LOWER HOUSE DOES NOT WANT BAN ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL
NIS News Bulletin, Netherlands
April 24 2007
THE HAGUE, 25/04/07 – There is hardly any support in the Lower House
for a proposal by small coalition party ChristenUnie to ban denial
of internationally recognised genocides, such as the Holocaust and
the Armenian genocide.
ChristenUnie MP Joel Voordewind yesterday announced to submit a bill
seeking the ban. The party already proposed including a specific ban on
genocide denial last year. The Council of State studied this proposal
and has meanwhile advised that the Dutch law already implicitly bans
such conduct.
The Council, the highest advisory body on planned legislation, referred
to article 137c in the penal code, which says insulting peoples is a
criminal offence. However, although the Council does not mention this,
this might also hamper free speech on the Armenian genocide as Turks
might feel insulted by claims that this indeed took place.
Armenians yesterday commemorated the 24 April 1915 genocide and
presented the Lower House with a petition asking for the ChristenUnie
bill to be adopted. But apart from Party for Freedom (PVV) and orthodox
Christian SGP all parties reacted extremely cautiously.
Voordewind pointed out that the EU recently called on all member states
to ban genocide denial. Nevertheless, Labour (PvdA), the leftwing
Greens (GroenLinks) and centre-left D66 said yesterday they would
not support ChristenUnie. The Christian democrats (CDA) suggested
the Council of State says an amendment would be superfluous. The
conservatives (VVD) and Socialist Party (SP) were undecided as yet.
In Turkey, acknowledging the Armenian genocide is illegal. PvdA Justice
State Secretary Nebahat Albayrak, who is a Turkish as well as a Dutch
citizen, almost had to resign from the PvdA list of candidates for the
last Lower House elections in November because she would not recognise
the genocide. Media pressure waned just in time for Albayrak, but not
for two other PvdA candidates and one CDA candidate who did have to
go for the same reason. Albayrak stated that it was up to historians
to decide whether genocide technically took place.