FRENCH SENATE PASSES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL
CNN
Jan 24 2012
(CNN) — The French Senate voted late Monday to criminalize any public
denial of what new legislation calls the Ottoman Empire’s genocide
of Armenians, triggering fresh condemnation from modern Turkey.
Relations between France and Turkey have already deteriorated since
the National Assembly — the lower house of the French parliament —
voted to approve the bill in December. The Turkish government called
Monday’s vote “an example of irresponsibility” and vowed to “express
our reaction against it in every platform.”
It is already illegal in France to deny the Holocaust of World War II,
a crime punishable by a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros
($58,500). The same punishment would be used under the Armenian
legislation.
Monday night’s 127-86 vote sends the legislation to French President
Nicolas Sarkozy, who has indicated he would sign it. Armenia’s
government hailed the vote, saying France “reaffirmed its pivotal
role as a genuine defender of universal human values.” But Turkey,
one of France’s NATO allies, called it “an entirely unfortunate step
for French politics.”
Friction over Armenia genocide issue “Politicization of the
understanding of justice and history through other people’s past
and damaging freedom of expression in a tactless manner are first
and foremost a loss for France,” it in a statement on the vote. “It
is obvious that the interpretation of historical events cannot be
determined by the attitude of French politicians who see in themselves
the right to judge other nations on the basis of one-sided views and
declare a judgment on a serious allegation of crime such as genocide,
thereby ignoring the principles of international law.”
The statement added, “Turkey is determined to take every step required
against this unjust action, which disregards basic human values and
public conscience.”
The Turkish-Armenian controversy over the killings that took place last
century has reverberated wherever diaspora communities representing
both groups exist. Armenian groups and many scholars argue that Turks
committed genocide starting in 1915, when more than a million ethnic
Armenians were massacred in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey officially denies that a genocide took place, saying hundreds
of thousands of Armenian Christians and Turkish Muslims died in
intercommunal violence around the bloody battlefields of World War I.
Before the vote, Sen. Herve Marseille, one of the bill’s supporters,
argued that since France already recognizes the Ottoman-era killings
as genocide, the same standard that applies to Holocaust denial should
apply to the Armenian case.
“When we contest the Jewish genocide, we can be punished,” Marseille
said. “And up until now, when we contest the Armenian genocide,
there is no punishment. So we can’t have a legal punishment for one
and not for the other. Everyone is equal in front of the law.”
But Sen. Jacques Mezard, who opposed the legislation, said freedom
of expression was at stake.
“It calls into question historical and scientific research. Tomorrow
will there be a question of a Vendee genocide?” he asked, referring to
a revolt against the French revolutionary government in 1793. “Will we
put the Spanish and the United States in the stocks for the massacre
of Native Americans? We must reject this text and consign it to
history books.”
After December’s vote in the National Assembly, Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused France of committing its own “genocide”
during its war against Algerian independence in the 1950s and 1960s.
Erdogan announced that Turkey was reviewing its ties with France.
Ankara recalled its ambassador to Paris for consultations, canceled
bilateral visits and wouldn’t cooperate with France in joint projects
within the European Union.
The French Foreign Ministry shot back at Erdogan’s comments, saying
France “assumes with clarity and transparency its duty to remember the
tragedies that have marked its history.” And Sarkozy has said that his
country doesn’t need an OK from another nation to develop its policies.
In addition to being NATO allies, Turkey and France have trade ties
valued at $13.5 billion, according to Turkish statistics.
The genocide debate is also a source of tension between Turkey and
the United States, another NATO ally. The White House, for example,
annually beats back efforts in Congress to pass a resolution that
would formally recognize the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/23/world/europe/france-armenia-genocide/index.html