French MPs pass 'genocide' bill

[Bordoy 0]

French MPs pass 'genocide' bill

Quote[/b] ]The French parliament has adopted a bill making it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered "genocide" at the hands of the Turks, infuriating Turkey.

The bill, which would make genocide denial punishable by a year in jail and a 45,000-euro ($56,400) fine, will now be passed to the Senate and president.

Turkey has threatened to retaliate with economic sanctions against France.

Armenia says Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million people systematically in 1915 - a claim strongly denied by Turkey.

Free vote

Turkey has been warning France for weeks not to pass the bill.

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Wednesday: "If this bill is passed, Turkey will not lose anything but France will lose Turkey. [France] will turn into a country that jails people who express their views."

The vote, in the lower house of the French parliament on Thursday morning, was sponsored by the opposition Socialist party.

The ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) did not back the law, but gave its deputies a free vote.

It passed by 106 votes to 19.

EU membership bid

The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says many Turks are angry at what they see as double standards in the EU, where opinions are sharply divided about whether Turkey should be allowed to join.

The official Turkish position states that many Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in fighting during World War I - but that there was no genocide.

France's President Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy have both said Turkey will have to change that position and recognise the Armenian deaths as genocide before it joins the EU.

Turks argue that while the EU is pressuring Turkey to improve its legislation to ensure full freedom of speech France seems to be moving in the opposite direction.

EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn urged France not to adopt the bill, which he said was "counterproductive".

Turkish politicians on Wednesday considered a law that would make it a crime to deny that French killings in Algeria in 1945 were genocide.

But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan objected, saying: "We are not like those who clean dirt with dirt."

France has about 500,000 people of Armenian descent - thought to be the largest Armenian immigrant community in western Europe.

There are accusations in Turkey that the Armenian diaspora and opponents of Turkey's EU membership bid are using this issue to prevent Turkey joining the 25-member bloc.

The Socialist MP and former minister Jack Lang helped to draft an existing French law which recognises that Armenians suffered genocide in Turkey.

But he told the BBC's World Today programme that the new bill was unnecessary.

"I cannot give my vote to a completely stupid law which will punish somebody who expressed free judgement concerning historical facts. It's not acceptable.

"We have to help Turkey to accept, progressively, what was history. I think that this provocation of the French parliament will not help the consciousness in Turkey," he said.

France in destroy freedom of speech shocker.

People should be allowed to express their views and opinions on these kind of matters.

Like the Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said, France is gonna turn into a country where you can be jailed for expressing their views.

Dam right ridiculous (spelling? cant spell lol)

Hopefully the Senate and the president reject the bill.

[igor drukov 0]

Stupid bill indeed... but Le Monde says the Senate will most likely not even bother to take a look at it.

Besides, regardless of their parties, most front-benchers even agree that "Law is not to write History"... Now this raises an interesting question: why on earth was this bill ever adopted then?

[Donnervogel 0]

Well there's no need to overreact. This law is stupid I agree (we have a very similar thing in Switzerland too) and not exactly in the spirit of freedom of speech but it's not like it's generaly restricting freedom of speech. It's just restricting you from propagating one (false) opinion.

In practice I bet nobody is going to do anything against people saying they don't think it's a genocide in a discussion or something like that. The law is aimed against people trying to actively convince a lot of people that it is not a genocide. Kinda like with people denying the holocaust who can get punished in some democratic countries.

I'd still rather not have such laws but knowing there's a lot of retards around that propagate such crap I don't really mind if they get fined for it. So in the end I don't really care. It's a stupid law and I'd like to see it not pass but when it does I don't think one should overreact and say freedom of speech as a whole is in danger. After all it still needs a specific law passed by the parliament (wich the citizens can elect) to restrict your freedom of speech and then it is restricting you on a legal basis wich means it can just aswell be abolished again by the parliament if a sufficent majority wants it.

Btw I think if you're against such laws you should aswell abolish punishment for burning a country's flag or destroying money with the symbol of the head of state on it. But such laws exist in many democratic countries and only few people feel themself heavily restricted by that

[Jinef 2]

I disagree strongly.

Free speech is not the issue. The shrugging off of responsibilties and implications by a nation is immature.

If you go into a classroom of children and a child knocks over a paint can, and you ask the child if they did it. An immature response is denial. A mature response is "Yes, sorry."

Turkey is being a cnut.

France is using the methods it has at it's disposal to bring public attention to the issue.

[EiZei 0]

Guess the french politicians found their own version of gay flag burners - turks.

I am principally opposed to making idiocy illegal so I can't say that I support this.

Quote[/b] ]

Like the Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said, France is gonna turn into a country where you can be jailed for expressing their views.

There is no greater irony than a turkish official saying that.

[ran 0]

There's a slight difference between opinions you can express and distort and historical thruths. I'm all in favour of this law, even if it's just to piss the Turks off and push Turkey a bit farther from the European Union. Their accession isn't a given thing, we don't need them inside and there are actually a lot more cons than pros.

"La liberté des uns s'arrÄte lÅ• oů commence celle des autres."

I hope it will pass, but odds are relatively small seeing how diplomacy is business these days.

Freedom of expression is not a given unlimited right, period. Turks don't have to give us any lesson.

[Bordoy 0]

There's a slight difference between opinions you can express and distort and historical thruths. I'm all in favour of this law, even if it's just to piss the Turks off and push Turkey a bit farther from the European Union. Their accession isn't a given thing, we don't need them inside and there are actually a lot more cons than pros.

"La liberté des uns s'arrÄte lÅ• oů commence celle des autres."

I hope it will pass, but odds are relatively small seeing how diplomacy is business these days.

Freedom of expression is not a given unlimited right, period. Turks don't have to give us any lesson.

I was actually thinking that was the reason why the french are bringing this bill through.

But its abit hypoctrical of you lot (French)..........I know I shouldn't bundle you all in as one, but you have just done that with the Turks so I feel you have no reason to complain about it. You're allowed to 'piss off' other countries but not get pissed off yourself, as your politicians did when the Trafalger 200 year celebrations came around. The re-created battle was meant to be the British V Frenh/Spanish, though we had to change to Red v Blue as not to upset your country to much.

Is it because Turkey is an Islamic country that you do not want them joining the EU?

[ran 0]

It has an islamic culture, no matter how hard secularism has been pushed by past leaders, it shares borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria and would be an economical liability to the european union, not forgetting the growth of extremism.

Priviledged trade partner but not union member.

On a sidenote, we celebrated Trafalgar but not Austerlitz last year and we didn't ask for the historical flags to be replaced by simple colors, it was your PC bunch who did it

[igor drukov 0]

I hate it when laws encroach on History and label events in a no longer questionable way. History is highly political enough, there's no need for Law to intrude and add yet another shovel-load of Politics into the cocktail.

In France, "genocide" is now the legal word that designates what happened to the Armenians in 1915 and what happened to the Jews and Gypsies during WWII. What if those labels conceal fundamental differences (and they do)? On top of that, these events are categorised as "crimes against humanity", among which you will also find triangular trade, which had no genocidal intentions at all. Add to that the common use of "genocide" in the media to refer to the slaughters in Bosnia, Rwanda and even Sudan, and you get a thick layer of BS that hides the specificities of each situation and super-jades people.

Today's bill is neither about history nor about free-speech, it's about politics only : French MPs feel as uncomfortable with Turkey entering the EU as they do with acknowledging it publicly to the French Muslim communities, so IMHO it's nothing but a way to miff the Turks and expose Turkey's shortcomings to the rest of the EU. That they do it by endangering the necessary debates among historians, as has already been the case with Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau, pisses me off.

My two-cent rant.

[sanctuary 19]

There's a slight difference between opinions you can express and distort and historical thruths. I'm all in favour of this law, even if it's just to piss the Turks off and push Turkey a bit farther from the European Union. Their accession isn't a given thing, we don't need them inside and there are actually a lot more cons than pros.

"La liberté des uns s'arrÄte lÅ• oů commence celle des autres."

I hope it will pass, but odds are relatively small seeing how diplomacy is business these days.

Freedom of expression is not a given unlimited right, period. Turks don't have to give us any lesson.

Excatly my thoughts, could'nt have wrote this better

As i respect History true facts, i am strongly fed up with revisionists re-writing History to fit their agenda and ideology, either they are from Turkey or other origin there is no "bypass" rights, a law that stop this revisionist plague is good in my book.

Edit : on the genocide the Turkey government is denying just give a look to the life of the new 2006 Litterature Nobel prize, Orhan Pamuk from Turkey, and all the problems and death threats he got because he dared to say the truth against his government revisionism.

[Bordoy 0]

It has an islamic culture, no matter how hard secularism has been pushed by past leaders, it shares borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria and would be an economical liability to the european union, not forgetting the growth of extremism.

Priviledged trade partner but not union member.

Fair enough, and a very good reason. I have yet to have a position on the Turkey thingy yet but I'm swaying towards the "do not let them in the EU" side.

Quote[/b] ]

On a sidenote, we celebrated Trafalgar but not Austerlitz last year and we didn't ask for the historical flags to be replaced by simple colors, it was your PC bunch who did it

True, we have to wear goggles to play conkers and a council somewhere has sent out squads to take the conkers off trees and place them on the ground so they don't land on anyones head and children don't climb trees. Ludicrous don't ya think?

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

Whilst I do share the oppinion of not letting the turks in, I must say that I wonder if squabbling over this is any good... especially since it might open a precedency case... I wonder what would come next?

[Gollum1 0]

I hear the way to practice good science/history is to establish dogma and imprison anyone who questions it.

[mp_phonix 0]

I think theres a simillar law that u will be jailed if you go to the street and say "jewish holocust never happend", or something like this.

I think this is a good bill but jailing people is stupid. I mean sure, give them fines and take money, but jailing ? maybe for a couple of weeks but I heard in the Israeli news that they could jail you for a year . .wtf ?

[TrevorOfCrete 0]

its making people force a belief. sure people who deny genocide are looneys or faciasts, but its there right to do that, this is a stupid bill from a stupid governemnt.  How dare they call themselves a liberal democracy and then pass a bill like this? its against fundamental (basic) liberal beliefs.  You cant force your view onto somone, no matter how contraversial.  Its like google all over again! (type in Famous French Victories and it used to come up with , did you mean famous french defeats?   , got removed because of aggy french users  

IMHO, its history, we have to get over these things, there terrible no doubt, and shouldnt be forgoteen, but what next!? jailed for denying france is a country?

on a side note, about the pushing turkey away from europe, FRANCE are you mad!? cant you see what the west really needs is ally islamic countries, great lets push turkey away too. god, some goverments make me angry

[Mr_Tea 0]

What i can`t understand is, that it is turkey that have problems with the new "genocide law" in france. In turkey you`ll be put in prison, if noone kills you before, for much less.

Also this mentality, don´t talk about what happened, and it will be forgotten, will not work. If they like it or not.

[EiZei 0]

I think theres a simillar law that u will be jailed if you go to the street and say "jewish holocust never happend", or something like this.

Unfortunately, yes.

Quote[/b] ]

I think this is a good bill but jailing people is stupid. I mean sure, give them fines and take money, but jailing ? maybe for a couple of weeks but I heard in the Israeli news that they could jail you for a year . .wtf ?  

Like most european nations, getting the maximum penalty usually requires rather extraordinaire circumstances. Personally, all the fees, fines etc. that result from a decent trial are a hell lot worse than spending a little time in some white collar summer camp. Of course the worst part here is that the goverment is setting an extremely dangerous precedent that essentially says that they are allowed to regulate thoughts of their citizens.

When I see this mentality prop up I wish we had something akin to the first amendment and a judicidial branch capable of enforcing it.

[whisper 0]

There's a slight difference between opinions you can express and distort and historical thruths. I'm all in favour of this law, even if it's just to piss the Turks off and push Turkey a bit farther from the European Union. Their accession isn't a given thing, we don't need them inside and there are actually a lot more cons than pros.

"La liberté des uns s'arrÄte lÅ• oů commence celle des autres."

I hope it will pass, but odds are relatively small seeing how diplomacy is business these days.

Freedom of expression is not a given unlimited right, period. Turks don't have to give us any lesson.

Excatly my thoughts, could'nt have wrote this better

As i respect History true facts, i am strongly fed up with revisionists re-writing History to fit their agenda and ideology, either they are from Turkey or other origin there is no "bypass" rights, a law that stop this revisionist plague is good in my book.

Edit : on the genocide the Turkey government is denying just give a look to the life of the new 2006 Litterature Nobel prize, Orhan Pamuk from Turkey, and all the problems and death threats he got because he dared to say the truth against his government revisionism.

Unfortunately I can't really accept that before we ourselves 1st cleaned up OUR own historical wrongdoings, otherwise it's just political hypocrisy.

I'll point first @ Algeria.

[xawery 0]

I must admit to being surprised at how much support this bill has garnered on these forums. Generally, I consider the people on this forum to be intelligent, so I would have thought everyone would be up in arms at this obvious infringement of civil liberties. Sure, we all know that denying a documented genocide is wrong if not downright idiotic, but think of the precedent it sets! If the bill passes, the government will have the jurisprudence to play thought-police. Furthermore, such laws create dogma's, taboos, and stifle discussion. If you want to prove someone wrong, you should do it in open discussions, with sound arguments. It's a fantasy to think that this law will eliminate the denial of the Armenian genocide. It will only serve to push these sentiments to the perifery; the teahouses and livingrooms, far from the public's eye. This is far more dangerous, because such sentiments will only grow stronger when isolated and not subjected to critical review in open discussion.

I believe the only reason this bill was even proposed was to ease the French mind: "if one does not talk about it, it does not exist". How myopic.

Incidentally, this whole bill has nothing to do with Turkey's accession to the EU, as the recognition of the genocide has been scrapped from the list of EU demands. Why this has happened is beyond me.

[Bordoy 0]

I must admit to being surprised at how much support this bill has garnered on these forums. Generally, I consider the people on this forum to be intelligent, so I would have thought everyone would be up in arms at this obvious infringement of civil liberties. Sure, we all know that denying a documented genocide is wrong if not downright idiotic, but think of the precedent it sets! If the bill passes, the government will have the jurisprudence to play thought-police. Furthermore, such laws create dogma's, taboos, and stifle discussion. If you want to prove someone wrong, you should do it in open discussions, with sound arguments. It's a fantasy to think that this law will eliminate the denial of the Armenian genocide. It will only serve to push these sentiments to the perifery; the teahouses and livingrooms, far from the public's eye. This is far more dangerous, because such sentiments will only grow stronger when isolated and not subjected to critical review in open discussion.

I believe the only reason this bill was even proposed was to ease the French mind: "if one does not talk about it, it does not exist". How myopic.

Incidentally, this whole bill has nothing to do with Turkey's accession to the EU, as the recognition of the genocide has been scrapped from the list of EU demands. Why this has happened is beyond me.

The thing is, people are hypocrites. It was the tottally opposite situaton with the Danish Islam Cartoons. Everyone on here was like "Free Speech! Free Speech!"

[Donnervogel 0]

I must admit to being surprised at how much support this bill has garnered on these forums. Generally, I consider the people on this forum to be intelligent, so I would have thought everyone would be up in arms at this obvious infringement of civil liberties.

Well that intelligence comment is a bit provoking, isn't it?

Anyway I studied human rights and such "naive crap" as a auxillary subject and yes I support it all But there are a few problems. In reality there are limits everywhere to your "rights". Especially the freedom of speech is often restricted in certain areas. For example you are free to hate people of different race and you are not free to tell publicly for example "I hate those dirty Swiss people! They should all be shot!" If you do a Swiss person can sue you based on racism. There are such restrictions everywhere. It is a myth that freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want. It only means you are free to express whatever you want as long as you don't break other laws by it. There is a big difference in this between the english oriented regions and continental europe though. In the english parts freedom of speech is much less restricted than in continental europe.

As I stated before I do not support laws like the one we discuss about now but one has to see that it is nothing special, especially in Europe. Many European nations have laws restricting what you can say to others.

There is one key aspect that makes these things not so terrible as they might appear. That aspect is that it is a law. Laws are not orders. Laws provide legal basis for certain things. And it still depends on the interpretation of Judges if and how a person will get punished for breaking that law.

As I stated before. We have a similar law in Switzerland that is aimed against people propagating racist things. In the connection with this law we have 2 turkish nationals on court atm because they were holding speeches stating the armenian issue wasn't a genocide. But it's no as outragous as it might appear. Firstly those people are not convicted yet. And secoundly the court only started on the initiative or Armenian people feeling they have been attacked and insulted by those speeches. So you see. The law is not a for the state in first place to tell the people what to think. The law simply gives people a legal basis to act against other people that incite against them.

Also the fact that this is a law provides the opportunity to abandon it again by a new law or to fight it by appealing to a constitutional court. So if you feel your constitutional rights are in danger by this there is plenty of action you can take (vote the right representatives or go to court about it).

Other things we should keep in mind is that:

1. The sources of those news are very vague about the exact implications of this law. I cannot tell if breaking that law would constitute an "official delict" as it is called in german (meaning that the state would have to act upon knowledge of the crime) or if there will only be action taken if private people accuse others of breaking the law. Or if there is a distinction based on how "extreme" the action was.

2. There are a number of very similar laws already in place in France and there is no major opposition against them wich implicates that the people more or less agree with such laws in special cases. The most prominent of these laws is probably that you can get punished for denying the Holocaust. Other examples are that in many monarchies you can get punished for insulting the King/Queen or that while in armed service you can even get punished for giving interviews to the press without permission.

3. Since a law it a rather inaccurate thing the practical implication will be given when there will be the first court decissions based on that law. As we know from similar laws that means that those laws ususally only take much effect in cases were people go over the top. That means when they start inciting others to act against certain people. In less grave cases there is either a small fine or a proposition to find a solution outside of the court. But this also depends on the category of this law as stated in the first point.

At the end I still think those laws are stupid and should not be imposed. But those things are very common and there probably exist much more restriction of your "freedoms" that you are aware of. So I am not very shocked about this. As long as it has a legal basis the constitutional state remains intact and citizens aswell as lawmakers can take actions against those laws.

[mp_phonix 0]

I must admit to being surprised at how much support this bill has garnered on these forums. Generally, I consider the people on this forum to be intelligent, so I would have thought everyone would be up in arms at this obvious infringement of civil liberties.

Not nice  

And that is true about being hypocrites thought, for example if in the Danish newspaper there would be a drawing of a Rebai with m-16 or something like this people would be yelling here in Israeli Nazi's and stuff ! [hav't done with playing the victim yet ], which I think is hypocrit because when the muhamad drawing was showed up ppl here like :"wtf ? freedom of speech!" {yeah, right }

Basiclly I think the posting that Muhamad with hand grenade [can't remmember the drawing by details though] was a little provoking but it was ok to post in newespapers. The muslims over reacted I think [yes when it's muhamad it's wrong but burgning US flags and such is all ok   ].

I think that people should pay a fine or something when they are kind of "teaching" that Armenian and jewish holocust never happend, like writing it in public books or "preching" it in rallys  

[Donnervogel 0]

The thing is, people are hypocrites. It was the tottally opposite situaton with the Danish Islam Cartoons. Everyone on here was like "Free Speech! Free Speech!"

Well that situation is different though. In Denmark political and religious cartoons are legal and go under the freedom of the press. Some muslims got outraged and partially succeeded in forcing European governments and newspapers to back down and apologise (for doing nothing ilegal or "wrong").

The outrage among Europeans was aimed at the violent reactions in many Muslim countries that managed to influence European nations' internal politics even. "The freedom of speech" argument in that case was that the muslims must respect the laws existing in Denmark and other European nations.

In France the difference now is that the new law is passed without pressure from outside (or even despite") by the representatives of the people - implying the agreement of a large part of the population to this. So this is a "wanted" restriction of the freedom of speech as opposed to something that gets forced upon your from the outside.

[ran 0]

I'll point first @ Algeria.

I personnally acknowledge the facts that the Sétif incidents were a well covered up blood bath and that torture saw a relatively widespread use. Nobody is completely white.

And @ Trevor, we have our own acquaintances in the middle east. While I don't want of Turkey as part of the European Union, I want to retain the ties we already have with her.

What you see there by the way is just a rough way to prevent Turkey from joining IMO.

[whisper 0]

I'll point first @ Algeria.

I personnally acknowledge the facts that the Sétif incidents were a well covered up blood bath and that torture saw a relatively widespread use. Nobody is completely white.

I didn't imply you denied it

Just, that if such a bill is to go through votes, then denial of french torturing algerians should also be punished. For example.

Where do we stop?