29/02/2012 12:26
Sarkozy orders to draft a law punishing Armenian Genocide denial
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has ordered his government to draft a new law punishing denial of the Armenian genocide after a top court struck down a previous bill, says the BBC.
The law passed by France's parliament in December makes it a crime to deny that the killings of some 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted genocide. The council ruled the law would violate freedom of expression and speech, which are guaranteed by the French constitution, the Associated Press reports.
Taking into consideration the “great disappointment and profound sadness” of the law’s supporters, Sarkozy’s office issued a statement saying:
“The President of the Republic considers that [genocide] denial is intolerable and must therefore be punished. He has asked the government to prepare a new draft taking into account the decision of the Constitutional Court,” reports the Global Post referring to the BBC.
"We have been totally outraged by the Constitutional Council's decision at its very core, which is based on politics rather than on legal grounds," said Franck Mourad Papazian, president of the Council of Coordination of Armenian Organizations in France.
Relations between France and Turkey have suffered since the law's passage, with Turkey suspending its military and economic cooperation with France after the lower house approval of the measure in December. The French Senate gave the law the green light in late January.
In a written statement, Ahmet Davutoglu said he hopes France adopts "a constructive approach in regard to the handling of the conflict between Turkey and Armenia in a just and scientific manner and contributes to its solution rather than deepening it."
"Such an approach would contribute to improvement of Turkish-French relations in every field," Davutoglu said.
France's relations with Turkey were already strained, in large part because Sarkozy opposes Turkey's entry into the European Union.