Month: February 2012

FRENCH COURT CANCELS ‘GENOCIDE’ DENIAL BILL

Hurriyet Daily News
Feb 28 2012
Turkey

France’s Constitutional Council has struck down a government-backed law
criminalizing denials of the 1915 events as genocide on the grounds
that it contradicts the French constitution in a move that looks set
to ward off a deepening crisis in Turkish-French ties.

Ankara expressed its satisfaction with the law and said this would
remove hurdles standing in the way of the improvement of relations
between the two countries.

The council’s decision was posted on the official website late
yesterday after a month-long examination of the much discussed law.

“The council considered the law unconstitutional,” read the press
statement made by the council, which based its verdict on the relevant
articles of the “1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen,” the fundamental document of the French Revolution. It said
the law was not in line with the declaration’s 6th and 11the articles,
which highlight freedom of expression and thought, one of the main
pillars of the democracy.

“Therefore the Constitutional Council has declared the
unconstitutionality of Article 1 of the law and consequently Article 2,
which is not separable,” it said.

There were comments that the court’s decision would also put the
validity of a 2001 law recognizing Armenian genocide claims into a
legal discussion. However, the council’s decision said this did not
affect the 2001 law as it was not asked to make an assessment on
that legislation.

“We hope those who want to make politics over history will have a
lesson from this verdict,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told
reporters in a statement after the release of the verdict. “This is
a very positive decision. I thank the members of the council for the
respectful decision. It will set a precedent as well,” he added.”This
will be exemplary,” Davutoglu told journalists yesterday evening. “It
is an important step regarding [the prevention] of small calculations
gaining legal ground. We hope that those who seek political aims over
the histories of societies get a legal lesson.”

The decision allows the creation of an environment in which all
historical issues can be freely discussed in accordance with freedom
of expression, Davutoglu added. “Thus, it is a positive contribution
regarding Turkish-Armenian ties.”

The law, introduced by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party was
first approved by Parliament on Dec. 22 and then by the French Senate
on Jan. 23. The measure set a punishment of up to one year in prison
and a fine of 45,000 euros for those who deny or outrageously minimize
the killings.

With the high court decision, the law is null and void and the entire
legislative process will have to begin from the very beginning.

The adoption of the law in Parliament and the Senate drew Ankara’s
strong reactions with a package of sanctions against France. Its
eight-article sanctions were focused on banning French military using
Turkish airspace and territorial waters, cutting some political ties
with indirect threats to boycott French goods.

Apart from diplomatic initiatives, Turkey also mobilized large French
companies which had significant investments in Turkey to urge French
lawmakers to take the law to the council. A sum of 142 lawmakers
and senators appealed to the court in late January after the Senate
approved it. In a move to give time for collecting signatures for
taking the law to court, Sarkozy did not rush to sign the law which
would have put the law into effect.

EVENING OUT ONE MISERY WITH ANOTHER

Hurriyet Daily News
Feb 28 2012
Turkey

How easy it is, isn’t it? Let’s pit one evil against another. Let’s
have the sorrows duke it out against each other. Let’s even out our
miseries with each other. Yours is false, mine is true. A negative
negates a positive, so we can conclude that nobody has massacred
anyone else in the land of the living.

Before arriving in Taksim, I passed by billboards put up here days
before, saying: “Don’t believe in the Armenian lie.” Roads leading to
the square were packed with double-parked buses. As a matter of fact,
bus photos had been posted on the Facebook page of the rally since
8 a.m.; buses coming from different cities were saluted.

The statue was covered with posters full of Turkish spelling mistakes
crying out the power of the Turk. There was no correct version of the
tricky Turkish suffix “de, da,” [one meaning “also,” “too;” the other
“in,” “inside”] for example.

