MENTIONING OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IS NO LONGER PROSECUTED IN TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Turkish parliament has approved the amendments on June 29, but the President has not signed the law yet. As it is known, the amendments in the criminal code were initiated by the Prime Minister of Turkey Rejeb Erdogan. This allows to suppose that there will be no problems with the final approval of the document. Two points were excluded from the article 305 which is entitled "offences against fundamental national interests of Turkey". The first point prescribed punishment for calls for the withdrawal of the Turkish Army from Cyprus and the second point that was excluded from the text of the article prescribed legal persecution for the mentioning of Armenian genocide. It should be reminded that the reform of the Turkish criminal code was made not long ago, but at that time both of the mentioned points were kept in the document without any considerable changes.

However it is notable that Turkish authorities perceived the criminal code article concerning the punishments for the mentioning of Armenian genocide as a preventive measure rather than a punitive mechanism. The thing is that throughtout the existence of the shameful article in the criminal code there has been only one case when an action was brought against a citizen who dared to qualify the events of 1915 as genocide. Only the existence of the article was undoubtedly a restricting factor and even the most objective and principal Turkish historians and right protectors did not risk to call things by their proper names and qualify the massacres of 1915 as genocide. At the same time Turkish authorities did not hurry to imprison those courageous people. They preferred to pretend not to notice their actions "offending fundamental national interests of Turkey". This was for example the case with the well-known writer Orkhan Pamuk who plucked up his courage and shared with his compatriots about the monstrous crimes of the Young Turks against Armenians. The term "genocide" has repeatedly come from the lips and the pen of the writer. But Turkish authorities did not try to concentrate on that. The reason is clear. Erdogan did not want to tease Europeans on the eve of the negotiations on Turkey's possible EU membership.

But for all that, the authorities brought an action for the "propaganda of the invented Armenian genocide". The thing took place in February, however the "crime" itself was committed yet in November, 2004. The crime consisted in the fact that during some official ceremony the well-known attorney Madani Ayhan said, "In 1915 the Ottman Empire played a great role in the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians who struggled for unification and prosperity. I bow down before the beautiful and oppressed Armenian people and join them in their grief". This is what was done by Ayhan who was called for criminal responsibility fraught with three years of imprisonment.

While, in Turkey they agree not to imprison people who speak aloud about Armenian genocide, in Europe they think of introducing criminal responsibility against those who try to cast doubt on the fact of Armenian genocide…