How to Make Hate Speech an Asset Against Inherent Evil
January 18, 2018
by The Armenian Mirror-Spectator
By Philippe Raffi Kalfayan
A recent column in the Armenian Mirror-Spectator (“Intolerance Toward ‘the
Other’” by Raffi Bedrosyan) reported on a shocking event that happened in
Turkey during the inhumation of a non-Turkish person, displaying an unequalled
degree of hatred and intolerance toward the “other” to the extent that the
family had to forcibly renounce burying its relative in that cemetery, because
the protesters claimed the cemetery soil was forbidden to Armenians. This is
the occasion to stress that such discriminatory intolerance is a source of evil
and may prompt or result in most severe violations of international human
rights law, namely crimes against humanity, the supreme form of which is
genocide.
In Turkey, the ideology and then the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey
rely upon constitutional segregation, both ethnic and religious. The
Constitution recognizes exclusively “Turkishness” and the Treaty of Lausanne,
considered as a fundamental law, distinguishes the Muslim from the Non-Muslim.
Since the time before the Genocide, the “other” is seen as an enemy (“the enemy
of the interior”) when it relates to minorities, or as a “giaour” (infidel) as
it relates to non-Muslims.
Already in the 19th century, the Armenian Christian minority was seen as
“other” because [of the need to be] “protected” either by the Western nations
or/and by the Russian Empire. They became “enemies” for the purpose of
justifying the “final solution” in 1915.
Peter Balakian quotes in The Burning Tigris British ethnographer William
Ramsey, an enthusiast of Turkish civilization who spent more than 10 years in
the country, and described what being a “giaour” implied: “The Turkish law (…)
was synonymous with unspeakable contempt (…) The Armenians (and the Greeks)
were dogs, pigs (…) good for spitting when their shadow was grazing a Turk,
good for humiliation, mats to clean the mud off. Imagine the inevitable result
of several centuries of slavery, to endure insults and scorn, centuries during
which nothing of what the Armenian possessed — nor his properties, nor his
house, nor his life, nor his own person, nor his family — was sacred or escaped
violence — an unreasonable and gratuitous violence — and when resisting it in a
violent way meant death.”
Nowadays, racism and nationalism are on the rise in almost every big nation. It
is therefore not surprising to observe a violent resurgence of old ghosts in
Turkey. Witness the recent creation of the first racist political party, which
singles out Turks as a superior race
(www.hurriyetdailynews.com/first-racist-political-party-founded-in-turkey-in-2017-turks-presented-as-superior-race-125310.)
In Azerbaijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the humiliation of the Azeri
army have given rise to official hatred, enshrined as national doctrine. The
Azerbaijani leadership has even endorsed the denial of the Armenian Genocide
and perpetuates the falsehood.
Edward Nalbandian, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia, in
his address at the 24th Meeting of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Ministerial Council (Vienna, December 7, 2017)
stated that “Azerbaijan continues to practice anti-Armenian hate speech, it
calls all Armenians of the world its number one enemy, writes in the textbooks
that Armenians are genetic enemies of Azerbaijan, erases all traces of
indigenous Armenian cultural heritage and religious sites, and claims that
territories of Armenia are ancient Azerbaijani lands.”
Hate speech has become the main vector of discrimination against Armenians in
Turkey as well as in Azerbaijan.
Hate Speech and International Crimes
Hate speech is a form of discrimination and has been a significant element in
the commission of crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes
because it incites to intolerance and violence against a person or a group of
persons. Past and current examples are legion: slavery and human trade,
colonial crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity (Hereros and Namas in
Namibia, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Rwanda, European Jews, Muslim
Bosnians in former Yugoslavia, Apartheid in Israel and South Africa, African
tribes in Central Africa and Sahel, etc.).Although widely recognized as source
of evil and duly prohibited by regional and international treaties, it does not
prevent hate speech to prosper across all continents. Today’s official
discourses in many countries are based on nationalistic and religious
exclusions, and may lead to humanitarian disasters.