The flags were Turkish and Azeri – smaller ones sold for 10 Turkish
Liras, big ones for 15. At one instance, a warning was announced
through a megaphone not to buy the wrong Azeri flag; the green needed
to be on the top. Another warned the megaphone guy: “And also, it is
not Azeri; it is another Turk. Let’s not have the partition of Turks
here.” Then he showed the grey wolf [political symbol of extreme
nationalists] on his scarf: “This is what matters.”

How can I explain the full hour in which I was stuck at the entrance
of Tokatlıyan Han [A building on İstiklal Avenue leading to Taksim]?

After hearing those voices coming from below and the grey wolf gesture
reaching toward the sky, after seeing the eyes of those shouting,
“We are all Ogun Samast” [the convicted murderer of Hrant Dink], who
can make me believe that those present there were genuinely grieving
for the Khojaly Massacre victims?

Are the 20-year-old Asenas [believed to be the name of a female wolf
in Turkish mythology] giggling and hugging each other as they pose with
posters written “You are all Armenians, you are all bastards” in their
hands, or are those who shout “Grey wolves are here, where are the
Hrants?” sincerely demanding that genocides should not be repeated? Do
these people demand justice? Are they the ones who demand peace, those
shouting “revenge” under the flag of this and that peace association?

At first, I thought I should not report about all the racist slogans
seen on the placards. After all, this was what they wanted, and
I should not publicize their views. That’s what I thought. But,
no. This gathering should go down in history with these slogans,
as a rally that was announced with posters all around the city and
then with full-page ads in all newspapers (including Radikal) –
placed with whatever kind of capital there was – as an event where
the Metropolitan Municipality was thanked on the rally’s Facebook
page and as a gathering where Interior Minister Ä°dris Naim Å~^ahin
delivered a speech.

The identical round placards which were trademarks of Hrant Dink
gatherings have been reproduced. In variety: “We are all Turks, We are
all from Khojaly, We are all Mehmet.” In one of them it said, “It was
blood flowing in Khojaly, you all kept quiet; You were either French,
Armenian or Russian anyway.” The slogan “The murderer of Khojaly [is]
the savage Armenian” was interrupted with “God is great” chants in
Arabic, and after that came “You are invaders, you are murderers,
you are all Armenians.”

What else? “Those tailoring the Turk’s death shroud will find their
own terrible death. Since you are Armenians, you have to answer
for Khojaly. The Turkish army is the fear of the Armenian. [The
fact that] those who cannot regard this atrocity with humanitarian
consciousness [the Turkish word “vicdan” was misspelled as “vijdan”]
are all Armenians is because of their bestialities.”

There were thousands who attribute the massacre to a nation, who assume
that an Armenian will not feel sorry for the atrocity experienced at
Khojaly, who think they can solve everything by placing one genocide
against the other.

Around the same time, a small group marched with posters on Yuksel
Street in Ankara. Nobody was behind them; they were Azerbaijanis who
were able to make their voices heard from Facebook.

The statement they made as the “Turkey Platform of Socialist
Azerbaijanis” should be recorded in history: “We reject the suggestion
‘We are all Azeris’ that was brought up to weaken and invalidate the
slogan ‘We are all Armenians,’ which was expressed with pain and anger
after Hrant Dink’s murder, in a context meaning solidarity with the
Armenian minority in Turkey. To take part in this game, to tolerate how
the Khojaly Massacre has become a political tool for these circles, is,
first and foremost, an example of disrespect to the memory of those
people brutally murdered in the Khojaly Massacre; it is indifference
against the grief of those from Khojaly. We reject being both an actor
in this game and a viewer. Long live the brotherhood of the peoples.”

Note Feb. 26 somewhere. We will see where this hate discourse will
lead us, with its path that has been “officially” opened, and with
the platform it has found for itself. Yet no suffering disappears
because of another’s suffering.

[email protected]

Pınar Ogunc is a columnist for daily Radikal in which this piece
was published Feb 27. It was translated into English by the Daily
News staff.

