Foreign Ministry expresses concern over French law banning denial of Armenian genocide

The Foreign Ministry has expressed concern about the adoption of amendment to the Law on the Freedom of the Press that bans the denial of Armenian genocide. The ministry said that the amendment has the potential to pose the risk of unlawfully limiting the freedom of expression and is contrary to legal precedents from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Constitutional Council of France.French parliament last week unanimously passed a law banning the denial of the Armenian genocide and other crimes against humanity. The amendment states that the "denial or trivialization" of events such as genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or slavery will result in state-pursued legal action. According to the new amendment, denying Armenian genocide could result in a prison term of up to one year and a 45,000 euro fine.

"We have closely followed the preparation and adoption processes of the draft amendments to the Law on the Freedom of the Press that the French National Assembly adopted concerning criminalization of the denial of war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide under certain conditions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç said on Thursday.

"The draft law has the potential to pose the risk of limiting freedom of expression unlawfully, especially impinging on the laws of the ECtHR and the Constitutional Council of France," Bilgiç added.

France officially passed the Armenian Genocide Act in 2001, and first tried to ban its denial in 2012, but failed over claims made by the Constitutional Council, which said it would hinder freedom of expression.

Switzerland also considers denial of the Armenian genocide as a crime, and in 2007 Turkish politician Doğu Perinçek, who publicly called it an "international lie" while he was in Switzerland, was convicted by a Swiss court. In October 2015, after a long legal process, the ECtHR ruled that Switzerland violated Perinçek's right to freedom of speech by convicting him of rejecting the claim of genocide. The court said when Perinçek said the "Armenian genocide is a great international lie," he should not have been found guilty of racial discrimination in Switzerland. The court's judges said denying the genocide was not an attack on the dignity of individuals in the Armenian community.

"We will also follow closely the upcoming process in the French Senate in the near future regarding the draft, which has not yet been enacted. We expect the French Senate will remove the elements that may have the potential to pose the risk of limiting the freedom of expression from the draft," Bilgiç said in a statement.