In an article published on January 19, the Los Angeles Times has said that the "French Senate should reject a bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915".
Titled "Speech crimes and France" and written by Timothy Garton Ash, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and professor of European studies at Oxford University, the article says that "On Monday, the French Senate is scheduled to debate and possibly vote on a bill that would criminalize denial of the Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915. The bill has passed the lower house of Parliament. The Senate should reject it, in the name of free speech, the freedom of historical inquiry and Article 11 of France's pathbreaking 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ("The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious rights...")".
"The question is not whether the atrocities committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire were terrible, or whether they should be acknowledged in Turkish and European memory. They were and they should be. The question is: Should it be a crime under the law of France, or other countries, to dispute whether those terrible events constituted a genocide, a term used in international law- And is the French Parliament equipped and entitled to set itself up as a tribunal on world history, handing down verdicts on the past conduct of other nations- The answer: No and no," the article said.
"Taking a benign view of human nature and French politics, you might say that this is a clumsy attempt to realize a noble intention. That would be naive. There is a remarkable correlation between such proposals in the French Parliament and national elections, in which half a million voters of Armenian origin play a significant part. What happened to the Armenians was recognized as genocide under French law in December 2001, just before presidential and parliamentary elections. A bill similar to this one was passed in the lower house in 2006 (but rejected by the upper) in the run-up to the 2007 elections. And what's happening this year- Yes, elections," the article stressed.
"Not that all leading politicians of President Nicolas Sarkozy's party have supported the bill. Foreign Minister Alain Juppe opposes it. But that's because he's worried about the implications for France's relations with Turkey. The Turkish government's reaction has been predictably vehement," the article said.
"Thus, a tragedy that should be the subject for grave commemoration and free historical debate, calmly testing even wayward hypotheses against the evidence, is reduced to an instrument of political manipulation, a politician's brickbat," the article emphasized.
"Next week, let the French Senate give an example to the U.S. Congress in the defense of intellectual freedom," the article also said.
The lower house of the French parliament adopted in December a resolution that criminalizes rejection of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915. Only 70 out of 577 parliamentarians joined the voting of the resolution which was adopted with majority of votes.
The resolution envisages "one-year prison term and 45,000 Euro fine for those who deny genocide recognized by French laws." French Parliament had recognized so-called Armenian genocide in 1915 on January 29, 2001.
The draft criminalizing the rejection of Armenian allegations had first been approved in 2006, but it could not become a law as French President Nicolas Sarkozy prevented its presentation to Senate.
Now, the senate's approval is necessary to make the resolution a law.
Turkey strongly opposes the issue of the incidents of 1915 being used as a tool in French politics. Many believe that French President Sarkozy supports the Armenian resolution in order to garner support from France's Armenian population that number around 500,000.
France will hold the first round of this year's presidential election on April 22 and the second round run-off on May 6. Sarkozy is running for a second term.
The resolution will be brought up to the French Senate on January 23 with the government's initiatives.
On Wednesday, January 18, the Committee on Laws of the French Senate decided not to place the Armenian resolution on the agenda of the Senate.
The Chairperson of the Committee on Laws at the French Senate, Jean Pierre Sueur, said Wednesday that their decision not to place an Armenian resolution earlier adopted by the French Parliament on the agenda of the French Senate was taken with the thought that the resolution was against the French constitution.
Speaking to the Turkish media, Sueur said that the Armenian resolution was also against the freedom of expression and freedom of research.
With these thoughts, we wanted the Armenian resolution not to be placed on the agenda of the French Senate. We believe that the Armenian resolution is against the French constitution, Sueur also said.
If the resolution is not adopted at the senate till February 22, 2012 when the parliament and senate will recess for presidential elections, it will be invalid.
AA
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