Turkish lawyer wants CDA candidates in court
Twisting around the Armenian question
By our correspondents

Trouw (Dutch national newspaper)
September 22, 2006

The Dutch Turkish politicians Ayhan Tonca and Osman Elmaci, both on
the candidate list of the CDA for the elections, risk trial in Turkey.

Today, nationalist Turkish lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz is in the process of
investigating Tonca and Elmaci’s statements on the Armenian issue. If
they are opposed to Turkish law, then Kerincsiz will, so he said
yesterday to Trouw, press charges, because it violates article 301
of the Turkish penal code. This penal code forbids the slandering
of Turkey’s reputation. Earlier, Kerincsiz pressed charges against
the authors Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak, without success. Tonca and
Elmaci received the Turkish lawyer’s attention after their conspicuous
twist in their standpoint on the Armenian issue.

It was only in June that they were campaigning against the submitted
bill of the ChristenUnie (CU) via an e-mail group of local Turkish
politicians in the Netherlands. The CU cited, among others, the
Turkish genocide against the Armenians in 1915.

An e-mail discussion revealed that both Tonca and Elmaci deny the
Armenian Genocide. But after a commotion over their views, they said in
an explanation on Thursday: "Hereby we declare that we, if we had had
seats in the parliament during the motion on the Armenian Genocide,
we would have seconded the standpoint of the CDA after participating
in the fraction’s debate and would have voted in favor of the motion
presented by the ChristenUnie."

Yesterday the two refused to say whether they recognize the Armenian
Genocide implicitly.

Now PvdA is struggling with the same problem. Yesterday, it
became clear that PvdA had placed Erdinc Sacan in the 53rd
place of the candidate list. Sacan participated in the same
anti-Armenian e-mail lobby. Yesterday, he joined Tonca and Elmaci’s
explanation. Spokespersons of both the CDA and the PvdA pointed out
that the decisive reason for putting these candidates on the list
was that all three men conform to the fraction’s standpoint, which
is more important than what they think for themselves.