SMN Weekly
Jan 28 2015

Amal Clooney Represents Armenia in Genocide Trial in European Court

By Jessica Smith / January 28, 2015

Amal Clooney represents Armenia in a genocide trial in European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, beginning Wednesday against a
Turkish politician who denies the killing of 1.5 million Armenians in
1915.
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Mrs. Clooney will advise Armenia as they challenge the appeal of DoÄ?u
Perinçek, who was found guilty by a Swiss court in 2008 after calling
the 1915 genocide an `international lie’, during a visit to
Switzerland in 2005.

A lobby group called Switzerland-Armenia immediately filed a criminal
complaint against him in July as it is against Swiss law to deny the
genocide as part of the country’s anti-racism laws.

Perinçek, the leader of the Turkish Workers Party, was found guilty of
racial discrimination in 2007 in Switzerland. His appeal in Swiss
court was dismissed but he later appealed to the ECHR, which ruled
that Switzerland had violated his right to free expression in December
2013.

Mrs. Clooney represents Armenia to appeal the 2013 ruling by the ECHR
in which it ruled that Swiss law prohibiting the public denial of the
alleged Armenian genocide is a violation of freedom of speech.

Armenia claims the ECHR’s ruling on Perinçek’s appeal contains legal
and factual errors.

This April marks the 100th anniversary of the massacre of an estimated
1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks.

The 1915 killings are regarded by many historians as the first
genocide of the 20th century, and are said to have inspired Nazi
leader Adolf Hitler.

Turkey rejects the term `genocide,’ saying the death figure is
inflated and that people died on both sides as the Ottoman Empire
collapsed amid World War I.

Mrs. Clooney, 36, will attempt to refute testimony from countries,
like Turkey, which do not accept that the mass killing and forced
deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923 was an
act of genocide.

The appeal is Clooney’s first big case of 2015.

Last year, she represented one of three Al Jazeera journalists
imprisoned in Egypt. Amal also represented Greece in the country’s bid
to have the Elgin Marbles returned from the British Museum.