies and many Western historians agree that it was
"genocide".
Turkey says there was no genocide. It acknowledges that many Armenians
died, but says the figure was below one million.
A law criminalising the denial of genocide was adopted in 2003 by
the parliament in the Swiss canton of Vaud.
Twelve Turks prosecuted in Switzerland on similar charges in 2001
were acquitted.
In a controversial move, Swiss Justice Minister Christoph Blocher,
who opposes the Swiss law on genocide, met his Turkish counterpart
Cemil Cicek in Bern at the weekend.
Mr Blocher, leader of the right-wing Swiss Popular Party, caused a
furore in Switzerland when he suggested in October 2006, during a
visit to Turkey, that the Swiss law should be changed.