STATUE COMMEMORATING MASSACRE OF ARMENIANS STOLEN FROM PARIS SUBURB CANADIAN PRESS

Canadian Press
Oct 15 2006

CHAVILLE, France (AP) – A statue commemorating the First World War-era
massacre of Armenians in Turkey was stolen, an official said Saturday,
two days after French legislators approved a bill that would make it
a crime to deny that the killings amounted to genocide.

The bronze monument, installed in front of the train station in the
Paris suburb of Chaville in 2002, disappeared between Friday night
and Saturday morning, said authorities for the Haut-de-Seine region.

The police have not ruled out the possibility that the statue, which
weighs several hundred kilograms, was stolen to be sold as scrap metal,
said Stephane Topalian, who serves on the board of the local chapter
of the Armenian church.

However, Topalian stressed the timing of the robbery, which came after
France’s lower house of parliament on Thursday passed a bill that make
it a crime to deny the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks
around the time of the First World War amounted to genocide. Under
the bill, those who contest it was genocide would risk up to a year
in prison.

The legislation, which infuriated Turkey, passed 106-19.

President Jacques Chirac’s government opposed the bill, although it
did not use its majority in the lower house to vote it down. Instead,
most ruling party legislators did not vote on the text that was
brought by the opposition Socialist party.

It still needs to be approved by the French Senate and the president
to become law.

Armenia accuses Turkey of massacring Armenians during the First World
War, when Armenia was under the Ottoman Empire. Turkey says Armenians
were killed in civil unrest during the collapse of the empire, and
strongly objects to the killings being called genocide.