GENOCIDE VOTE SPARKS PROTESTS

SBS – World News Australia, Australia
Oct 12 2007

Turkish workers have taken to the streets of Istanbul to protest
against a US ruling that the deaths of Armenians during the Second
World War was genocide.

Members of the left-wing Workers Party waved flags, chanted slogans and
carried placards proclaiming "Genocide is a lie and it’s an American
game" as they marched through the city on Thursday.

Their demonstration was sparked by US Congress’s passing of a bill
describing the killing of Armenians as genocide, despite intense
lobbying by Turkish officials and opposition from U.S. President
George W. Bush.

Many Turkish people consider the move an insult, and the Turkish
government – long an ally of America – has warned the US may face
consequences as a result.

"Insulting Turkishness’

Addressing the crowd of protesters in Istanbul, Erkan Onsel, the
Vice President of the Labour Party, said that by passing the bill,
"the US has made it clear once again that it targets Turkey."

Armenians say up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic
genocide between 1915-17, before modern Turkey came into being in 1923.

Turkey says the killings occurred at a time of civil unrest as the
Ottoman Empire was falling apart, and that the numbers are inflated.

Meanwhile, two journalists have been handed suspended jail sentences
for a newspaper article in which they referred to the Armenian murders
as genocide.

Arat Dink, the son of murdered Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink,
and Sarkis Seropyan, the proprietor of the Agos newspaper, were each
given one-year suspended terms for insulting Turkishness.

Controversial ruling

They were charged under a controversial law – article 301 of the
country’s penal code – which critics say severely limits freedom of
speech in Turkey.

At a news conference on Thursday, lawyer Fethiye Cetin said the pair
were charged just for publishing a story in their newspaper.

"This verdict shows that in Turkey to make a news story about Hrant
Dink, who says that there was an Armenian genocide in 1915, is a
crime," she told reporters outside Istanbul’s courthouse.

The European Union, which Turkey wants to join, has repeatedly urged
Ankara to scrap article 301, under which Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk
has also been tried.

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