Turkish official denied Armenian Genocide at conferance in Oslo
07.06.2009 00:39 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ At a panel discussion on the limits of laws on
Holocaust Denial at the International Freedom of Expression Exchange
Conference in Oslo, Norway on Friday, a Turkish consulate official
interrupted a discussion on the denial of the Armenian Genocide,
claiming that Armenians were brutally murdered and deported from their
homeland for treason, Asbarez reports.
A person describing himself as an official at the Turkish consulate in
Norway, objected to the use of the word `genocide’ used by speakers to
describe both what happened to Jews in the Third Reich and what
happened to Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.
`They were not deported because they were Armenians or because of
their race, but because they collaborated with the enemy,’ the
official claimed.
But thousands of pages of official government archives from the United
States, Russia, France, Germany, and even Turkey, point to the
indisputable fact that in 1915 the Ottoman Turkish government set out
to annihilate the indigenous Armenian population inhabiting the lands
under its dominion not for collusion, but for being Armenian.
Between 1915-1923, the government executed a systematic campaign to
exterminate the Armenian people and remove them from their historic
homeland. The Armenian Genocide, recognized as the first genocide of
the 20th century by historians the world over, resulted in the death
of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians and the loss of millions of
dollars in property and land now under occupation by the Republic of
Turkey.
But talking about this history is a crime in Turkey. According to
Turkish publisher Ragip Zarakolu, who spoke at the panel, Articles 301
and 305 of the Turkish Penal Code prevent people from discussing the
Armenian genocide. Zarakolu, the owner of Belge Publications, has
himself been convicted under Article 301 for `denigrating the Turkish
state or state organs’ and for `inciting hatred and hostility.’
Zarakolu said that these `laws encourage denial.’
But the consulate official disagreed, arguing that Article 301 and
other such laws were designed to `protect the unity of their territory
and security.’