- L.A. Times published an article written by Professor Timothy Garton Ash of Oxford & Stanford, titled Speech crimes and France on 19 January. The article argues that French Senate should reject the bill criminalizing the denial of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915: “The Senate should reject it, in the name of free speech, the freedom of historical inquiry and Article 11 of France's pathbreaking 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen ("The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious rights...")". Cumhuriyet daily offers a summary of the article.
- US former President Ronald Reagan's Assistant Attorney General, Bruce Fein revealed results of a research conducted in 1981: Armenians appear to have slaughtered 2 million Muslim Ottomans while their losses seem to be around 500 thousand. Armenians do not open their archives, because they do not want truth to be revealed. An article by Fein titled An Armenian and Muslim Trajedy? Yes! Genocide? No! can be found at Georgia Turkish American Advocacy Group Web site. The article starts as follows: “Both Armenians and Muslims in Eastern Anatolia under the Ottoman Empire experienced harrowing casualties and gripping privations during World War I.”
- Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu, President of Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) was in France during the voting at the Senate. He has announced that a Demographic Movements Research Institute will be set up in TOBB University of Economics and Technology. Young researchers from other countries will be encouraged to conduct researh on demographic movements in the late Ottoman Empire era and publish results, through fellowships. Turizm Haberleri 28.01.2012
- Egemen Bağış, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator of Turkey in Accession Talks with the EU, told journalists that there had been no Armenian genocide and that the Swiss authorities could come and arrest him if they wished. He was in Zurich for a concert at the time, after the World Economic Forum in Davos in late January. Swissinfo.ch reports that “such comments are in violation of Switzerland’s anti-racism laws. The public prosecutor of canton Zurich is now looking into the matter to determine whether Bagis has indeed committed a criminal offence.” However, Turkish media queries if Minister Bağış made this statement intentionally to bring the issue to the European Court of Human Rights. Doğu Perinçek, Labor Party Leader's case is in process at the court currently and expected to come to a conclusion soon. HaberTurk.com 06 February 2012
- Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has passed a resolution for a change in the ruling on the Armenian issue to grant decisive power to historians upon proposal of Turkish Parliamentarian Prof. Dr. Pelin Gündeş Bakır. The resolution reads as follows: "In cases of emigration and resulting events, a ruling should be made by a commission consisting of historians following the opening of archives by the countries involved. The ruling should also inform that the negligence of the politicians at that time in history will not be accepted." The resolution was passed with a landslide majority. PACE, 28.01.2012.
- US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said “We do not criminalize speech” during the Town Hall Meeting of January 26 in response to a question:
Q: “Good morning, Madam Secretary. My name is Virginia Benninghoff. I work in IIP in the Office of European Affairs, and I have a question on our foreign policy, if I may. Regarding the atrocities that happened in the beginning of the 20th century that some would label the Armenian genocide, I am wondering why it is that we do not recognize it as such, and if it has to do with our classification of what a genocide is, or more to do with our relationship with Turkey. And given the recent legislation that was passed by lawmakers in France criminalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide, whether – what our stance is on that? My understanding is that Under Secretary Sherman was there recently, and I wondered if that came up and what our position is. Thank you.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, one of our great strengths is we do not criminalize speech. People can say nearly anything they choose, and they do, in our country. (Applause.) And so other countries, including close friends and allies like France, have different standards, different histories, but we are, I hope, never going to go down that path to criminalize speech.
I think it’s fair to say that this has always been viewed, and I think properly so, as a matter of historical debate and conclusions rather than political. And I think that is the right posture for the United States Government to be in, because whatever the terrible event might be or the high emotions that it represents, to try to use government power to resolve historical issues, I think, opens a door that is a very dangerous one to go through. So the issue is a very emotional one; I recognize that and I have great sympathy for those who are just so incredibly passionate about it.
But I think the free market of ideas, the academic community, the open architecture of communication that is even greater now than it was in the past, are the proper fora for this kind of engagement, and that’s where I hope it is worked out. And eventually, people will have their own conclusions, which needs to be respected, but we need to encourage anyone on any side of any contentious historical debate to get out into the marketplace of ideas. Muster your evidence, put forth your arguments, and be willing to engage, and that’s what I think should happen on that too.”
Armenian Holocaust:My Story blog by Selma Aslan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Gayriticari-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, one of our great strengths is we do not criminalize speech. People can say nearly anything they choose, and they do, in our country. (Applause.) And so other countries, including close friends and allies like France, have different standards, different histories, but we are, I hope, never going to go down that path to criminalize speech.
I think it’s fair to say that this has always been viewed, and I think properly so, as a matter of historical debate and conclusions rather than political. And I think that is the right posture for the United States Government to be in, because whatever the terrible event might be or the high emotions that it represents, to try to use government power to resolve historical issues, I think, opens a door that is a very dangerous one to go through. So the issue is a very emotional one; I recognize that and I have great sympathy for those who are just so incredibly passionate about it.
But I think the free market of ideas, the academic community, the open architecture of communication that is even greater now than it was in the past, are the proper fora for this kind of engagement, and that’s where I hope it is worked out. And eventually, people will have their own conclusions, which needs to be respected, but we need to encourage anyone on any side of any contentious historical debate to get out into the marketplace of ideas. Muster your evidence, put forth your arguments, and be willing to engage, and that’s what I think should happen on that too.”
Armenian Holocaust:My Story blog by Selma Aslan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Gayriticari-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.