TURKISH RIGHTS GROUPS TO JOIN PREINCEK CASE IN FAVOR OF ARMENIA
Monday, January 26th, 2015 |
The Human Rights Association from Turkey and The Center for Truth
Justice Memory will present legal briefs in favor of Armenia
ISTANBUL–Two prominent human rights groups in Turkey have announced
that they will take part in the pending Armenian Genocide denial case
at the European Court of Human Rights, known as the Perincek Case. The
Human Rights Association from Turkey and The Center for Truth Justice
Memory will partner with the Toronto-based International Institute
for Genocide & Human Rights Studies to present legal briefs against
Perincek and in favor of Armenia.
Below is the text of the announcement issued Friday on behalf of the
two Turkish human rights groups.
On January 28, 2015, the lawsuit Dogu Perincek v. Switzerland will
begin retrial in the Grand Chamber, which acts in the capacity of
court of appeals for the European Court of Human Rights.
It is now common knowledge that in 2005, Dogu Perincek traveled to
Switzerland, which has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and
passed a law criminalizing its denial, in order to issue declarations
in Bern and Lausanne where he impugned the Armenian Genocide as
a fabrication. In 2007, Perincek was found guilty of deliberately
violating national law and convicted by the court of Lausanne. Upon
Perincek’s appeal, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in his
favor in 2008 and found that the court of Lausanne had violated the
freedom of expression principle enshrined in the European Convention
of Human Rights, article 10.
The Human Rights Association sent a letter to the Swiss Federal Office
of Justice in 2014, demonstrating in detail how the denial of the
Armenian Genocide incites hostility toward Armenians and imploring
Switzerland to appeal the ECHR decision. Switzerland’s subsequent
appeal and request for retrial were accepted in June 2014.
The first hearing of the said retrial will take place on January
28, 2015.
The Human Rights Association from Turkey joined The Center for
Truth Justice Memory and the Toronto-based International Institute
for Genocide & Human Rights Studies to appeal to the ECHR in July
to present a Third Party Opinion File, i.e., to be accepted as
intervening party. The ECHR approved this request by the three human
rights organizations.
We have explained in this file that the denial of the Armenian
Genocide provokes ethnic hatred in Turkey and encourages anti-Armenian
elements. Neither the ECHR ruling and nor the file we have presented
as third party concerns itself with the historical reality of the
1915-1917 massacres or their precise legal definition. The crux of the
issue lies in the fact that Perincek’s declarations are conducive to
racism and discrimination. In this sense, the retrial in the Grand
Chamber carries special significance as a precedent in addressing
denial, minimization, and justification in a context outside of
the Holocaust.
The ECHR decision had restricted denialism and discrimination to their
effect on Swiss Armenians and disregarded Perincek’s leadership of
the Talat Pasha Committee, as well as the fact that his refutations
of the genocide as an international lie have direct bearing on the
Armenians of Turkey even if they were pronounced in Lausanne. We
have therefore argued in our file that Perincek’s declarations do
not only concern the definition of events, but also commit the crime
of discrimination; that the ruling must take into account Perincek’s
position as a prominent politician from Turkey, the head of the Labor
Party, and the leader of the Talat Pasha Committee–as well as that
Committee’s objectives and operations.
Yes, the act that was found criminal according to the Swiss law
was committed on Swiss soil, but the Talat Pasha Committee and its
leaders, including Perincek, have been conducting operations in Turkey
and targeting Turkish society. The recipient of their message–that
those who listen to Armenians will be subject to intervention and
retribution, even if they are at the other ends of the world–was
Turkish society. The same Turkish society that is being targeted by
this message has been fueled by hostility toward Armenians and other
non-Muslim peoples for generations. Anti-
Armenian sentiments and thoughts have been exacerbated throughout
Republican history by the constant dogma, mass media dissemination
and educational indoctrination of the notion that the eradication of
the Ottoman Armenian population and civilization is a lie.
Denialism does not simply consist of declarations along the lines of
“no genocide has taken place.” Denialism requires the justification of
the irreversible and inexpiable eradication of a people: The notion
that “it is Armenians who are responsible for the events,” namely
that Armenians had deserved eradication, that they had “stabbed Turks
in the back” and collaborated with the enemy, has always been and is
still perpetually reiterated in classrooms, university conferences,
TV series and programs, and books.
Hostility toward Armenians is not confined to mere words but also
takes lives. In this context of discrimination and ethnic hatred,
Armenians were attacked and Hrant Dink, the founder and director of
Agos, was the victim of an assassination whose perpetrators have yet
to be brought to justice.
Armenian private Sevag Å~^ahin Balıkcı was shot dead in 2011 by
another soldier in Batman, where he was on military duty, specifically
on the day of April 24, the universal commemoration day marking
the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. Court proceedings have met
with significant public distrust, while the press has indicated
that commanders pressured privates to testify that the incident was
“an accident.”
Furthermore, the “Hodjali Protests” of February 27, 2012, which took
place in the central Taksim square and featured as a speaker the
Minister of Internal Affairs, displayed banners proclaiming “You Are
All Armenians, You Are All Bastards.” Within the span of two months
from 2012 to 2013, the Samatya district of Istanbul, which is densely
populated by Armenians, saw similar and successive attacks on elderly
Armenian women–among them the murder victim Maritsa Kucuk, whose bones
were smashed and entire body relentlessly stabbed. And on February 23,
2014, banners saying “Long Live Ogun Samasts, Damned be Hrant Dinks”
were displayed, unprohibited, in front of the newspaper Agos.
In sum, genocide denial is the chief, most fundamental basis for
the state-sanctioned threat to existence under which Armenians
continue to live in Turkey. As two human rights associations that
have witnessed first-hand and up close the provocation of ethnic
hatred by anti-Armenian acts and declarations, we, the Human Rights
Association and the Center for Truth Justice Memory, consider it
our natural duty, as per our raison d’être and field of operation,
to present our observations to the European Court of Human Rights in
order to contribute to the making of a fair and just decision.
Finally, we insist yet again: Denial causes hatred and hatred kills.
We defend the inalienability of the right to live in safety, unafraid
of tomorrow, and hope that the European Court of Human Rights will,
in the name of the universal law of human rights, obstruct discourses
that incite acts in violation of this inalienable right.
From: A. Papazian
http://asbarez.com/131118/turkish-rights-groups-to-join-preincek-case-in-favor-of-armenia/