{"id":481,"date":"2014-02-25T02:13:51","date_gmt":"2014-02-24T22:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/armeniancause.net\/?p=481"},"modified":"2014-02-25T02:23:18","modified_gmt":"2014-02-24T22:23:18","slug":"turkey-rights-group-disappointed-in-echr-decision-urges-appeal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/armeniancause.net\/?p=481","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Rights Group Disappointed in ECHR Decision, Urges Appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL, Turkey (A.W.)–The Human Rights Association (HRA) in Turkey issued a letter addressed to the Swiss Minister of Justice, expressing the organization’s disappointment with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Armenian Genocide denial.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“As human rights defenders in Turkey, we are the most immediate, most direct witnesses of how the denial of the genocide against Amenians and other Christian ethnic groups of Asia Minor has right from the start generated an anti-democratic system, allowing racist hatred, hate crimes and violation of the freedom of expression and the human rights in general,\u201d argued HRA in a copy of the letter received by the Armenian Weekly.<\/p>\n

HRA concluded: \u201cIn the name of human rights, of the struggle against racist hatred and of justice in Turkey and elsewhere, we would like to express our belief that the Swiss Court\u2019s decision to penalize Do\u011fu Perin\u00e7ek\u2019s denialism was a step to protect us all, the entire humanity against racism, and our heartfelt support to Swiss Court\u2019s exercising its right to appeal against the ECHR decision dated 17 December 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n

Below is the full text of the letter.<\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/p>\n

To:<\/b><\/p>\n

Mrs. Simonetta Sommaruga <\/b><\/p>\n

Minister of Justice and Police of the Swiss Confederation<\/p>\n

Prof. Dr. Frank Sch\u00fcrmann<\/b><\/p>\n

Chief of the Division European Law and International Protection of Human Rights, the Federal Office for Justice<\/p>\n

We, as the Human Rights Association in Turkey (HRA), are writing this letter to you to express our disappointment at the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) decision dated 17 December 2013 rejecting the Swiss court decisions of 2007 to penalize Do\u011fu Perin\u00e7ek\u2019s denial of the Armenian genocide and our unconditional and firm support of Swiss jurisdiction\u2019s using its right to appeal against ECHR\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

As human rights defenders in Turkey, we are the most immediate, most direct witnesses of how the denial of the genocide against Armenians and other Christian ethnic groups of Asia Minor has right from the start generated an anti-democratic system, allowing racist hatred, hate crimes and violation of the freedom of expression and the human rights in general.<\/p>\n

In the case of the successive governments of the Republic of Turkey, the ultra-nationalists and the Turkish public loyal to the official thesis, denial is not just to say \u201cWe didn’t do it\u201d or \u201cWhat we did was no genocide.\u201d Here in Turkey denial means criminalizing the victims and encouraging hatred towards Armenians. In other words denial becomes the continuation of the genocide and the genocidal intent in Turkey. In order to deny the genocide, the system argues and urges the society to believe that:<\/p>\n

(i) It is the Armenians to blame, i.e., they deserved what they got.<\/p>\n

(ii) Armenians are the enemies of Turkish people.<\/p>\n

(iii) Armenians stabbed the Ottomans and the Turks in the back, they are treacherous and what was done to them was a war-time necessity for the survival of Turkey.<\/p>\n

(iv) Armenians, both at home and abroad, are still a threat to the Republic of Turkey and Turks.<\/p>\n

Not a passive, peaceful denial but aggressive onslaught<\/b><\/p>\n

Consequently in Turkey denial is not just a passive position, but it is an active aggression, creating a racist environment fully exposed to sheer violence. This has paved the way for Armenians in Turkey to be treated as a \u201cfifth column\u201d throughout the Republican history, to be discriminated against, to be destined to lead their lives in constant fear as their lives were threatened during various nationalist upheavals and pogroms that took place during the Republican period. The word \u201cArmenian\u201d has become a word of curse so widespread to include an interior minister of the Republic who openly used it in public (in 1997 by Meral Ak\u015fener). This racist hateful environment led to not only verbal but physical assaults on Armenians. Hrant Dink, the chief editor of Agos<\/i>, the first and only Armenian weekly newspaper published in Turkish in Republican history, and a prominent supporter of human rights, democracy and freedom of expression was assassinated in cold blood in 2007, although he had always been against hatred and animosity on the part of Armenians towards Turks, advocating instead a reconciliatory stance of mutual understanding. The Armenian private Sevag \u015eahin Bal\u0131k\u00e7\u0131, was shot dead on 24 April 2011 (i.e. on the day when Armenians worldwide commemorate the beginning of the genocide of 1915) while doing his military service in the Turkish army in southeast province Batman by another Turkish private. The investigation leading to trial was totally untrustworthy, as the witnesses\u2019 superiors putting pressure on them to confirm the suspect\u2019s statement that it was an \u201caccident\u201d was reported in the newspapers. The court decided that the intentional murder was a result of \u201cgross carelessness,\u201d disregarding all evidence that it was a hate crime, and sentenced the suspect to only 5 years\u2019 imprisonment. Another incident took place on 26 February 2012 when, orchestrated by Turkish and Azerbaijani governments, a big demonstration took place on Taksim square, the largest and most central square in Istanbul, for condemning the \u201cKhojaly Genocide,\u201d the massacre of civilians in Karabagh that Armenian and former Soviet troops allegedly committed ten years before. During the rally, which was announced days before by means of posters bearing the slogan: \u201cDon\u2019t believe Armenian lies\u201d posted all throughout Istanbul, anti-Armenian slogans containing hate speech were chanted and professionally printed signs that read \u201cYou are all Armenians, you are all bastards\u201d were carried, in reaction to the slogan \u201cWe are all Armenians,\u201d which had been chanted at the funeral of Hrant Dink. In 2013, within one and a half month, four elderly Armenian women were attacked in Samatya, a neighborhood with a high agglomeration of Armenians, cruelly beaten, until one of them died from heavy beating with numerous deep fatal cuts on her body inflicted by a sharp object. In short, persistent denial of genocide is the main reason for the Armenians’ threatened existence in Turkey, a reason provided by the official narrative itself.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the ECHR decision establishes that the Armenian genocide is somehow disputable, arguing that the denial of events which are not qualified as a genocide cannot provoke racist hatred.<\/p>\n

However this is not what Do\u011fu Perin\u00e7ek and the \u201cTalaat Pasha Committee\u201d (named after Talaat, the main author of the Armenian genocide), of which he is one of the leaders have been doing since the Committee\u2019s inception. They deny all the sufferings and horrible massacres\u2014genocide or not\u2014and thus openly insult the victims and their descendants. They deny all the sufferings of the Armenian people under Turkish rule and declare that what had happened to them is an \u201cimperialist lie.\u201d They deny the extermination of the Armenian people and their civilization, playing a vital role in the Ottoman Empire not only demographically, but economically, culturally. In other words, it is not a question of naming what happened to Armenians, it is a question of denying their very existence, their historical heritage and the enormous contribution they made to the country they were an integral part of.<\/p>\n

Talaat Pasha Committee already condemned by the European Parliament<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps most important of all, is the European Parliament\u2019s resolution dated 27 September 2006 on the EC Progress Report on Turkey, where Turkey was called to put an end to the racist and xenophobic Talaat Pasha Committee\u2019s activities. The according paragraph reads: \u201c[The European Parliament] strongly condemns the xenophobic and racist Talaat Pacha Committee, run by extreme right-wing organisations, for gravely infringing European principles, and the denialist demonstrations in Lyon and Berlin organised by those same organisations; calls on Turkey to abolish this committee and to end its activities.\u201d <\/b>(See: http:\/\/www.europarl.europa.eu\/sides\/getDoc.do?pubRef=-\/\/EP\/\/TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2006-0381+0+DOC+XML+V0\/\/EN#def_1_2<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It is clear that the Talaat Pasha Committee where Do\u011fu Perin\u00e7ek was one of the founders and leaders was condemned with the above words by the European Parliament itself. We, as the human rights defenders of Turkey would expect the ECHR to take into consideration the European Parliament\u2019s official views as referred to above.<\/p>\n

Coming back to the ECHR decision, we would like to draw your attention to the opposing opinion of two ECHR judges. The main arguments in their dissenting opinion were (paraphrased by ourselves in English based on the original document in French) as follows:<\/p>\n