The New Anatolian, Turkey
March 10 2007

Perincek guilty over ‘genocide’ remarks

The New Anatolian with AP / Lausanne

A prominent Turkish politician was found guilty Friday of breaching
Swiss anti-racism laws by saying that the early 20th century deaths
of Armenians could not be described as genocide.

Dogu Perincek, leader of the Turkish Workers’ Party (IP), was ordered
by a Swiss court to pay a fine of 3,000 Swiss francs (US$2,450) and
was given a suspended penalty of 9,000 francs (US$7,360).

Perincek was charged with breaking Swiss law by denying during a
visit to Switzerland in 2005 that the World War I-era deaths of up to
1.5 million Armenians amounted to genocide. He has since repeated the
claim, including during his trial earlier this week.
Perincek accused the judge of "racial hatred" toward Turkey and said
he would appeal the verdict with Switzerland’s Supreme Court.

Perincek also said that he would take his case to the European Court
of Human Rights if necessary.

The IP leader, who submitted 90 kg of historical documents, argued
there had been no genocide against Armenians, but there had been
"reciprocal massacres."

"I defend my right to freedom of expression. There was no genocide,
therefore this law cannot apply to my remarks," he said in his
opening statement on Tuesday.

He told reporters he would appeal the sentence, which he denounced as
"unjust and impartial" and "imperialist."

In his closing statement, Judge Pierre-Henri Winzap described the
defendant as an intelligent and cultivated person, but added that to
deny the Armenian genocide was an arrogant provocation because it was
an accepted historical fact.

Switzerland’s anti-racism legislation has previously been applied to
Holocaust denial.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry, in a written statement on Friday,
expressed Ankara’s uneasiness with the Swiss court’s decision.

Noting that the decision would not be accepted by Turkey, the
statement said, "We hope that decision will be corrected by
independent Swiss judicial officials which we believed that there
were in Switzerland.

Turkey strongly opposes the claims that its predecessor state, the
Ottoman government, caused the Armenian deaths in a planned genocide.
The Turkish government has said the toll is wildly inflated and that
Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the
empire’s collapse and conditions of World War I. Ankara’s proposal to
Yerevan to set up a joint commission of historians to study the
disputed events is still awaiting a positive response from the
Armenian side.

After French lawmakers voted last October to make it a crime to deny
that the claims were genocide, Turkey said it would suspend military
relations with France.