ASSOCIATION (Turkish) OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE TRUTH AND JUSTICE CENTER MEMORY CALL ADMISSION AS INTERVENER IN THE TRIAL Perincek
January 28, 2015, will start the review of Perincek v / Switzerland by the Grand Chamber, whose powers the European Court of Human Rights are those of a Court of Appeal.
It is well known now that in 2005, Dogu Perinçek had traveled to Switzerland, a country that has officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and passed a law criminalizing the denial, and made in Bern and Lausanne statements denying Genocide Armenian, manufacturing according to him. In 2007, Perinçek had been found guilty of deliberately violating national law and was sentenced by the court in Lausanne. His appeal to the Federal Court was dismissed, he brought the case before the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in his favor in 2008 [2013] and decided that the court in Lausanne had violated the right to expression, a right guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights in Article 10.
The Association of Human Rights sent a letter to the Swiss Federal Office of Justice in 2014, explaining that the denial of the Armenian Genocide incites hostility towards Armenians and asking her to do call Switzerland the decision of the ECHR. Subsequently, the appeal of Switzerland and its request was accepted in June 2014.
The first hearing of that review will take place on 28 January 2015.
The Turkish Association of Human Rights joined the Truth Justice Memory Center and the International Institute for the Study of Genocide and The Toronto Human Rights to appeal to the ECHR in July and Party present a Notice of Joint Kit, that is to say, to be admitted as an intervener. The ECHR has given the request of the three human rights organizations favorably.
We explained this issue in Turkey, the denial of the Armenian Genocide incites racial hatred and encourages anti-Armenian groups. Neither the decision of the ECHR nor the case we presented under joint part relate the historical reality of the massacres of 1915-1917 or precise definition. The bottom of the approach is the fact that the statements are Perinçek footprints racism and discrimination. In this sense, the review by the Grand Chamber is of particular importance as a precedent addressing the denial, minimization and justification in a separate context of the Holocaust.
The decision of the ECHR is held to the effects of denial and discrimination solely on the Swiss Armenians and overlooked the fact that Perincek’s leader Talat Pasha Committee and that the denial of genocide as an international lie, even proclaimed in Lausanne, is a direct charge against the Armenians of Turkeys. We have therefore supported in our file the statements of Perincek do not end in a qualifying event, they constitute the crime of discrimination, and have said that the decision should take into account the position of Perincek political player leading in Turkey, head of the Workers’ Party and leader of Talat Pasha Committee – and the goals and actions of the Committee.
That’s right, the act was considered criminal under Swiss law was committed on Swiss soil, but the Talat Pasha Committee and its leaders, which include Perincek, are in Turkey the authors of acts aimed at the Turkish society. The recipients of their message – those who listen to the Armenians should expect to requests for clarification and trouble, even if they are on the other side of the earth – it was the Turkish society. The hostility against Armenians and in respect of other non-Muslim peoples was fueled in this Turkish company which is intended this message for generations. Reflections and anti-Armenian sentiments were exacerbated throughout the history of the republic, the Permanent dogma, dissemination in the mass media and indoctrination in education, the notion that the eradication of population and the empire’s Armenian civilization is a lie.
Holocaust denial is not only in statements like “there was no genocide.” Denial requires justification irreversible and unforgivable eradication of a people: the notion that “it is the Armenians who are responsible for the events”, ie the Armenians deserved their eradication, they have “stabbed the Turks in the back, “and collaborated with the enemy, has always been and still is constantly repeated in the classes, lectures at universities in the series and TV shows, and books.
Hostility towards Armenians is not only limited to speech; it takes lives. In such a context of discrimination and ethnic hatred, Armenians were attacked and Hrant Dink, the founder and director of Agos, was the victim of a murder whose perpetrators must always be presented to a court. Armenian military Sevag Sahin Balikci was killed in 2011 by another soldier in Batman, where he was doing his military service, on the day of April 24, World Remembrance Day marks the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. The conditions in which took place the killer trial provoked public skepticism, while the press reported that commanders had put pressure on the military that they may witness the incident was “an accident.” In addition, the “event for Khojaly” of 27 February 2012, which was held in Taksim Square, chaired by the Minister of the Interior, banners that read “You are all Armenians, you are all bastards “were deployed. In the space of two months between 2012 and 2013, in the district of Samatya Istanbul, home to many Armenians, many elderly Armenian women were attaquées- Maritsa Kucuk is one of them, his bones were broken in several places his entire body larded stabbing. And 23 February 2014, banners saying “Long live Ogun Samasts, that Hrant Dink be damned” were brandished, without opposition, in front of Agos newspaper.
In total, the denial of genocide is the essential basis, the most fundamental basis of the threat to the existence of Armenians in Turkey, a threat that the state admits.
As associations of human rights that were direct witnesses and reconciled acts and declarations of incitement to ethnic hatred, we, the Association of Human Rights and the Truth Justice Memory Center, consider it our duty, our purpose and our field of action to present our findings to the European Court of Human Rights in order to contribute to a good and right decision.
Finally, we stress once again: the negation causes hatred and hatred kills. We defend the inalienable right to live in safety, without fear of tomorrow, and hope that the European Court of Human Rights will in the name of fundamental human rights, impede the speech that incites acts contrary to this inalienable right.
January 23, 2015,
INSAN Haklari DERNEGI
Hakikat ADALET Hafıza MERKEZI
Translation for Gilbert Béguian Armenews
Jean Eckian © armenews.com