DUTCH CDA PARTY REBUKES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIERS

ArmRadio – Public Radio, Armenia
Oct 2 2007

The Christian-Democrat party in the Netherlands, the CDA (Christian
Democrat Appel), has announced that Mr. Osman Elmaci has been turned
down from having a seat in the European Parliament due to his attitude
toward and his remarks denying the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Elmaci, who had already been ousted from the last legislative
elections for the same reasons, was the number three person behind the
current MEP Joop Post, who has resigned. He was to become a Member of
the European Parliament after the withdrawal of Mr. Bartho Pronk’s
candidacy. CDA leaders, already having a past record of principled
stance against genocide denial, vetoed this possibility.

Mr. Post will finally be replaced by Mr. Cornelis Visseur.

"We congratulate the CDA party for this courageous and visionary
political decision. Denial – under the pretext of ‘freedom of
expression’ – can only serve to perpetuate the racial hatred from
which it derives," declared Laurent Leylekian, Executive Director of
the European Armenian Federation.

The European Armenian Federation is actively working to make denialist
hatred a pan-European crime, as proposed in the framework decision on
racism and xenophobia recently adopted by the European Council. The
Federation notes that bills aimed at making the denial of the Armenian
Genocide a crime are under consideration in Belgium, France, and the
Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the project was initiated by Christen
Unie, a founding member of the government coalition. In Switzerland,
Dogu Perincek, a well-known denier of the Armenian Genocide has
already been condemned.

The Federation also notes that the rapporteur of the current resolution
on EU-Turkey relations, Mrs. Oomen-Ruijten – who is also a member of
the CDA party – has attempted to evade the Armenian Genocide issue
in that resolution.

"Avoiding the genocide issue in this resolution is as serious as
the open denial of Mr. Elmaci. In fact, it constitutes a form of
denial that is more perverse and now more prevalent, that is denial
by omission," added Leylekian.

"We call on the CDA party to treat Mrs. Oomen-Ruijten’s case with
the same moral demands it made with Mr. Elmaci, i.e. by charging her
to comply with her own party line in the combat against any form of
denial," concluded Leylekian.