National Post (Canada)
October 13, 2006 Friday
Toronto Edition
Franco-Turkish relations sour over new law
by David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph
BRUSSELS – The French parliament triggered a fresh crisis yesterday
in Turkey’s relations with Europe by approving a bill that would make
it an offence punishable by jail to deny Armenians suffered a
genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the vote in the French Assemblee
Nationale had dealt “a heavy blow” to bilateral relations, while the
European Union said the bill could interfere with Turkish ambitions
to join the European bloc.
Turkey denies that massacres of Armenians between 1915 and 1923
amounted to genocide, saying large numbers of Turks and Armenians
died in a civil war.
Ali Babacan, Turkey’s Economics Minister, said it was too soon to
know whether the Turkish public would heed calls from nationalist
groups to boycott French goods.
“As the government, we are not encouraging that, but this is the
people’s decision,” he said. “I cannot say [the vote] will not have
any consequences.”
The Socialist-backed law was widely criticized in Turkey as another
attempt by European politicians to place obstacles in the path of
Ankara’s painful progress toward EU membership. Polls have shown that
60% of the French are opposed to Turkey joining the bloc.
France would impose a one-year prison term and a 45,000-euro fine on
anyone denying the Armenian genocide, the same penalty that is
imposed for denying the Nazi Holocaust.
The vote came ahead of French presidential and parliamentary
elections, in which the 400,000-strong Armenian community in France
will form a formidable voter bloc.
The bill does not have government support and it seems likely to fall
in the upper house, the Senate.
Both Jacques Chirac, the French President, and Segolene Royal, the
Socialist presidential front-runner, say Turkey must acknowledge the
genocide of the Armenians before joining the EU.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative front-runner, is opposed to
Turkey’s EU entry under any condition.

Ottawa Citizen
October 13, 2006 Friday
EARLY Edition
National: Armenian minister heading to Ottawa
Armenia’s foreign minister, Vartan Oskanian, will pay a politically
charged visit to Ottawa next Wednesday, six months after the Harper
government formally recognized the Armenian genocide and angered its
NATO ally Turkey in the process. In April, Prime Minister Stephen
Harper acknowledged the Armenian genocide of 1915 in which 1.5
million people were killed. The statement angered Turkey, resulting
in the country’s ambassador to Canada being called back for
consultations, and the Turkish air force pulling out of a training
exercise in Alberta.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Ottawa Citizen
October 13, 2006 Friday
EARLY Edition
France passes law on Armenian genocide
by David Rennie, The Daily Telegraph
LONDON – The French parliament yesterday triggered a fresh crisis in
Turkey’s relations with Europe by approving a bill that would make it
an offence punishable by jail to deny that Armenians suffered a
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
The Turkish foreign ministry said the vote had dealt “a heavy blow”
to bilateral relations.
Ali Babacan, Turkey’s economics minister, said it was too soon to
know whether the Turkish public would heed calls from nationalist
groups to boycott French goods.
“As the government, we are not encouraging that, but this is the
people’s decision,” he said. “I cannot say (the vote) will not have
any consequences.”
The Turkish parliament scrapped plans for a tit-for-tat law that
would have made it illegal to deny that French colonialists committed
genocide against the Algerians in their war for independence. Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told MPs, “you don’t clean up dirt with
more dirt.”
He repeated calls to Armenia to jointly research the killings by
opening the archives of both countries to historians.
The European Commission, which will next month unveil a key report on
Turkey’s progress toward meeting EU admission standards, said the
vote threatened to silence the first signs of debate inside Turkey on
the issue of Armenia.
Krisztina Nagy, the commission’s enlargement spokesman, said, “it is
important to see that there is an opening in Turkey to conduct debate
on that issue.” The bill, if it became law, “could have a negative
effect on debate”.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
October 12, 2006 Thursday 5:20 PM EST
Lebanon’s Armenians protest against Turkish UN force
DPA POLITICS France Diplomacy Turkey Lebanon Lebanon’s Armenians
protest against Turkish UN force Beirut
Thousands of Lebanese Armenians protested Thursday
in downtown Beirut against Turkish troops participating in a UN
peacekeeping force to supervise a fragile UN-brokered ceasefire
between Hezbollah and Israel.

The protest, headed by Armenian political and religious leaders,
took place two days after seven Turkish officers arrived in Beirut.

The crowd held high banners denouncing the presence of Turkish
troops as “an insult to the 140,000 Armenians living in Lebanon” and
proclaiming: “Genocide and massacre: Turkey’s definition of peace.”

