TURKISH POLITICIAN LOSES FINAL APPEAL AGAINST SWISS RACISM CONVICTION, HIGH COURT SAYS

Associated Press Worldstream
December 19, 2007 Wednesday 3:03 PM GMT

Switzerland’s highest court confirmed the sentence against a Turkish
politician convicted of racism for denying that the early 20th century
killing of Armenians was genocide, according to a ruling published
by the court Wednesday.

Dogu Perincek, the leader of the Turkish Workers’ Party, lost his final
appeal in Swiss courts against the conviction by a lower tribunal
in March and a fine of 3,000 Swiss francs ($2US,450; euro1,870). He
now will appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights,
according to the office of his lawyer, Laurent Moreillon.

Perincek, who was also given a suspended penalty of 9,000 francs
($7US,360; euro5,600) and ordered to pay 1,000 francs ($820US; euro620)
to an Armenian association, had repeatedly denied during a visit to
Switzerland in 2005 that the World War I-era killings of up to 1.5
million Armenians amounted to genocide.

The Federal Tribunal said in its ruling that many historians, the
European Parliament and numerous national parliaments considered the
killings as genocide. In literature, the slaughter is mentioned as
a classic example of genocide, the tribunal said.

The case was seen as a test of whether Switzerland’s anti-racism law
can be invoked against someone who denies that the Turks committed
genocide in the killings. The legislation has previously been applied
to Holocaust denial.

The case has caused diplomatic tension between Switzerland and
Turkey, which insists Armenians were killed in civil unrest during
the tumultuous collapse of the Ottoman Empire and not in a planned
campaign of genocide.

Turkey has called the case against Perincek "inappropriate, baseless
and debatable in every circumstance."