18 October 2006
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY PASSES LAW CRIMINALISING DENIAL OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
France's National Assembly has approved on first reading a draft law that would make it a crime to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide. Both Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) and ARTICLE 19 called on the French Senate to reject the proposal as an unjustified limit on free expression.
The law would make denial of the Armenian genocide punishable by five years in jail and a 45,000 euro fine. The proposal complements France's recognition of the Armenian genocide in a law passed in 2001.
RSF rejects the measure on the grounds that it attempts to create "an official historical truth - a practice typical of totalitarian regimes." The organisation adds that the law could have "incalculable consequences for all historians as well
as for press freedom."
Meanwhile ARTICLE 19 "considers all laws prohibiting the denial of genocide - including Holocaust denial laws - to breach international guarantees of freedom of expression."
ARTICLE 19 says it is "illegitimate for the State to impose a blanket ban on the discussion of historical matters," adding that hate-speech laws are "a
more appropriate means of addressing problems of racism."
The National Assembly vote came on the same day, 12 October 2006, that Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature (see article below). Pamuk has faced prosecution in Turkey for discussing the murder of hundreds of thousands
of Armenians during World War I and thousands of Kurds in later years.
The Istanbul-based Initiative for Freedom of Expression notes that while Turkey's Article 301 criminalises the acceptance of the Armenian genocide, France's new genocide bill criminalises its denial. The organisation considers the French bill a
"denial of Voltaire's heritage, which lightens our way."
Visit these links:
- RSF: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19176
- ARTICLE 19: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/press/france-armenian-genocide-bill.pdf
- Initiative for Freedom of Expression: http://www.antenna-tr.org/index.asp?lgg=en
- Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe:
http://www.osce.org/item/21708.html
- BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6043730.stm
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