Turkey is to deploy some 700 soldiers in Lebanon, including troops
aboard naval ships.
Oct 1206 1720 GMT

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
October 12, 2006 Thursday
Pamuk “honoured over genocide stance” – Armenia
DPA POLITICS Sweden Nobel Literature EXTRA: Pamuk “honoured over
genocide stance” – Armenia Yerevan
The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to
Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has been welcomed in Armenia, where
commentators said the novelist had been honoured for his outspoken
stance on Turkey’s alleged “genocide” of thousands of Armenians.

Chairman of the Armenian Writers’ Federation David Muradyan
welcomed the Swedish Academy’s decision to honour Pamuk. Author and
filmmaker Muradyan said the award “linked the literature prize with
morality.”

Pamuk had stated in an interview that “1 million Armenians and
30,000 Kurds” were killed in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.
The comments provoked outrage among Turkish nationalists who accused
the writer of “insulting Turkishness.”

A controversial trial against Pamuk was however dropped by the
Turkish Justice Ministry following international criticism.

Armenian historians claim that as many as 1.5 million Christian
Armenians were killed during and after the First World War and that
the massacres were a clear genocide.

Turkey counters that Armenians sided with invading Russian forces
and that the numbers of Armenians killed was around 300,000. Ankara
has also refused to term the events as genocide.
Oct 1206 1256 GMT

Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Germany
October 12, 2006 Thursday
Turkey outraged by French support for Armenian genocide bill
DPA POLITICS France Diplomacy Turkey EXTRA: Turkey outraged by French
support for Armenian genocide bill Ankara
Turkey has expressed outrage Thursday at a vote in
the French National Assembly in favour of a bill that would make it a
crime to deny that Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian
people more than 90 years ago.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry in Ankara characterized the
assembly’s move as an “irresponsible action” that rested on the “weak
assertions by a few French politicians,” which would deal “a massive
blow” to Franco-Turkish relations.

The ministry added that Turkey would “deeply regret” approving the
bill.

Turkish Parliamentary President Bulent Arinc said the proposed law
was “humiliating” and a “inimical stance” towards the Turkish people,
adding that it would be “a blow against freedom of opinion and
thought” and “unacceptable” to Turkey.

Turkey, which vehemently maintains that the mass deaths of
Armenians during the First World War should not be considered
genocide, has threatened France with economic sanctions should the
Western European country pass the legislation.

The Associated Press
October 12, 2006 Thursday 4:43 PM GMT
French lawmakers infuriate Turkey with Armenia genocide vote
By EMMANUEL GEORGES-PICOT, Associated Press Writer
Infuriating Turkey, a thin turnout of French lawmakers Thursday
approved a bill that would make it a crime to deny that mass killings
of Armenians in Turkey during the World War I era amounted to
genocide.
In Ankara, angry Turks threw eggs at the French Embassy amid growing
calls to boycott French goods, although the bill could face an
impossible struggle to become law or even make it to the upper house
for further discussion.
“No one should harbor the conviction that Turkey will take this
lightly,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said.
The bill passed 106-19, but the majority of the 557 lawmakers in
France’s lower house did not take part in the vote.
President Jacques Chirac’s government opposed the bill, although it
did not use its majority in the lower house to vote it down. Instead,
most ruling party lawmakers did not vote on the text that was brought
by the opposition Socialist Party.
Chirac’s government is thought to be unlikely to forward the bill for
passage by the Senate.
The French president did not comment on the vote Thursday, although
he previously has said that the bill “is more of a polemic than legal
reality.”
His former spokeswoman Catherine Colonna, now France’s minister for
European affairs, told parliament Thursday that the government did
not look favorably on the bill.
“It is not for the law to write history,” she said shortly before the
vote.
The Armenia genocide issue has become intertwined with ongoing debate
in France and across Europe about whether to admit mostly Muslim
Turkey into the European Union. France is home to hundreds of
thousands of people whose families came from Armenia.
On Thursday, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel literature
prize for his works dealing with the symbols of clashing cultures.
Pamuk was charged last year for telling a Swiss newspaper in February
2005 that Turkey was unwilling to deal with two of the most painful
episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians and
recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey’s overwhelmingly Kurdish
southeast. The charge was later dropped.
Chirac says he favors Turkey’s membership in the EU. But on a visit
to Armenia last month, he also urged Turkey to recognize “the
genocide of Armenians” in order to join the EU.
“Each country grows by acknowledging its dramas and errors of the
past,” Chirac said.
Gul, the Turkish foreign minister, said the bill dealt a serious blow
to Turkish-French relations and damaged the credibility of France as
an EU member which defends freedom of expression.
“From now on, France will never describe itself as the homeland of
freedoms,” Gul said.
France has already recognized the killings of up to 1.5 million
Armenians from 1915 to 1919 as genocide; under Thursday’s bill, those
who contest it was genocide would risk up to a year in prison and
fines of up to $56,000.
A law passed in 1990 makes it a crime to deny the Holocaust.
Armenia accuses Turkey of massacring Armenians during World War I,
when Armenia was under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says Armenians were
killed in civil unrest during the collapse of the empire.
Outside the French parliament building, a few dozen protesters of
Armenian descent celebrated.
“The memory of the victims is finally totally respected,” said Alexis
Govciyan, head of a group of Armenian organizations in France.
The vote on the bill in Paris dominated front pages of most Turkish
newspapers, with some reporting that thousands of Turks have promised
to go to France and deny genocide in hopes of getting arrested if the
bill passes. Two TV networks in Turkey broadcast the parliamentary
floor debate live.
Associated Press writer Selcan Hacaoglu contributed to this report
from Ankara, Turkey.

Financial Times, UK
Oct 12 2006
Why the writers refuse to be silenced
Perihan Magden, a Turkish novelist and journalist, appeared in an
Istanbul court earlier this month accused of the slightly surreal
crime of “alienating the people against military service” because she
defended a young man’s right to be a conscientious objector.
As she entered the court she was attacked by a small crowd of
demonstrators shouting insults and causing a commotion that at least
guaranteed television news coverage.
It was a scene that has become familiar outside Turkish courtrooms. A
series of prosecutions of writers and journalists, for things they
said or wrote, has attracted bigots and xenophobes to each hearing,
adding a sharp political edge to the occasions and turning them into
spectacles that would be considered in some other countries to be
bringing the law into disrepute.
Ms Magden’s case was adjourned to another hearing in late July. She
faces three years in jail if she is convicted. “I cannot believe I am
being prosecuted,” she said in court.
Her alleged crime was to write an opinion piece in a magazine in
which she defended the notion of conscientious objection to military
service, arguing in favour of a young man who was refusing to wear
the uniform during his conscription because it was against his
beliefs.
The Turkish military, a powerful institution with a long history of
meddling in politics and silencing its critics, objected to the
article, arguing that it could undermine the standing of the armed
forces in the public mind and perhaps encourage youngsters to refuse
military service, which is compulsory for men.
The notion is absurd in a country where the armed forces are, on the
whole, highly regarded, and where military service is seen as a badge
of honour. But a prosecutor filed a case against Ms Magden, and it is
now being played out in court.
If Ms Magden thinks the case is absurd, many Turks would probably
agree. So would the European Union, which Turkey wishes to join. The
EU has put freedom of expression high on its list of issues Turkey
must address if any progress on entry is to be made.
In particular, the EU wants Turkey to change or abolish Article 301
of the revised penal code passed by this government, which is seen as
a license for any prosecutor to pursue a case against an individual
based on the flimsiest evidence.
The furore that invariably surrounds the prosecution of freedom of
expression cases in Turkey does immense damage to the country’s image
at home and abroad.
This raises the intriguing question of why Turkey, which is a modern
democracy with a pluralist media and no shortage of opinions on every
conceivable subject, still puts writers and journalists on trial, and
why such a powerful country is still so seemingly terrified of
wayward, unorthodox, or subversive yet non-violent opinion.
One reason, commentators say, is because the legal system tolerates
it. Although a constitution drafted by the military top brass and
imposed after a coup d’etat in 1980 has been heavily amended, its
legacy has been pernicious and authoritarian.
Even today, commentators and diplomats say, vaguely worded articles
allow for severe restrictions on freedom of expression. These
restrictions are less draconian than a decade ago, but they are still
effective in making a writer think twice before putting an opinion
down on paper.
Much of the impetus for prosecutors to pursue writers who might be
considered to have insulted Turkey in some way comes from the
hard-line, xenophobic nationalist extremes of Turkish politics.
This is not a large group but it is exceptionally noisy perhaps
because it feels itself alienated from the modern trend of Turkish
politics and it uses the legal system to announce and pursue its
grievances.
“Nationalists are feeling besieged,” says Ali Tekin, a political
scientist at Bilkent University. “When they see an avenue to express
their frustration, they seize it.”
A second reason is that, although debate on contested historical
questions is now more open in Turkey than it was five years ago, some
subjects are still regarded by some Turks as taboo, such as the fate
of Ottoman Armenians, the plight of the Kurds, or the continuing
usefulness of Kemalism, the republican nationalist ideology
bequeathed by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of Turkey. Those who
would silence debate on these issues say European countries do the
same thing.
They point to Austria, which jailed David Irving a British historian
who denied the Nazi Holocaust for three years.
That is a more severe sentence than any handed down in recent months
by a Turkish court. The saving grace of Turkish cases is that many
are either withdrawn or collapse under the weight of contradictions.
A third, and perhaps more important, reason why freedom of expression
is so sensitive in Turkey is that it is a country where opinions are
important, especially if they challenge received wisdom.
The columnist Cengiz Candar has described Turkish intellectuals as
“iconoclasts in a conservative society”, holding Turkey to account on
behalf of the world. There is a vast amount of opinion in Turkish
newspapers, sometimes at the expense of news, but it plays a vital
role in shaping public opinion.
Orhan Pamuk, the novelist whose trial last December on a charge of
“insulting Turkishness” led to an international outcry, recently made
a similar point about writers.
He told a conference of PEN, the international writers’ organisation,
that part of a writer’s task was to raise forbidden subjects “purely
because they wereforbidden”.
In his PEN lecture published in the New York Review of Books, from
which these quotations are taken, he recalled a visit to Istanbul in
the mid-1980s by the playwrights Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter, to
show support for jailed writers in Turkey.
Things are not that bad today. But Mr Pamuk observed that for a
writer to self-censor himself simply to avoid upsetting anybody was
“a bit like smuggling forbidden goods through customs” and was
shaming and degrading.
He has refused to be silenced in his own writings. Other Turkish
writers, as Ms Magden shows, feel the same way.

Financial Times, UK
Oct 12 2006
Royal seeks to reignite French passion for EU
by: By JOHN THORNHILL
Segolene Royal, one of the leading contenders for the French
presidency, sketched out her blueprint for Europe yesterday, calling
for a revision of the eurozone’s fiscal rules, harmonisation of
labour market standards and reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Europe’s institutions must be brought closer to the people, protect
workers better from the worst ravages of globalisation and promote
environmental initiatives, such as zero tax rates on renewable
energy, she said. A strong Europe was also essential for tempering US
hegemony and alleviating poverty in the developing world.
In a suggestion that will infuriate the UK and many businesses, Ms
Royal, favourite to become the opposition Socialist party’s
presidential candidate, called for the suppression of the “opt-out
clause” allowing employees in some European countries to work more
than 48 hours a week. She said minimum social standards must be
applied across the European Union.
Ms Royal appeared keen yesterday to counter accusations she was all
style and no substance. She was also responding to Nicolas Sarkozy,
the most likely presidential champion of the Gaullist right, who has
recommended a new mini-treaty to make Europe’s institutions work more
efficiently.
At a frantic press conference, Ms Royal read out seven ideas for
reigniting French enthusiasm for Europe and relaunching the European
project. “Europe is blocked. France is isolated. I want to unblock
Europe and lead France out of isolation,” she said. “There is a
demand for the French in Europe and a demand of Europe in the world.”
Declaring herself to be a convinced European, Ms Royal attacked
politicians for fanning selfish nationalism and turning the EU into a
scapegoat for unpopular economic policies. This had produced only
indifference and distrust towards Europe, leading to the rejection of
the constitutional treaty by French and Dutch voters last year.
She said Europe must overcome its “democratic deficit” and involve
citizens more in its decision-making processes. She said it was not
“healthy” that the European Central Bank was concerned only with
taming inflation rather than encouraging growth and jobs.
She called for the EU’s growth and stability pact, the rules
underpinning the euro, to be revised, allowing countries to exclude
investments in research and -innovation from their budget deficit
calculations.
She suggested the EU budget should be increased so long as the extra
money was spent on sensible -projects, such as research, innovation,
renewable energy and trans-European transport networks.
Ms Royal called for a redeployment of spending within the Common
Agricultural Policy, switching money from intensive farming into
environmentally-friendly agriculture. “No subject should be taboo,
not the CAP nor the British rebate,” she said.
The 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the bloc’s founding
moment, next year would provide the perfect opportunity to debate the
EU’s past and future and think about new rules for governing its 27
member states, she said. This debate would lead to new ideas for
helping Europe emerge from the institutional impasse created by the
rejection of the constitution.
Ms Royal appeared less sure when questioned about Turkey. She refused
to say whether or not she supported Turkey’s accession to the EU,
saying it was up to the French people to decide in a referendum.
The French parliament will vote today on a Socialist bill that would
make the denial of the 1915 genocide of Armenians during the collapse
of Ottoman Turk rule an offence.
The Socialist party’s members will vote for their preferred
presidential candidate on November 16. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the
centrist pro-European former finance minister, and Laurent Fabius,
the former prime minister turned leftwing firebrand who inspired the
No campaign in last year’s referendum, are also running.