FRANCE’S CONSTITUTIONAL COUNCIL STRIKES DOWN GENOCIDE BILL
By Erik West

The Australian Eye

Feb 29 2012

PARIS _ French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday ordered his
government to return to the drawing board after the country’s top
constitutional authority struck down a controversial bill banning
the denial of the Armenian genocide, in a decision welcomed by Turkey.

On Jan. 23, the French parliament adopted a bill making it a crime
to deny genocides recognized by France.

The bill had sparked a major rift with Turkey because the only event
France officially recognizes as genocide, besides the Holocaust during
World War II, is the killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians
in eastern Turkey during World War I.

“By opting to protect the concept of universal human rights the
French Constitutional Court has decided in accordance with what
everyone believes to be European morals,” Turkish Foreign Minister
Ahmet Davutoglu was quoted as saying by the Anatolian news agency.

“We congratulate the court for its decision,” Davutogly said.

The bill, which was put forward by Sarkozy’s party, would have punished
people who deny the killings were genocide with a year’s imprisonment
and about $57,000 in fines.

But the nine-member Constitutional Council, which includes former
presidents Jacques Chirac and Valery Giscard d’Estaing as members,
pulled the bill up short, saying it represented an “unconstitutional
breach of the practice of freedom of expression.”

The council had been asked to vet the bill by a group of
parliamentarians who said that, while they did not dispute the
existence of the Armenian genocide, they believed the text violated
some basic freedoms.

Sarkozy in a statement said he had “taken note” of the decision and
had ordered the government to draw up a new bill that would take the
Constitutional Council’s ruling into account.

Sarkozy also said he would meet soon with members of France’s Armenian
community.

Turkey had accused Sarkozy of pandering to the small but influential
Armenian community in order to win votes in this year’s presidential
election. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the
bill as “racist” and suspended bilateral programs.

A spokesman for the Turkish embassy in Paris welcomed the
Constitutional Council’s decision, saying it showed that French
institutions could be counted on to uphold freedom of expression.

“It’s good news,” spokesman Engin Solakoglu told the German news agency
dpa. “The French executive went against Franco-Turkish interests. We
won’t forget that.”

Armenians say about 1.5 million people were either killed or died
during forced deportations in Ottoman-controlled eastern Turkey in
1915. France is one of several countries to declare the slaughter
constituted genocide.

Turkey concedes hundreds of thousands of people were killed but
rejects the genocide label, arguing there was no systematic policy
to destroy the Armenian community.

From: Baghdasarian

TOP FRENCH COURT RULES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL UNCONSTITUTIONAL

WireUpdate

Feb 29 2012

PARIS, France (BNO NEWS) — France’s Constitutional Council ruled on
Tuesday that a government-backed law that makes it a crime to deny
the Armenian genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War
I is unconstitutional, a move that looks set to ward off a deepening
crisis in Turkish-French ties.

The council’s decision was posted on its official website after
a month-long examination of the much discussed law, which French
President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to ratify by the end of February.

According to the statement, the law was not in line with the
constitution’s articles that highlight freedom of expression and
thought, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.

Ankara expressed its satisfaction with the law and said this would
remove hurdles standing in the way of the improvement of relations
between the two countries. “This is a very positive decision. I thank
the members of the council for the respectful decision. It will set
a precedent as well,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄ~_lu told
reporters, as quoted by the newspaper.

In late December, France’s National Assembly voted overwhelmingly in
favor of the bill, prompting an angry response from Turkey which does
not agree with the term genocide. On January 23, the French Senate
adopted the controversial bill.

The law sets a prison sentence of up to one year and a fine of 45,000
euros ($58,000) for those who deny or ‘outrageously minimize’ the
‘genocide’ of Armenians by the Ottoman government during World War I.

It also criminalizes other genocides recognized by France.

It is estimated that between 600,000 and 1.5 million people of the
Armenian population were killed by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and
1923, but Turkey has refused to use the word ‘genocide’ to describe
the events. Numerous countries have officially recognized the Armenian
Genocide, including France.

From: A. Papazian

TURKEY WELCOMES FRENCH ANNULMENT OF “GENOCIDE” BILL

EastDay

Feb 29 2012

ANKARA, Feb. 28– Turkey on Tuesday welcomed the annulment by the
Constitutional Council of France of a law that would incriminate people
who deny the mass killing of the Armenians in 1915 was “genocide.”

“We consider the annulment of the law as a step in line with
freedom of expression and research, rule of law and the principles
of international law and against the politicization of history in
France,” said the statement issued by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.

It went on to say that the Turkish government is “glad to note that
a grave error was corrected by the most competent judicial authority
in France.”

“It is preferable that, on controversial historical issues, third
countries adopt an impartial approach encouraging dialogue and
resolution between the concerned parties, rather than make imprudent
and prejudicial interventions,” said the statement.

“We hope that, from now on, France will adopt a constructive approach
so that this controversy between Turkey and Armenia is addressed on
a just and scholarly basis,” said the statement, adding that “such
an approach will contribute to the development of the Turkish-French
relationship in the direction it deserves and in all fields.”

French parliament passed the bill last month, which would impose
a 60,530-U.S.-dollar fine and a year in prison on those who deny
that the deaths of over one million Armenians under the Ottoman rule
amounted to “genocide.”

Tensions tainted relations between Paris and Ankara, which rejects
the term “genocide,” insisting that the killed Armenians were victims
of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the Ottoman Empire
collapsed before modern Turkey was created.

From: Baghdasarian

FRENCH LAW ON ARMENIAN KILLINGS STRUCK DOWN

MWC News

Feb 29 2012

France’s Constitutional Council has ruled that a law to punish denial
of the mass killings of Armenians was unconstitutional as it infringed
on freedom of expression.

Tuesday’s ruling by the country’s highest constitutional authority was
welcomed by Turkey, but President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose party had put
forward the bill, quickly pledged to draft a new version of the law.

France formally recognised the 1915-16 killings as genocide in 2001,
but provided no penalty for anyone refuting that.

The country’s lower house approval of the measure in December and
the senate followed giving the law the green light in January.

The law struck down on Tuesday had set a punishment of up to one year
in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($59,000) for those who deny or
“outrageously minimise” the killings, putting such action on par with
denial of the Holocaust.

However, the Constitutional Council labelled the law an
“unconstitutional attack on freedom of expression” and it said it
wished “not to enter into the realm of responsibility that belongs
to historians”.

Ruling welcomed

Turkey quickly welcomed the ruling on the law which Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, prime minister, has denounced as “tantamount to discrimination
and racism”.

Turkey’s foreign minister welcomed the decision, saying it was
“pleasing that a grave mistake has been corrected by France’s highest
legal body”.

In a written statement, Ahmet Davutoglu said he hopes France adopts
“a constructive approach in regard to the handling of the conflict
between Turkey and Armenia in a just and scientific manner and
contributes to its solution rather than deepening it”.

“Such an approach would contribute to improvement of Turkish-French
relations in every field,” he said.

However, Sarkozy’s office quickly put out a statement saying he “has
ordered the government to prepare a new draft, taking into account
the Constitutional Council’s decision”.

Sarkozy noted “the great disappointment and profound sadness of all
those who welcomed with hope and gratitude the adoption of this law
aimed at providing protection against revisionism”.

‘Totally outraged’

The head of a French Armenian organisation sharply criticised the
ruling, saying it was the result of Turkish lobbying.

“We have been totally outraged by the Constitutional Council’s decision
at its very core, which is based on politics rather than on legal
grounds,” said Franck Mourad Papazian, president of the Council of
Co-ordination of Armenian Organisations in France.

An estimated 500,000 Armenians live in France, and many have pressed
to raise the legal statute regarding the massacres to the same level
as the Holocaust by punishing the denial of genocide.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their ancestors were killed by
Turkey’s former Ottoman Empire.