The direct and public incitement to commit genocide is one of the five acts
punishable by the Genocide Convention. Any advocacy of national, racial or
religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or
violence is prohibited by the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR, art. 20.2). The UN Convention on Elimination of all forms of
Racial Discrimination’s preamble reads “(…) that any doctrine of superiority
based on racial differentiation is scientifically false, morally condemnable,
socially unjust and dangerous, and that there is no justification for racial
discrimination, in theory or in practice, anywhere.” Art. 4(c) emphasizes that
“States Parties shall not permit public authorities or public institutions,
national or local, to promote or incite racial discrimination.” The general
recommendation number 35 about “Combatting racist hate speech” issued by the
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), recommends (Art.
13) that the States parties declare and effectively sanction as offences
punishable by law: (a) All dissemination of ideas based on racial or ethnic
superiority or hatred, by whatever means; (b) Incitement to hatred, contempt or
discrimination against members of a group on grounds of their race, color,
descent, or national or ethnic origin; (c) Threats or incitement to violence…;
(d) Expression of insults, ridicule or slander of persons or groups or
justification of hatred, contempt or discrimination…, when it clearly amounts
to incitement to hatred or discrimination. CERD adds (Art. 14) that public
denials or attempts to justify crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity,
as defined by international law, should be declared as offences punishable by
law, provided that they clearly constitute incitement to racial violence or
hatred.
It is not by coincidence that the Republic of Armenia took the lead at the UN
Human Rights Council (HRC) in 2015 to draft a resolution about the Prevention
of Genocide, where they successfully inserted during preliminary session the
Art. 9 “Condemning the intentional public denial or glorification of crimes of
genocide and crimes against humanity as defined by international law, and notes
with concern that public denials create a risk of further violations and
undermine efforts to prevent genocide.” This article has disappeared in the
final draft adopted by the HRC on April 7, 2015, although the preamble clearly
“notes with concern that attempts to deny or to justify the crime of genocide,
as defined in the Convention and established as such under international law,
may risk undermining the fight against impunity, reconciliation and efforts to
prevent genocide.”
The ECRI, which is the Council of Europe’s commission combating racism and
intolerance, considers that hate speech is to be understood as the advocacy,
promotion or incitement, in any form, of the denigration, hatred or
vilification of a person or group of persons, as well as any harassment,
insult, negative stereotyping, stigmatization or threat in respect of such a
person or group of persons. It recognizes that hate speech may take the form of
the public denial, trivialization, justification or condoning of crimes of
genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes which have been found by courts
to have occurred, and of the glorification of persons convicted for having
committed such crimes.
Both Turkey and Azerbaijan have ratified the UN Convention combatting racial
discrimination, and are parties to the Council of Europe and European Court of
Human Rights.
Hate Speech in Turkey: A Social Phenomenon at State level
The last ECRI report on Turkey (June 2016) denounces that “hate speech is
expressed increasingly by officials and other public figures, including senior
representatives of the state and some members of the opposition.” The report
gives the prominent example of President Erdogan’s televised statement: “They
have said I am Georgian […] they have said even uglier things — they have
called me — pardon my language — Armenian, but I am a Turk.” A recent research
has unveiled the underlying high levels of intolerance: around 70% of the
respondents to a recent survey had negative views and attitudes towards Jews
and Armenians (Anti-Defamation League 2015; Küçükcan 2010: 16).
Most reported hate speeches go unpunished and ECRI further states that they are
not aware of criminal court convictions for hate speeches targeted at Kurds,
Alevi or non-Muslim communities. On the contrary, law enforcement authorities
use Art.216 of the Criminal Code on incitement to hatred almost exclusively in
cases of offensive speech concerning the majority religion, i.e. Muslim Sunni.
Erdal Dogan, a lawyer, told Today’s Zaman on March 20, 2014 that the problem of
ethnic and racial discrimination is deeply rooted in Turkey and will not be
resolved soon. “Since the founding of the Turkish Republic, our country had
been built according to the concept of ‘oneness’. To ‘Turkify’ everyone,
governments normalized hate speech and did not recognize ethnic or religious
differences.” He further adds, “the goal of such policies was to label as an
enemy all those who were not Sunni Muslim Turks.”
Baskin Oran, a prominent political scientist, and one of the two co-authors of
the official report on minorities ordered by Prime Minister Erdogan in 2004,
kept saying that the definition of citizenship in Turkey is the fundamental
matter sustaining discrimination against minorities.
Uzay Bulut, a journalist, reminded in an article titled “Turkey: Normalizing
Hate” that insulting non-Turkish and non-Muslim people has almost become a
social tradition in Turkey. Prejudice and hate speech have become normalized.
In 1996, in Turkey’s parliament, then interior minister and current MP from the
Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Meral Aksener, said that the leader of the PKK
(Kurdistan Workers’ Party), Abdullah Ocalan, was “Armenian semen.” She then
clarified the remark by saying, “I did not refer to the Armenians living in
Turkey. I referred to the Armenian race in general.” Bulut recalls that
“Armenian semen” or “Armenian sperm” are the most popular swear words in
Turkey, often used for Kurds, as well.
Perinçek Case
Here we may point, despite its shortcomings, to the decision of the European
Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Grand Chamber in the Dogu Perinçek case. The
judges have indeed voluntarily truncated and biased the interpretation of
Perinçek’s statements denying the Armenian Genocide to avoid those to be
qualified as the manifestation of anti-Armenian racism. Thus, the unfortunate
outcome of the decision, confirmed by the decision of the French Constitutional
Court on January 8, 2016, is that hate speech and the Jewish Holocaust denial
are unique in the sense that antisemitism is at the root of Holocaust denial
while racial discrimination would not be at the root of other genocides’ denial.
Non-governmental organizations, parties to the Perinçek case, have failed
imposing the reality of the link between the anti-Armenian hate speech and
genocide denial. The Armenian government did not want to challenge the
integrity of freedom of expression (nor did the government of Turkey).
Meanwhile, the Court asserts (para. 227) “the right of Armenians to the respect
of their dignity and that of their ancestors, including their right to respect
for their identity constructed around the understanding that their community
has suffered genocide.” This de jure association between the Armenian identity
and the suffered genocide restores the link between hate speech and genocide
denial in the light of the respect to human dignity; a promising and potential
argument for future legal battles around those questions.
In June 2015, Turkish nationalists protesting in front of the German Embassy in
Ankara in the aftermath of the adoption by the German Parliament of a
resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide, shouted: “The best Armenian is a
dead Armenian.”
Azerbaijan, Hate Speech and Karabakh
In the ECRI report concerning Azerbaijan (March 2016), one can read that
“almost all of the 196 hate speech items dealing with ethnic conflicts were
targeted at Armenians. Politicians and civil servants were the main
disseminators of hate speech, followed by journalists.” Other sources confirm
recurrent hate speech towards Armenians, which is connected to the conflict
over Nagorno-Karabakh, the frequent ceasefire violations at the contact line
and the resulting deaths and injuries. The Advisory Committee of the Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities for example noted “a
persistent public narrative surrounding the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh
identifying invariably Armenia or Armenians as ‘the enemy’ and openly
promulgating hate messages.”
According to other sources, there is a conflict-ridden domestic political
discourse and Azerbaijan’s leadership, education system and media are very
prolific in their denigration of Armenians. Political opponents are accused of
having Armenian roots or of receiving funds from Armenian sources. What is
worse, an entire generation of Azerbaijanis has now grown up listening to
constant rhetoric of Armenian bashing. According to a 2012 survey, 91 percent
perceived Armenia as Azerbaijan’s greatest enemy (Caucasus Research Resource
Centre et al. 2013: 21).
In a recent article, Anzhela Elibegova, co-author of a book titled Armenophobia
in Azerbaijan writes that “Armenians are the perfect external enemy for
Azerbaijani authorities who use the current situation to aim their propaganda
machine in the necessary direction, falsify history and disseminate
Armenophobia domestically. She quotes many official declarations showing that
Armenophobia emanates from the head of state, President Ilham Aliyev. The
excerpts of his speeches are given as examples to show that the targets of its
Armenophobia are not Karabakh Armenians, but the Armenian nation, which “will
soon perish from the world map.”
Others in power there offer even more aggressive declarations. Ogtay Asadov,
chairman of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan said: “During the last century
Armenians violently massacred over two million Azerbaijani people and Turks.
Armenian nationalists are the ones responsible for all these murders.” Elman
Mammadov, a member of the National Assembly of Azerbaijan noted: “It is not
clear why Turkey tolerates Armenian people on its lands. What is the reason
Turkey does not require Armenians to free their lands? Turkey should be a state
without Armenians […]. If Turkey and Azerbaijan unite, they may wipe Armenia
off the map of the world. Armenians should beware of this […].” And Hafiz
Hajiyev, Leader of the New Musavat Party offered: “Our sons in Armenia will set
the nuclear plant in Armenia to explode so that no Armenian is left in that
territory.”
Those political declarations could have been interpreted as intimidation
pressures, if one had not witnessed already inhumane criminal acts resulting
from this hatred dissemination.
The first example is that of Gurgen Margaryan, a lieutenant in the Armenian
Armed Forces, hacked to death in his sleep by Azerbaijani Lieutenant Ramil
Safarov in Budapest, Hungary in 2004. Both men were participating in a
NATO-sponsored English-language training course at the Hungarian University of
National Defense within the framework of the “Partnership for Peace” program.
The gruesome murder sent shockwaves across the world for its barbarity. Safarov
was sentenced to life imprisonment but under questionable circumstances was
extradited to Azerbaijan in 2012, where he received a hero’s welcome by both
the government and people.
The second example is related to the “April war” occurrences (April 2-6, 2016).
In the village of Talish (Nagorno Karabakh), three elderly members of the
Khalapyan family, including 92-year-old Marusya Khalapyan were brutally
tortured, mutilated and killed. Three servicemen, Hrant Gharibyan, Hayk Toroyan
and Kyaram Sloyan were beheaded by Azerbaijani military in the vicinity of
Talish. Photos of Azerbaijani soldiers posing with the head of Kyaram Sloyan
were shared on social networks. Eighteen other servicemen were listed as
missing in action. Their bodies later transferred to the Armenian side had
signs of torture and mutilation.
Although this column has no intention to elaborate on the topic of
Nagorno-Karabakh self-determination, it must be highlighted briefly that
self-determination is divided in two concepts. The internationally coded one is
the internal self-determination. It foresees the implementation of
self-determination with the consent of the sovereign State and relying upon
democratic and rule of law principles. The un-coded one, the external
self-determination proceeds of the casuistic method and is often arbitrarily
assessed by the so-called “international community.” The threshold imposed for
considering the second concept are egregious and repeated violations of
international human rights laws against the minority group. If the State
responsible does not stop or prevent them, it should then either consent on its
own for the minority or oppressed group to the right to secession, and
consequently accept constitutional changes of its state structure, or run the
risk of a “remedial secession” by force.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto case of unilateral secession, although legally
implemented in respect to the USSR Constitutional provisions regarding the
autonomous republics. Whether the situation at the time was meeting the
criteria fixed in the Quebec case for exceptional circumstances of secession,
both parties have their own arguments and it will remain a controversy.
This question does not matter any longer. In fact, secession from the State in
which a people forms a part is regarded by many prominent authors and some
States as a right of last resort if the denial of fundamental rights of
minority groups is sufficiently blatant and irremediable — in other words if
the said groups are victims of attacks on their physical existence or
integrity, or of a massive violation of their fundamental rights. This is what
the Supreme Court of Canada stated in substance in this reference case.
The doctrine of the CERD states that “[…] the external aspect of
self-determination implies that all peoples have the right to determine freely
their political status and their place in the international community based
upon the principle of equal rights and exemplified by the liberation of peoples
from colonialism and by the prohibition to subject peoples to alien
subjugation, domination and exploitation.” It further emphasizes that “in
accordance with the Declaration on Friendly Relations, none of its initiatives
should be construed as authorizing or encouraging any action which would
dismember or impair, totally or part, the territorial integrity or political
unity of sovereign and independent States conducting themselves in accordance
with the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples and
possessing a government representing the entire population of the territory
without distinction of race, creed or color.”
It is submitted therefore that the current official policy of hatred and racial
discourse promulgated by Azerbaijan will lead to the elimination by any means
of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. The OSCE Minsk Group came to this
conclusion long ago. As a result, the current diplomatic process should
recognize this fact and its consequences.
(Philippe Raffi Kalfayan is an international legal expert, the former secretary
general of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), an associate
researcher at the Paris Human Rights Center at the University of Paris 2
Pantheon Assas.)