NETHERLANDS’ CDA PARTY REBUKES ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIERS
Financial Mirror, Cyprus
Oct 3 2007
The Christian-Democrat party in the Netherlands, the CDA (Christian
Democrat Appel), has announced that Osman Elmaci has been turned down
from taking a seat in the European Parliament due to his attitude
toward and his remarks denying the Armenian Genocide.
Elmaci, who had already been ousted from the last legislative elections
for the same reasons, was third behind the current MEP Joop Post, who
has resigned. He was to become a Member of the European Parliament
after the withdrawal of Bartho Pronk’s candidacy. CDA leaders,
already having a past record of principled stance against genocide
denial, vetoed this possibility. Post will finally be replaced by
Cornelis Visseur.
"We congratulate the CDA party for this courageous and visionary
political decision. Denial – under the pretext of ‘freedom of
expression’ – can only serve to perpetuate the racial hatred from
which it derives," declared Laurent Leylekian, Executive Director of
the European Armenian Federation in Brussels.
The EAF said it is actively working to make denialist hatred
a pan-European crime, as proposed in the framework decision on
racism and xenophobia recently adopted by the European Council. The
Federation notes that bills aimed at making the denial of the Armenian
Genocide a crime are under consideration in Belgium, France, and the
Netherlands. In the Netherlands, the project was initiated by Christen
Unie, a founding member of the government coalition. In Switzerland,
Dogu Perincek, a well-known denier of the Armenian Genocide has
already been condemned.
The EAF also noted that the rapporteur of the current resolution on
EU-Turkey relations, Oomen-Ruijten – who is also a member of the
CDA party – has attempted to evade the Armenian Genocide issue in
that resolution.
"Avoiding the genocide issue in this resolution is as serious as
the open denial of Mr. Elmaci. In fact, it constitutes a form of
denial that is more perverse and now more prevalent, that is denial
by omission," added Leylekian.
"We call on the CDA party to treat Mrs. Oomen-Ruijten’s case with
the same moral demands it made with Mr. Elmaci, i.e. by charging her
to comply with her own party line in the combat against any form of
denial," concluded Leylekian.