A couple of days ago, Armenian delegates and the people of Armenia reched a victory from the moral point: the French parliament approved the bill penalizing anyone in France who denies the Armenian Genocide with 106 for and 19 against votes. In fact, the exception of making a change in the bill and not making historians and researchers obey the law wasn’t approved, so that they could continue their research.
According to the law, the person who denies the Armenian Genocide will be sentenced to one year in prison and will have to pay a 45,000 Euro fee. The French Senate has to approve this in order for the law to be in effect nad has to be signed by the President of France Jacques Chirac. Turkey had warned France beforehand that the approval of the law could hurt French-Turkish relations. The Turkish Prime Minister called this decision made by France as a “great shame” and a “big flaw for the freedom of speech.” The Turkish Foreign Minsiter said: “Don’t think that Turkey is going to let this pass.” The announcement of the Foreign Ministry also states that “France gave a blow to Turkey with its wrong initiatives based on the claims of its narrow-minded political figures”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan also sent a statement which states: “Unfortunately, instead of contributing to the establishment of peace and stability, Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora continue to play a non-constructive role in the region what with the current situation at hand.” Director of Aliev’s foreign relations department Novruz Mamedov is of the opinoin that the French parliament is “under the influence of Armenia”. Mamedov believes that the approved bill hurts France first and foremost. As for press speader fo the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zhan Batist Mastei, he says that France is “interested” in a dialogue with Turkey. He once again expressed the opinion of the French government, according to which the bill penalizing those who deny the Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-1917 is “temporary and unnecessary”. The European Commission has criticized the approval of the bill by the French parliament. “If this law goes into effect, it will prohibit the debates and dialogues, which are necessary in order to come to terms,” said speaker for the executive body for the European Union’s broadening issues department Kristina Neigi. According to her, the standards for membership are the same for all candidate countries that want to become members of the European Union. “For Turkey, recognition of the Armenian Genocide is not a prerequisite,” said the speaker. As for deputy leasder of the Turkish delegation at the EU Andrew Duff, he thinks that the bill, which was recently approved in France goes against the European legislation of human rights. Duff calls on the French Senate to disapprove the law. “The French parliament has violated the freedom of speech. It has gone against the European Convention of Human Rights, which is the basis of the EU,” said Duff. According to hi, France hurt Armenian-Turkish relations with the approval of this bill. Editor of the Turkish “Akos” paper of Istanbul Hrant Dink, the approved law “won’t help the Armenians to have the world recognize the Armenian Genocide.” “The Turks are being deprived of the right to have freedom of speech and they claim that. I think that we are hurting ourselves by going along with this decision,” said Hrant Dink during an interview with “Azatutyun” radio station. “I was called to the Turkish court because I said that what happened was Genocide. My trial starts in March 2007, but if this law is approved by the French Senate, I’ll say that the opposite of what I said. I’ll say that knowing that I’m not telling the truth. This is not denial, but rather protection of the freedom of speech,” said the Turk journalist. EU commissioner of foreign relations Benita Ferero-Waldner is of the opinion that the approval of the bill by the French parliament won’t have an influence on the process of Turkey’s admission into the European Union. Foreign presses have touched upon the approval of the bill. “The New York Times” writes that the French government is against the bill. “Washington Post” writes that “the hard relations between Turkey and Europe were presented in two capital cities.” “The best Turk writer received a Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm for his contribution in the field of literature, while the French deputies approved a bill which considers the denial of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1917 a felony,” writes the “Washington Post”. According to “Comersant”, “France compared the Armenians with the Jews”. The newspaper also writes that if the bill penalizing anyone that denies the Armenian Genocide gets approved as a law, the European Court of Human Rights may sue France because the court is competent to force Paris to consider the law as invalid. “Besides that, if the Committee of Ministers of the EU consider France’s activities as illegal, it can threaten France to leave the European Parliament,” writes the paper. “Gardian” says that Ataturk, whose adopted daugher was one of the Armenian girls that was saved during the deportations, publicly said that she doesn’t accept the truth-“perhaps because o shame of what the Armenian soldiers did when she was still fighting against the British forces in Galipoli.” The “Gazette” paper writes that a group of Turk parliamentarians have made a proposal of approving a bill for the so-called “Algerian Genocide”, according to which anyone that doesn’t recognize the massacres of the Algerians by French forces during the years 1952-1962 as genocide must be penalized by paying a 50,000 Euro fee and be sentenced to five years in prison. “Even if the French bill passes as a law, how is it going to be applied? How can the courts fight against the thousands of Turks with French citizenship who deny the Armenian Genocide?” says a student from the “Sabanji” university in Istanbul Gizem Oztok. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan has also touched upon the approval of the bill. He considers the approval as “the right of the French parliament.” According to Oskanyan, it’s hard to understand why Turkey is motivating the society to counterattack, especially when Turkey has its own law according to which anyone that uses the word genocide or dares to discuss that issue is penalized. Oskanyan emphasized the fact that the French Senate’s decision was the “continuation of France’s principal and decisive defense of human and historical rights and values.” Students of the Yerevan State University and the youth wing of the Hnchakyan party organized a march from the “Freedom” square towards the French Embassy where they thanked the French parliament for the appoval of the bill. The French Ambassador to Armenia Henry Cuni personally came out of the embassy and met with the youth. In his speech, he said that it’s high time for Armenian youth “to think about relations with Turkey”. “It’s very important for any country to have good relations with good countries,” said the ambassador. In any case, many are of the opinion that the bill approved by the French Senate is not a victory for Armenian diplomacy or France’s respect towards Armenians, but rather it’s trying to create more obstacles for Turkey to get admitted into the European Union.