France’s proposed genocide law fuels Turkey’s anger
Relations between France and Turkey has been strained further since the
French Parliament approved legislation that would make it illegal to deny
the Armenian genocide.
By J. Michael Kennedy, Los Angeles Times
January 27, 2012, 4:46 p.m.
Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey –
The object of the game is to see how hard a hand on the computer screen can
slap a cartoon image of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. It made its debut
only hours after the French Senate passed legislation Monday that would
criminalize denial of the Armenian genocide.
That bill has caused a furor in Turkey, further damaging a relationship
chilled by Sarkozy’s staunch opposition to Turkey’s long-standing bid for
membership in the European Union. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
declared it racist and a “massacre of free thought.”
Turkish officials say they do not expect the issue to affect their
relationship with other European countries. But their willingness to
challenge France in a high-profile spat underscores Turkey’s effort to
establish itself as a regional leader. Some see the country as a model,
although still far from perfect, of how Middle Eastern countries might be
able to combine a moderate form of Islam with democracy and a vibrant
economy.
The latest dispute with France began late last year when a deputy in
Sarkozy’s ruling Union for a Popular Movement party introduced legislation
calling for a one-year prison sentence and a $59,000 fine for anyone who
espoused a belief that there was no genocide of Armenians under Ottoman
rule during and immediately after World War I.
The number of dead is still in dispute, ranging from 300,000 to 1.5
million. Turkey acknowledges that atrocities were committed, but denies
that there was a systematic attempt to destroy the Armenian people.
After the bill was passed by the lower house of the French Parliament in
December, Erdogan recalled Turkey’s ambassador from Paris, banned the
landing and docking of French military aircraft and warships in Turkey and
suspended political and economic talks.
Turkish critics accused Sarkozy of using the bill to gain the votes of an
estimated 500,000 French residents of Armenian descent at a time when he
appears to be in trouble in his campaign for reelection in April.
“That’s what it looks like to Turkey,” said Hugh Pope, the Istanbul-based
project director with the International Crisis Group think tank.
Sarkozy has 15 days from the bill’s Senate approval to sign it into law.
Turkish officials have launched a diplomatic push for the legislation to
instead be referred to a court to rule on whether it is constitutional.
Turkey has its own stiff rules that touch on the dispute. Provisions of the
Turkish penal code make it a crime to “insult Turkishness,” and asserting
that an Armenian genocide occurred is considered a violation.
But Pope said the atmosphere had loosened in recent years. “I remember when
you couldn’t even mention the subject,” he said.
Cengiz Aktar, a leading Turkish scholar on the issue, said discussion of it
was widely purged from accounts of the founding of modern Turkey after the
collapse of the Ottoman Empire, but that it could no longer be contained.
“The reality is that there is no more Armenian presence in Anatolia, where
they used to live for the past 3,000 years,” he said.
Fatma Muge Gocek, a Turkish-born sociologist who teaches at the University
of Michigan, said it was only a matter of time before the Turkish
government came to grips with its past, good and bad.
“It’s in the last 20 years that Turks have been trying to figure out what
happened with their past,” she said. “Acknowledgment would mean rewriting a
great deal of their history.”
Perhaps one indicator of progress occurred this month when about 20,000
people gathered in Istanbul to remember Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian
newspaper editor killed five years ago by an ultranationalist. Dink angered
nationalists by referring to the killings of Armenians as genocide.
Aktar said the large turnout was a reflection of changing times.
“Of course it’s not a 100% free environment, but it’s incomparably more
free that it was 10 years ago,” he said.
Kennedy is a special correspondent.
Comments (1)
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David B.1 at 7:14 PM January 27, 2012
The reporter, Mr. Kennedy, has disgracefully misrepresented the French law
to LA Times readers. The French law makes no mention of Armenians at
all. It is a very, very general law covering “war crimes,” “crimes against
humanity,” and “genocide.” The wording of the law was recommended by the
European Union for all EU member states, dear “reporter” Kennedy.
Below is part of the law’s text, in French. It says that the law covers any
crime recognized by Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the statute of the ICC
(International Criminal Court), Article 6 of the [Nuremburg] Tribunal
Charter of 1945, and any crime recognized by France. The latter would
include the Holocaust, Armenian genocide, and any future mass crime
recognized by France. Read it, Mr. Kennedy:
… tels que définis aux articles 6, 7 et 8 du Statut de la Cour pénale
internationale, à l’article 6 de la charte du Tribunal militaire
international annexée à l’accord de Londres du 8 août 1945, ou reconnus par
la France.
There is no reference to Armenians, though it would cover the Armenian
genocide and lots of other crimes.
Again, this is the wording the EU is suggesting to all EU states, my dear
“reporter” Kennedy. The LA Times and its correspondent have deliberately,
once again, misrepresented facts in order to make readers think that
Armenians are getting something special.