Turkey says 500,000 died and ascribes the toll to fighting and
starvation during World War I.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

AZERBAIJAN SAYS ISRAELI ARMS TO BE USED AGAINST KARABAKH

ASBAREZ
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012

An Israeli Hermes-450 drone

TEHRAN, BAKU, TEL AVIV (Combined Sources)-Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to
Iran said a $1.6 billion arms deal with Israel, which was announced
Sunday, was made “to liberate occupied Azerbaijani land,” Iranian
news agencies reported Tuesday.

The Azeri ambassador, Javanshir Akhundov, acknowledged the arms
purchase after getting confirmation from his government when Iran
challenged Azerbaijan on the reported arms deal, reported Agence
France Presse. Akhundov acknowledged that the weapons would be used
on the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which Baku contends is “occupying”
Azeri territory.

Akhundov was called in to the foreign ministry to explain the weapons
and to receive a warning that Israel must not be permitted to use
Azerbaijan to stage “terrorist acts” against Iran.

The Iranian agencies quoted Akhundov saying that Baku “will not
allow the weapons to be used against third nations, in particular
the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Israel Inks $1.6 Billion Arms Deal With Azerbaijan Israeli defense
officials on Sunday confirmed $1.6 billion in deals to sell drones
as well as anti-aircraft and missile defense systems to Azerbaijan,
bringing sophisticated Israeli technology to the doorstep of archenemy
Iran, reported the Associated Press.

Tel Aviv said the deal between the Azeri government and the Israeli
state-run Israel Aerospace Industries is not linked to Iran’s nuclear
development program or Iran’s alleged involvement in plots to Israeli
diplomats in Azerbaijan, India and Georgia.

Reporting on the story for Eurasianet.org Joshua Kucera wrote that
“regardless of the ongoing ratcheting up of tension between Israel and
Iran, and increasing attention to Israel’s intelligence activities in
Azerbaijan, these weapons are destined to be used not against Iran,”
but against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

In September Karabakh armed forces downed an Israeli-made Azeri drone

In September, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Armed forces shot down
an Israeli-made unmanned drone flying over Karabakh airspace, near
the village of Vazgenashen in the Martuni region.

Israel and Azerbaijan have been developing their military alliance
in recent years, culminating in a decision in September to develop
drones and other military hardware in Azerbaijan using Israeli
defense technology.

“Israel is a valuable arms partner for Azerbaijan not because of
anything related to Iran. Rather, Azerbaijan has a lot of money, and
Israel has top-quality defense manufacturers. And Baku is restricted
in what it can buy from the U.S. because of opposition by pro-Armenia
members of Congress, plus the U.S.’s general desire not to inflame
the situation in Karabakh. And it’s limited in what it can buy from
Russia because of Russia’s alliance with Armenia (occasional missile
defense sales notwithstanding). Israel has no such concerns,” said
Kucera in his report for Eurasianet.org.

The AP reported Tuesday that Israeli officials have said they will
not warn the US if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against
Iranian nuclear facilities. The pronouncement, delivered in a series
of private, top-level conversations with US officials, sets a tense
tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and
in Congress.

Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is
necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the
likelihood that the US would be held responsible for failing to stop
Israel’s potential attack, said one US intelligence official familiar
with the discussions. The US has been working with the Israelis for
months to convince them that an attack would be only a temporary
setback to Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli defense officials confirmed that there are no plans to
alert the US ahead of time about any operation against Iran, though
they stressed no decisions have been made on whether to attack. The
officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing
a confidential security matter.

LA PROPAGANDE NEGATIONNISTE AUTORISEE ? PAR PATRICK DEVEDJIAN
Ara

armenews.com
mercredi 29 fevrier 2012

Naturellement les decisions du Conseil Constitutionnel meritent le
respect comme emanant du gardien de nos libertes fondamentales.

Il n’empeche que le commentaire critique est permis, c’est meme un
element fondamental de la liberte d’expression justement rappelee
dans la decision qui a ete rendue aujourd’hui et qui est juridiquement
surprenante pour rester sur le seul terrain du droit.

La decision est en effet le fruit d’un raisonnement alambique et
fragile reposant sur trois considerants.

Par le premier considerant, sans la citer, le Conseil Constitutionnel
vise la loi de 2001 reconnaissant le genocide armenien pour affirmer,
sans autre argument, que la loi doit ” enoncer des règles ” et etre
” revetue d’une portee normative “.

Si le Conseil entend supprimer des milliers de lois en vigueur toutes
les dispositions qui ne contiennent pas l’enonce de règles, il faut
lui souhaiter bonne chance et bon courage car la tâche est immense.

Ensuite, pour exercer une telle censure sur le legislateur au nom de la
Declaration de 1789, qui est elle-meme d’une grande portee generale,
il faut le justifier par une motivation serieuse et argumentee et non
se contenter d’un raccourci elliptique comme si la conclusion allait
de soi.

Le deuxième considerant est l’affirmation que la liberte d’expression
ne peut etre limitee que par l’atteinte a l’ordre public et aux
droits des tiers, et de la manière la plus encadree possible. Cela
n’est pas contestable.

Le troisième considerant affirme que la reconnaissance d’un genocide
est depourvu de ” portee normative ” et induit que ce n’est donc pas
une loi. Dans ce cas, la toute nouvelle loi que le Parlement vient
de voter, faisant du 11 novembre la journee commemorative des morts
de toutes les guerres, est-elle bien constitutionnelle : où est la
norme ? où est la règle ?

Ce considerant, aussi peu argumente que le premier, erige le Conseil
constitutionnel en troisième Chambre : en ne motivant pas explicitement
ses decisions, il s’arroge de fait un pouvoir legislatif.

Ainsi le Conseil Constitutionnel ecrit : ” en reprimant la contestation
de l’existence et de la qualification juridique de crimes qu’il aurait
lui-meme reconnus et qualifies comme tels… “, le legislateur a
porte atteinte a la liberte d’expression.

Le Conseil Constitutionnel denie donc au Parlement francais le droit
de qualifier les crimes de 1915.

Il ne le dit pas expressement mais veut ainsi affirmer que c’est
du seul ressort de l’ordre judiciaire, au nom d’une separation des
pouvoirs qui n’existe pas plus sous la Vème Republique qu’elle n’a
existe sous les Republiques precedentes.

Par cette decision, le Conseil Constitutionnel fait du negationnisme
une opinion comme une autre.

La propagande negationniste diffusee par un gouvernement etranger sur
le sol francais et visant expressement une partie de ses citoyens
sur le fondement de leur origine, est donc desormais autorisee par
le Conseil Constitutionnel.

LE CCAF CONDAMNE ET EXIGE UN NOUVEAU TEXTE
Ara

armenews.com
mercredi 29 fevrier 2012

Le Conseil de Coordination des organisations Armeniennes de
France (CCAF) condamne avec la plus grande fermete la decision
du Conseil Constitutionnel, prise le 28 fevrier 2012, de censurer
pour inconstitutionnalite la loi visant a reprimer la contestation
de l’existence des genocides reconnus par la Loi, adoptee par le
Parlement le 23 janvier 2012..

Le Conseil Constitutionnel a pris une decision inique et purement
politique. Son interpretation est biaisee car elle repose sur une
lecture tronquee du texte de loi. Il a omis volontairement le passage
” crimes de genocide defini a l’article 211-1 du code penal “. Une
simple reserve d’interpretation, s’il en etait besoin, suffisait a
fixer l’unique grief retenu.

Le Conseil Constitutionnel considère dans une logique de deux poids
deux mesures que les genocides reconnus par la France sont finalement
inegaux devant la loi. La loi du 23 janvier 2012 venait justement
harmoniser l’arsenal juridique francais en etendant la repression de
la contestation de la Shoah (Loi Gayssot) a l’ensemble des genocides
reconnus par la loi.

