EUROPEAN ARMENIAN FEDERATION
for Justice and Democracy
Avenue de la Renaissance 10
B-1000 Bruxelles
Tel/ Fax: +32 2 732 70 27/26
Website :Eafjd
PRESS RELEASE
2nd October 2007
Contact : Varténie ECHO
Tel. / Fax. : +32 (0) 2 732 70 27
NETHERLANDS: CDA PARTY REBUKES GENOCIDE DENIERS
– Osman Elmaci, Armenian Genocide Denier, will not become a
Member of European Parliament
– The rapporteur on the current EU-Turkey resolution is also
a member of the CDA Party
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 Perinçek, 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.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
