Tessa Hofmann
Yesterday’s publication of the decision of the European Court of Human
Rights (ECHR) on the complaint by the Turkish nationalist Doğu Perinçek
came as a shock and as a surprise. My personal relationship to the
claimant dates back into the year 2000, when I became a victim of a
slander campaign by Turkish media, started by Perinçek and his obscure
party paper “Aydinlik,” and spread by Turkey’s largest daily,
“Hürriyet.” The occasion was a petition by several Germany based human
rights NGOs to the German parliament, requesting the German lawmakers’
official recognition of the crimes, committed against the Ottoman
Christian population and the Armenians in particular as genocide
according to the UN Convention of 1948. In his revelations, Perinçek had
tried to depict me as a leading German agent with NATO connections,
whose special mission was the destabilization of Turkey by inflaming
interethnic hatred. Towards this goal I had, according to
“Aydinlik/Hürriyet,” allegedly freed the scholar Taner Akçam from his
prison in Turkey in armed action and brainwashed poor Taner, until he
became a propagandist of the “Armenian lies”, as Perinçek put it.
In two subsequent court trials here in Germany I could at least fight
the repetition of such slander by “Hürriyet.”
But that did not stop
Perinçek and his comrades. Their next action was touring Germany, France
and Switzerland, where they purposefully denied the Armenian genocide
in public events (manifestations, speeches). But the second and perhaps
main purpose of these tours was the provocation of European law systems
on national levels. In Berlin, the head of our police reacted rather
sharpish by prohibiting public manifestations. Perinçek then addressed
to Berlin courts and achieved the permission of the manifestation,
albeit with the condition to refrain from offensive slogans such as
“Armenian genocide lie” or “so-called genocide”. These condition
Perinçek and his followers violated at many occasions, albeit in Turkish
language. In Switzerland, a descendant of Armenian genocide survivors,
Sarkis Shahinian filed a court case against Perinçek for violating the
anti-discrimination law of the Swiss Penal Code. On 9th March 2007,
Perinçek had been sentenced accordingly in Lausanne, and I had the
dubious joy to see the man during his trial when I gave expert witness
to the court. In the course of the following months the Lausanne
sentence has been approved by two higher courts of Switzerland,
including the highest. As a citizen of a country, which is applying for
full EU membership, Perinçek had only one option left, the ECHR. And
the amazing thing happened: The highest court in the EU criticized the
Swiss court decisions and fully confirmed Perinçek’s right to deny the
genocide of 1.5 million Armenians (or overall 3.5 Ottoman Christians, if
Perinçek would ever consider these lesser known co-victims).
To receive this outrageous decision, the judges argue more or less in the following way:
- A long period passed since 1915.
- In difference to the genocide of the European Jewry, the Armenian genocide (AG) is no internationally acknowledged or established fact. As evidence, the ECHR points to the fact that even in Switzerland exist opposing opinions about the AG, which subsequently has been acknowledged only by one of the two legislative chambers of the country. Furthermore there is no international court decision on the AG.
The ECHR believes that Perinçek did not violate the existing anti-racist
legislation of Switzerland, for he ‘just’ articulated a personal
opinion and allegedly did not act in order to offend Armenians. After
the above mentioned provocative tours of Perinçek in several EU states,
this is a highly refutable allegation. Having closely monitored his
denialist and propagandist activities over the years I know one thing
for sure: Perinçek does what he is doing with full intent to humiliate
Armenian communities and to encourage his compatriots in Europe to
follow his example and to provoke European legislation without fear.
What are the general implications of the recent decision? The ECHR has
given greater weight to freedom of expression than the protection
against racism and xenophobia, including the protection of genocide
victims from denialism and continuing pain. The ECHR refuses to realize
the pain that, under the continuing official denial by the Turkish
Republic, purposeful genocide denial causes. At the same time the ECHR
decision continues a European trend that has started at the time of
Perinçek’s denial tours in Europe and led, in 2008, to the Appel de
Blois. Although this appeal was in its majority signed by French
historians, German scholars, too, articulated their discomfort with any
‘restrictions’ of the liberty of opinion. To their mind, liberty must
include the right to deny genocide, for a genocide is either generally
acknowledged as a historic fact or not. In the first case those, who
deny facts, ridicule themselves, but must not be prosecuted by the law.
In the second case, the topic seems under-researched, and sceptics have
even more a right to doubt and deny. It must be admitted, that the
recent court decision has put the AG into the second category, which is
perhaps the most negative effect.
Genocide is first of all not a subject for the approval or disapproval
by historians, but the most severe crime and hence a subject for
prosecutors and trials. In this context the reluctance of the sovereign
Armenian state to seek an international court decision on the AG once
again appears as a failure.
It is a comfort that laws and legal decisions are not written in stone.
They can and must be changed. If its political will is strong enough,
Switzerland can demand a revision of the current decision at the Grand
Chamber of the ECHR. But for this aim, Armenian communities and NGOs in
Europe have at least once to act in synergic ways. It is a second
comfort that two of the five involved judges—Ms Vučinić from Montenegro
and Mr Pinto de Albuquerque from Portugal— expressed a very clear
dissident statement.
We residents and citizens of EU states must decide which values we give
the highest priority, both on national, and EU levels. EU politicians
like to relate on Europe as a community of shared values. As a European,
however, I refuse to share a definition of liberty that allows every
chauvinist to confront, offend and humiliate minorities under the
pretext of liberty of opinion. It is an additional irony that the
chauvinist Perinçek was guaranteed this liberty by the EU’s highest
court, while his homeland still clings to a restrictive legislation
against dissenters: Whereas Europe allows the denial of the Armenian
genocide, Turkish penal laws prosecute those who acknowledge historic
facts.
European problems with the concept of liberty are manifold and not
limited to genocide denial. In the last pre-election campaign the
extremist rightist part NPD (“National Democratic Party of Germany”)
sent hate letters to foreign born candidates for the German Bundestag.
The candidates were urged to leave Germany voluntarily, in order to
prevent that they commit crimes. When some of the offended addressees
sought the protection of German law authorities, their claims were
turned down by the state attorney on the grounds that it is the lawful
right of German Neo-Nazis to express their opinion.
Is this really what we want when allowing liberty of expression to
chauvinists?
Arbeitsgruppe Anerkennung e.V. (www.aga-online.org), December 18, 2013
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