PERINCEK CRITICIZES SWITZERLAND FOR NOT PROVIDING VISA
New Anatolian, Turkey
June 28 2007
Dogu Perincek, the leader of the Turkish Workers’ Party (IP), Thursday
criticized Switzerland for not providing a visa to him so that he
will be able to appeal a court case to defend himself.
Perincek said he plans to go Switzerland to appeal the verdict at the
Federal Tribunal, Switzerland’s supreme court after a Swiss appeals
court has confirmed the sentence against him who was convicted of
racism for denying that the early 20th century deaths of Armenians
was genocide. "I will meet my lawyer to finalize our preparations
regarding the case," he said.
He also noted that he is to attend a conference in Winterthur, which
will be followed by press members across Europe.
"We are facing a very interesting situation," he said. The Swiss
government which has tried me, does not give a visa to me so that
I will have chance to defend myself. This hesitation in providing
a visa to me shows how unjust their attitude is. Penalizing those
who do not accept Armenian lies is just a medieval application. How
will the Swiss authorities judge someone who can’t enter Swiss soil,
who can’t meet his lawyer in Switzerland or someone who can’t even
present his petitions to authorities?"
He also urged officials to end this unfriendly approach and provide
him a visa.
Perincek was charged with breaking Swiss law by denying during a visit
to Switzerland in 2005 that the World War I-era deaths of up to 1.5
million Armenians amounted to genocide. He has since repeated the
claim, including during his trial earlier on March. Perincek accused
the judge of "racial hatred" toward Turkey and said he would appeal the
verdict with Switzerland’s Supreme Court. Perincek also said that he
would take his case to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.
The IP leader, who submitted 90 kilograms of historical documents,
argued there had been no genocide against Armenians, but there had been
"reciprocal massacres."
The case was seen as a test of whether it is a violation of
Switzerland’s anti-racism law to deny that the Turks committed
genocide in the deaths. The legislation has previously been applied
to Holocaust denial.
The case has caused diplomatic tension between the Alpine republic and
Turkey, which insists Armenians were killed in civil unrest during
the tumultuous collapse of the Ottoman Empire and not in a planned
campaign of genocide.
Turkey has called the case against Perincek "inappropriate, baseless
and debatable in every circumstance." In a written statement on May the
Turkish Foreign Ministry expressed Ankara’s uneasiness with the Swiss
court’s decision. Saying that the decision would not be accepted by
Turkey, the statement added, "We hope that decision will be corrected
by independent Swiss judicial officials which we believed that there
were in Switzerland."
Turkey strongly opposes the claims that its predecessor state, the
Ottoman government, caused the Armenian deaths in a planned genocide.
The Turkish government has said the toll is wildly inflated and that
Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the empire’s
collapse and conditions of World War I. Ankara’s proposal to Yerevan
to set up a joint commission of historians to study the disputed
events is still awaiting a positive response from the Armenian side.
After French lawmakers voted last October to make it a crime to deny
that the claims were genocide, Turkey said it would suspend military
relations with France.