The French Senate has just started the discussion on the bill banning the denial of the Armenian Genocide. While the discussion takes place, the representatives of both the Armenian and the Turkish side protest outside the Senate. According to Hürriyet Daily News, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken an oath not to visit France any more, if the Senate passes the bill.
In turkologist Artak Shakaryan’s opinion, if the Senate makes a positive decision, Turkey will start anti-French hysteria, as it was in December when the bill was passed in the National Assembly. However, the turkologist noted during a conversation with Aravot.am that it would not be in Turkey’s interest to break ties with that country, “But we can say that this way or another, the relations between Turkey and Europe have become considerably worse. Today an aspect of the Turkish-French relations is also the relations of the two countries in North Africa and the Middle East, in particular Syria, where the Turkish-French cold war is conducted, because those countries have previously been under the French control and today Turkey has considerable influence over those countries, which France certainly doesn’t like.”
Referring to the decision made by the Legal Commission of the French Senate, finding the bill unconstitutional and to the question whether it would have an impact on the final ratification by the Senate, A. Shakaryan expressed hope that it would not have a negative impact on the decision and the Senate would give a positive answer, “Since the bill more or less concerns the right to freedom of speech, France, where the right to freedom of speech has rather extreme manifestations and certainly is perceived dubiously. And since the bill was put forward by Sarkozy, forces opposing the latter try to impede the bill put forward by their political opponent in this way or another.” Our interlocutor is convinced that if France that followed the example of Switzerland, passes the bill, Holland and Belgium, as well as a set of other European countries will follow that country, “We see that such a bill is put forward also in Germany. I hope that it will spread throughout a set of Western countries, producing the domino effect.”
Let us remind that the Turkish Prime Minister, as well as some Armenian human rights advocates, still thinks that the bill contradicts the right to the freedom of speech and other human rights. In this regard the turkologist said, “Despite that information, it is stupid to say that it is an infringement of the right to freedom of speech, because the bill doesn’t prevent someone’s phrase like ‘I think that there was no genocide.’ But it criticizes and perceives a crime the denial of the Armenian Genocide, using offensive and humiliating phrases against Armenians. I.e. if today someone inFrance,Germanyor in any other place says as if Hitler did the right thing when he slaughtered Jews and that there was no Holocaust at all, Jews made it up, certainly, that man will face a trial in all countries. The same thing applies to the Armenian Genocide. If someone, a Turkish historian tries to claim in the French press that the Armenian Genocide is a tale and in reality Armenians slaughtered Turks, that’s what will be criticized and not if someone says during a discussion with his friend on a bus ‘I don’t think there was a genocide, perhaps they killed not one million, but 200 thousand’, it is just a wrong perception of the law.”