Le Conseil Constitutionnel a fait en outre abstraction de la doctrine
europeenne en matière de restriction des libertes d’expression et de
communication. La contestation d’un crime international historiquement
etabli n’est pas protegee par la liberte d’expression quand il s’agit
de crimes contre l’humanite et de genocide.

Le Conseil Constitutionnel a ainsi capitule devant l’ingerence de
la Turquie, dont l’insupportable lobby auprès de nos elus a abîme
l’independance de nos institutions. Il est de ce fait legitime
de s’interroger sur l’impartialite de certains membres du Conseil
Constitutionnel plus sensibles aux sirènes du Bosphore qu’aux demandes
legitimes de ses propres concitoyens. Le Conseil Constitutionnel
a accompli un geste de complaisance d’un cynisme sans precedent en
faveur d’un Etat negationniste contre la morale et la justice.

Le CCAF poursuivra son evaluation de cette decision inique et
appelle dès maintenant l’ensemble de la classe politique francaise
a prendre solennellement la mesure de cette censure en termes de
propagation du negationnisme sur le territoire de la Republique. Nous
attendons desormais des gestes forts et determinants de la part des
principales formations politiques francaises, dont les candidats
a la presidentielle de 2012, Nicolas Sarkozy et Francois Hollande
ont exprime a plusieurs reprises leur engagement en faveur d’une loi
penalisant le negationnisme du genocide des Armeniens en France. Leur
toute dernière declaration après la decision du Conseil Constitutionnel
confirme cet engagement. Un nouveau texte doit donc etre presente au
Parlement dans les plus brefs delais. Il faut reaffirmer l’independance
et la souverainete de nos institutions.

LE MONT ARARAT SERA LA TOMBE DES ARMENIENS !
Jean Eckian

armenews.com
mercredi 29 fevrier 2012

La haine raciste anti-armenienne se repand dans plusieurs villes
de Turquie

Le pretexte des commemorations des tragiques evenements survenus
a Khodjalou en 1992, a donne l’occasion a des milliers d’
ultra-nationalistes turcs de laisser parler leur veritable nature
sans que les autorites n’y voient rien a redire, où si peu que c’en
est insignifiant, mais surtout inquietant.

Après le desormais odieux slogan “Vous etes tous des Armeniens,
vous etes tous des bâtards”, le racisme turc a atteint son paroxisme
a l’Universite Suleyman Demirel a Isaparta quand les etudiants ont
scande en choeur “Le mont Ararat deviendra votre tombe “.

Jamais où que ce soit dans le monde, aucun armenien n’a profere de
telles violences verbales a l’egard du peuple turc. Et cela s’est passe
sous les yeux d’un ministre de l’interieur qui lui-meme en remettra une
couche publiquement, incitant a la haine et accusant les armeniens :
“Vous les buveurs de sang ! Les meurtriers ! Les sans pitie ! Les sans
coeur ! Tant que le peuple Turc vivra vous paierez ce sang verse et
vous nous rendrez des comptes !”.

D’autres, comme le vice-President Mehmet Bekaroglu du parti HAS (La
voix du peuple) n’est pas reste très longtemps car la manifestation
devenait beaucoup trop rasciste et insultante.

“Les loup gris sont ici ou sont les Hrant ?!” criaient les
manifestants.

Mais ce n’est pas tout. D’autres slogans menacant ont ete prononces
contre la population armenienne, comme celui-ci : “” Aujourd’hui
Taksim, demain a Erevan : Nous descendrons sur vous subitement dans
la nuit.”, rapporte le journal Radikal.

Selon plusieurs temoignages, les journalistes presents lors de la
manifestation de Taksim ont eux-memes ete choques par tant de haine
deversee.

L’annulation de la loi Boyer devrait de nouveau exciter ces voyous dont
les polymorphismes sont plus proches du vautour que de l’Homo sapiens.