THE OBSERVER: GENOCIDE BILL ADOPTION MADE FRANCE ENEMY OF FREEDOM
PanARMENIAN.Net
16.10.2006 19:05 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ British daily The Observer commented on Sunday
that making denial of the Armenian Genocide a criminal offense is
"wrong and bad," describing the French move as an "enemy of free
speech." The daily underlined that quite apart from limiting free
speech, and therefore legitimizing a desirable debate on historical
questions, the French are "surely obliged to remember more distinctly,
and more publicly, the collaboration of so many of their own people
with the Nazi transport of Jews before starting on the business of
criminalizing remoter cases of denial." The Observer also stated that
the Armenian bill was designed to complicate Turkey’s application to
join the EU. "It is a bewildering reality that France sees Turkey’s
refusal to acknowledge what happened to the Armenians as an obstacle
to membership, while at the same time continuing to regard its own
wartime behavior as somehow irreproachable," it was added.