TURKISH POLITICIAN CONVICTED OF BREACHING SWISS ANTI-RACISM LAWS

Legalbrief , South Africa
March 13 2007

Published in: Legalbrief Today
Date: Tue 13 March 2007
Category: General
Issue No: 1784

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

According to a report in the Houston Chronicle, the Turkish Foreign
Ministry reacted swiftly to the decision, saying it was saddened
by the Swiss court’s ruling to punish Dogu Perincek, leader of the
Turkish Workers’ Party, and to ignore ‘his freedom of expression’.

Perincek was ordered to pay a fine of $2 450 and was given a suspended
penalty of $7 360. Perincek was charged with breaking Swiss law by
denying during a visit to Switzerland in 2005 that the World War I
killings of up to 1.5m Armenians amounted to genocide. He has since
repeated his claim, including at his recent trial. 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.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress