NEW HEARING OF PERINcEK VS. SWITZERLAND ON JAN. 28
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Jan 23 2015
Workers’ Party (Ä°P) Chairman Dogu Perincek. (Photo: Today’s Zaman)
January 23, 2015, Friday/ 17:58:52/ MULEYKE BARUTCU / ISTANBUL
The case of Workers’ Party (Ä°P) Chairman Dogu Perincek v. Switzerland,
which determined that calling the declaration of the mass killings
of Armenians during Ottoman rule in 1915 a genocide “an international
lie” cannot constitute a criminal offence in Switzerland, will again
be heard at the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) on Jan. 28.
The hearing comes after Switzerland’s objections were accepted by
the ECtHR. Switzerland is one of the countries that recognize the
1915 events that led to the mass killings of Armenian minorities of
the Ottoman Empire as genocide and accepted the law that legitimizes
its denial as crime. Perincek made statements during a lecture tour
in Switzerland in 2007 in the Swiss cities of Bern and Lozan calling
the Armenian genocide “an international lie.” A Swiss court charged
Perincek for violating the rules intentionally and sentenced him to
90 days imprisonment.
Turkey accepts that many Armenians died during World War I in Ottoman
Turkey in 1915 but denies that up to 1.5 million were killed and
that it constituted an act of genocide — a term used by many Western
historians, foreign parliaments and Armenians worldwide.
Perincek’s appeals against the Swiss judgment were rejected several
times, although later his sentence of imprisonment was replaced
with a fine. In 2008, Perincek appealed to the ECtHR claiming that
Switzerland was “limiting freedom of expression.” Perincek won the
case five years later on Dec. 17, 2013 when the ECtHR ruled against
Switzerland, determining that denying that the mass killings of
Armenians in 1915 amounted to a genocide was not a criminal offence.
In 2014, human rights organizations called for the Swiss government to
reject the ECtHR’s decision. In June of the same year Switzerland’s
appeal was accepted by the ECtHR, with a hearing date scheduled for
Jan. 28, 2015.
Eren Keskin, head of the Human Rights Association (Ä°HD), which will be
heard as a third-party intervention during the hearing, has said that
the issue is not whether the Armenian genocide should be recognized
legally but instead whether, “Perincek’s expressions pave the way to
racism and discrimination.”