THE ECONOMIST: FRANCE’S ARMENIAN BILL RESTRICTS FREE SPEECH

Journal of Turksih Weekly, Turkey
Nov 17 2006

London-based The Economist reported that the main reason of the
Armenian bill in France was growing hostility towards Turkey and its
EU membership. ‘Free speech under threat’ titled article says that
the Armenian bill restricts freedom of speech in France.

The Economist reports:

"The most vivid example of the creeping extension of Holocaust-denial
laws has come in the French National Assembly, which last week voted
for a bill to make denial of the genocide of Armenians in Turkey during
the first world war a criminal offence. The political context for
this was not just vociferous lobbying by Armenians in France but also
growing hostility among voters to the idea of Turkish membership of
the European Union. To appeal to such voters, the assembly proved ready
to place restrictions on one of the most fundamental of all freedoms,
that of speech (though in fact the bill is unlikely to become law)."

"This is a perfectly logical extension of a slew of laws imposing
free-speech restrictions to suppress racial, ethnic and religious
hatred. Indeed, it may be an offence to deny the Armenian genocide
in France already, because its Holocaust-denial law was extended in
1990 to cover all crimes against humanity. Bernard Lewis, an American
historian, was condemned by a French court in 1995 under this law.

Britain also has laws against incitement to racial hatred; last January
it tried but failed to extend them to religious hatred. On the face
of it, then, it does not seem outlandish for Muslims to demand that
Islam be equally "protected" under speech-restricting laws."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress