French MPs vote to criminalize denial of Armenian Genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net - French MPs on Friday, July 1 voted unanimously to penalize denial or trivialization of all crimes against humanity, including the Armenian Genocide, Le Fogaro reports.

The amendment of a previous law, adopted in the first reading, criminalizes denial with one year imprisonment and a €45,000 fine.

Francois Hollande had promised to criminalize the denial of the Genocide during his election campaign, after a previous law criminalizing denial of the crime was censored in February 2012.

The crimes included in the text are genocides, "other crimes against humanity," "the crime of enslavement and exploitation of an enslaved person" and "war crimes," according to the voted amendment.

Documents published by Nouvelles d’Armenie magazine in 2015 revealed a collusion between a member of the French Constitutional Council and a former Turkish foreign minister at the time the highest judicial body in France was discussing the law criminalizing the denial of the Armenian Genocide.