In a historic move, the French National Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to adopt a law imposing legal penalties on deniers of the Armenian Genocide.
The legislation, introduced by Christophe Masse, Didier Migaud et Martine David (Socialist group), seeks “to counter the denial of the Armenian Genocide.” The measure, adopted by a vote of 106 to 19, adds a second article to the 2001 law through which “France publicly, acknowledges the Armenian genocide of 1915.”
In a direct reference to the law already in place imposing penalties for the denial of the Jewish Holocaust (“Loi Gayssot”), the measure approved this week states that, “those who contest the existence of the Armenian Genocide through methods recorded in its article 23 will be sanctioned through article 24-2 of the 28 July 1881 Law on the press liberty.”
“We welcome this historical move, which demonstrates, once again, that France continues to lead the international community’s progress on human rights and the dignity on man. State-sponsored denial of genocide represents a calculated form of incendiary hate speech that threatens both public safety as well as the ability of society to organize itself, through open discourse, to prevent the repetition of genocides in the future. We offer our profound thanks to the individual political leaders and the broader movement that have moved this cause forward,”
said Hilda Tchoboian, the Chairperson of the European Armenian Federation.
“We do hope that the Senate will adopt this same text in the very near future, so that this measure will become the law of France at the first opportunity,” added Tchoboian.
The European Armenian Federation notes with interest that the path to the adoption of this measure in France was paved by the recent electoral defeat of Armenian Genocide deniers in Belgium, the exclusion of Armenian Genocide deniers from electoral lists in the Netherlands, and the ban on Armenian Genocide denial demonstrations in Germany.
“The time is now for a global European law that would penalize the Armenian Genocide denial, as well as the other Genocide denials occuring in Europe” concluded Tchoboian.
