JURIST
Feb 22 2007
France Senate ducks Armenian genocide bill
Joshua Pantesco at 1:12 PM ET
[JURIST] Lawmakers in the French Senate have buried a draft bill
that would have criminalized any denial that the mass killings of
Armenians in Turkey during World War I constituted genocide. The bill
has been taken off the Senate agenda, and as presidential and
legislative elections are scheduled for April through June, the new
National Assembly would have to hold a second vote on the bill to
place it back on the agenda. EUobserver has more.
French lawmakers first tried to pass the bill last May, but the
legislative session ended before parliament could agree on its terms.
When the debate came up again in October, the Turkish parliament
threatened to pass a similar bill labeling the colonial killings of
Algerians by French authorities as genocide and making it illegal to
deny France’s culpability. The National Assembly eventually passed
the bill. France, home to thousands of Armenians, has already
recognized the 1915-1919 killings as genocide. Turkey denies the
genocide label, saying the killings were part of a partisan war in
which many Muslim Turks died as well.
02/france-senate-ducks-armenian-genocide.php
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
