MWC News, Canada
March 9 2007
Turk convicted of genocide denial
By Agencies
Perincek called the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in
1915 ‘an international lie’ [AFP]
A court in Switzerland has found Dogu Perincek, head of the Turkish
Workers’ Party, guilty of denying that mass killings of Armenians by
Ottoman Turks in 1915 amounted to genocide.
Perincek was given a 90-day suspended jail sentence and fined 3,000
Swiss francs ($2,461) on Friday in the first such conviction in the
country.
The 65-year-old politician, whose party has no seats in the Turkish
parliament, called the Armenian genocide "an international lie"
during a speech in the Swiss city of Lausanne in July 2005.
He was convicted under a 1995 law which bans denying, belittling or
justifying any genocide.
Perincek, who submitted 90kg of historical documents in his defence,
argued there had been no genocide against the Armenians, but that
there had been "reciprocal massacres".
Armenian deaths
Armenia says about 1.5 million Armenians died in the killings, while
Turkey says the deaths were the result of inter-ethnic fighting,
disease and famine in which both sides suffered.
"This decision that was taken by the tribunal … is a racist
decision, an imperialist decision. This decision is against our
country our history and our nation," Memet Bedri, vice-president of
the Turkish Workers’ Party, told Al Jazeera.
It was the first time that Switzerland’s 1995 anti-racism law has
been applied to the massacre of Armenians, Doris Angst of
Switzerland’s official anti-racism watchdog, said.
Tamar Hacoyan of Switzerland’s Armenian association, welcomed the
court’s verdict.
"We feel very relieved with this decision because this is the first
time, at a world level, that a court has decided that the Armenian
genocide is without doubt," she said.
In 2001, a court in the capital Bern acquitted 12 Turks facing
similar charges.
However, two years later the Swiss lower house of parliament formally
recognised the massacre of Armenians during the First World War as
genocide, despite fierce protests from Turkey.