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French Senators Block Armenia Genocide Law

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  • French Senators Block Armenia Genocide Law

    FRENCH SENATORS BLOCK ARMENIA GENOCIDE LAW

    yerkir.am
    15:35 - 31.01.2012

    A group of French senators said Tuesday they had asked the
    constitutional council to examine a new law that punishes denial of
    the Armenian genocide, effectively suspending the legislation.

    Turkey reacted furiously last week when the Senate approved the law
    which threatens with jail anyone in France who denies that the 1915
    massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turk forces amounted to genocide.

    President Nicolas Sarkozy's office last Tuesday brushed off angry
    threats of retaliation by Turkey and vowed to enforce the law within
    a fortnight.

    But the left-wing group of senators said Tuesday they had gathered
    76 signatures from senators opposed to the law, more than the minimum
    60 required to ask the council to examine the law's constitutionality.

    The council is obliged to deliver its judgement within a month,
    but this can be reduced to eight days if the government deems the
    matter urgent.

    Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denounced the law as
    "tantamount to discrimination and racism".

    On Tuesday he hailed the French senators' move, speaking on television.

    Erdogan has warned that his Islamist-rooted government would punish
    Paris with unspecified retaliatory measures if Sarkozy, whose
    right-wing UMP party initiated the bill, signed it into law.

    France has already officially recognized the killings as a genocide,
    but the new law would go further by punishing anyone who denies this
    with up to a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros ($57,000).

    Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their forebears were killed in
    1915 and 1916 by the forces of Turkey's former Ottoman Empire.

    Turkey disputes the figure, arguing that 500,000 died, and denies this
    was genocide, ascribing the toll to fighting and starvation during
    World War I and accusing the Armenians of siding with Russian invaders.

    Armenia hailed the passage of the bill through the French Senate,
    with President Serzh Sarkisian writing in a letter to Sarkozy:
    "France has reaffirmed its greatness and power, its devotion to
    universal human values."

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