Economist.Com
October 12, 2006 Thursday
Denial and bad law
French MPs vote to make it a crime to deny that a genocide took place
in Armenia in 1915, provoking anger in Turkey and raising doubts
about freedom of speech
French MPs vote to make denial of genocide in Armenia a crime
“I DON’T like what you say, and I will jail you for saying it”. That
inversion of the definition of free speech commonly attributed to
Voltaire sounds so unappetising that it is hard to see why anyone
should support it. But that is just what is happening. The lower
house of the French parliament voted on Thursday October 12th to make
it a criminal offence to deny what is commonly called the “Armenian
genocide” of 1915.
Many Armenians, especially in the wealthy and well-connected
diaspora, feel that until Turkey relaxes its stance on what they call
the genocide of 1.5m compatriots, negotiations on its membership of
the European Union (EU) should be blocked (Turkey denies a genocide
took place). Many in the diaspora, especially in France, also want it
to be a crime for anyone to claim that a genocide did not occur.
There is a precedent: denial of the Nazi Holocaust is illegal in a
dozen European countries. Armenians say recognition for their
historical suffering should be protected in the same way. Though many
countries’ parliaments have voted to recognise the Armenian genocide,
few have gone further.
The French government, mindful of its ties with Turkey, is calling
the vote “unnecessary and untimely” and is trying to make sure that
it remains symbolic. To become law, the bill needs the backing of
both the upper house of parliament and the president. But the vote
has already prompted fury in Turkey, where discussion of the issue is
seen as a hypocritical Western ploy, manipulated by Turkey’s enemies
abroad. Yet the very discussion of what happened in 1915 is fraught
with legal difficulties within Turkey. Writers and scholars who raise
the matter are prosecuted, and sometimes imprisoned. One of these
writers, Orhan Pamuk, who had faced trial in December for talking
about the deaths of the Armenians, was awarded the Nobel prize for
literature on October 12th.
Many Turks recognise that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died
during “relocation” to other parts of the then Ottoman empire in
1915, but they argue that this was not a deliberate policy of mass
murder, and that the deaths took place in a context of internal
rebellion and inter-communal warfare. One problem is that the
archives concerned are not easily accessible. They are written in
archaic Ottoman Turkish, using the Arabic script, rather than the
Latin alphabet introduced by the Turkish republic’s founder, Kemal
Ataturk. Allowing the production of a scholarly and accessible
edition of the relevant files would be a big step forward–but for
many nationalist Turks even that would be an unwelcome move towards
their critics.
Turkish officials doubt this issue will affect negotiations for EU
membership (Cyprus is a far more serious concern). But the country is
trying to counter-attack in the propaganda war. Turkish deputies want
to introduce a law making it a crime to deny that the French
committed genocide in Algeria. That seems a big stretch: France
conducted a brutal colonial war, but no reputable scholar argues that
its aim was the mass extinction or expulsion of an entire ethnic
group.
The bigger question is whether laws on Holocaust or genocide denial
are a good thing in principle. Most of the countries which forbid it
were Nazi-occupied, or Nazi allies, during the second world war. They
generally passed the laws in the early years of post-war democracy,
typically along with bans on Nazi symbols, songs and regalia. That
may have been justifiable when a clean break with the past was vital;
it seems less so today.
Many scholars are convinced that making it a crime to deny the
Holocaust is a mistake. Fines and jail sentences create martyrs; they
do not deter those who hold outlandish views. The proposed law in
France, for example, sets a one-year prison term and E45,000
($56,570) fine, the same punishment as for denying the Nazi genocide.
Enforcing that against the thousands of Turks living in France for
whom denying the Armenian genocide is part of national identity,
would be all but impossible. Passing unenforceable laws looks like
gesture politics, rather than good jurisprudence.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress