Turkish politician had right to deny Armenia genocide (European Court of Human Rights)

The European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday that a Turkish politician should not have been prosecuted for denying that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turkey in 1915 was a genocide.

In a landmark free speech ruling, the ECHR judges ruled by 10 votes to seven that Dogu Perincek, chairman of Turkey's Patriotic Party, should never have been convicted of racial discrimination by a Swiss court for saying that the "Armenian genocide is a great international lie".

Perincek was convicted and fined in 2007 after a series of press conferences on the topic, which the ECHR ruled was an infringement on his right to free speech.

In its judgement, the court said Perincek's statements related to an issue of "public interest and did not amount to a call for hatred or intolerance... and could not be regarded as affecting the dignity of the members of the Armenian community to the point of requiring a criminal law response".

• The court made a clear distinction with Holocaust denial, whose specific history meant it could always be "seen as a form of incitement to racial hatred" in certain countries.

Its judges have earlier noted that the historical facts of the Holocaust, "such as the existence of gas chambers" were "considered clearly established by an international jurisdiction"...
i24news.tv
15/10/15