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Caucasian Muslims Office: French decision targets whole Turkic world

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  • Caucasian Muslims Office: French decision targets whole Turkic world

    International Islamic News Agency IINA
    Dec 28 2011


    Caucasus/Turkey: Caucasian Muslims Office: French decision targets
    whole Turkic world
    By IINA- December 28, 2011



    BAKU, 2 Safar/28 Dec (IINA)- The Baku-based Caucasian Muslims Office
    has said a recent decision of the French National Assembly to penalize
    deniers of Armenian claims of genocide targets not only Turkey but the
    whole Turkic world.

    Caucasian Muslims Office Chairman Sheikh-ul-Islam Haji Allahshukur
    Pashazadeh issued a written statement on Wednesday in which he
    strongly criticized last week's French move to make it a crime to deny
    that the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians constituted
    genocide. Stating that the decision was taken against not only Turkey
    but also Azerbaijan and the whole Turkic world, he said the approval
    of the bill, `which was taken under the influence of the Armenian
    lobby in France, is dangerous and against democracy.'

    Noting that the decision `fails to strengthen peace and justice,
    distorts history and plants seeds of hate,' he said the French move
    would `lead to gross damage and tragedy.'

    Stating that the decision cast a shadow on France's impartiality in
    the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute as a member of the Minsk Group, he called
    on France to approach such issues objectively.

    France, along with the US and Russia, co-chairs the Organization for
    Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group, which has
    been trying to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute since the 1990s but
    has thus far failed to provide a viable solution to the issue.

    Pashazadeh also called on French President Nicolas Sarkozy and members
    of the senate to strike down the bill.

    The lower house of the French parliament voted last week in favor of
    the controversial bill penalizing the denial of the alleged Armenian
    genocide, ignoring massive Turkish protests against the measure.

    The bill sets a punishment of up to a year in prison and a fine of
    45,000 Euros ($59,000) for those who deny or `outrageously minimize'
    the alleged genocide of Armenians in eastern Anatolia during the final
    years of the Ottoman Empire, putting such action on par with denial of
    the Holocaust.

    The measure now needs to be passed in the senate, the upper house of
    parliament, before it will come into effect.

    AH/IINA

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