TURKEY THREATENS SANCTIONS IF FRANCE ADOPTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LAW
Jeannie Shawl

Jurist
School of Law, University of Pittsburgh
May 15 2006

[JURIST] Turkey will impose trade sanctions on France if the French
parliament adopts a bill that would criminalize the denial that the
World War I-era massacre of Armenians [ATI backgrounder] in Turkey
constitutes genocide, according to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan [BBC profile]. As many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed
in the then-Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917 in what Armenians
consider a genocide; Turkey has insisted that the deaths do not
constitute genocide [Turkish DC Embassy backgrounder].

The French National Assembly is slated to consider an opposition
Socialist party-sponsored bill [National Assembly materials] this
Thursday that would make denying the massacre was genocide illegal.

Offenders could face a five-year jail sentence and fines up to
$57,000. France already has a law on the books which recognizes the
massacre as genocide.