STRASBOURG (ARMENIAN WEEKLY)\u2014The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) held a Grand Chamber hearing on Jan. 28, in the case of Dogu Perincek v. Switzerland. The case stems from a Swiss court verdict that in 2007 fined Perincek, a Turkish ultranationalist activist and chairman of Turkey\u2019s Workers\u2019 Party, over his 2005 statement calling the Armenian Genocide an \u201cinternational lie.\u201d In appealing to the ECHR, Perincek\u2019s defense argued that the Swiss court violated Perincek\u2019s right to freedom of expression; the court ruled in their favor in 2013. On March 7, 2014, Switzerland filed an appeal, which led to today\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
The Armenian legal team was comprised of Armenia\u2019s Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan, and attorneys Geoffrey Ronald Robertson, Amal Alamuddin Clooney and Toby Collis.<\/p>\n
In his statements, Robertson said that Perincek is \u201ca genocide denial forum shopper,\u201d and that \u201cHe seeks out countries in Europe where he can be convicted and by so doing promote himself and his perverse view of history.\u201d Robertson also referred to Perincek as a \u201cvexatious litigant\u201d and a \u201cpest.\u201d<\/p>\n
A mere \u2018opinion\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Mehmet Cengiz, representing Dogu Perincek, presented before the court first, and argued that Perincek\u2019s motives were not of a racist nature, but that his statements were in essence a legal assessment of the \u201c1915 events.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDr. Perincek made a legal assessment. He did not ignore the massacres and the deportations; he did not deny the actus reus of the 1915 events. The dispute between the parties concerns the legal definition of the tragic events that took place a hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire. Mr. Perincek defends that these events cannot be defined as a crime of genocide. Perincek rejects the judicial qualifications of the events as genocide and bases his opinions on the 1948 UN genocide convention,\u201d said Cengiz, who also claimed that there is no consensus on the genocide. \u201cMr. Perincek made similar statements in both Germany and France and did not face similar charges,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Cengiz argued that Perincek had no racial motives, having spent his life countering racism. \u201cYou can seek many motivations, many intents\u2026 but even if you sought for 1,000 years, you won\u2019t find a racist intent because Dr. Perincek has spent his lifetime fighting against racism, this is why he has served 14 years in prison\u2026 Take a look at his files: in every case he fought against racism.\u201d<\/p>\n Perincek, on the other hand, spoke about \u201cEurope\u2019s tradition and heritage of liberty.\u201d \u201cFreedom of expression means liberty for different, even deviating opinions, and freedom is needed for those who oppose the status quo. If circulating opinions and prejudices cannot be discussed then there is no freedom,\u201d said Perincek, adding, \u201cWe need to make sure we rid ourselves from the negative effects of judgements, opinions, which dates back to the First World War. The consciousness, the thinking of the Europeans about the event of 1915 should not be surrounded and besieged by prohibitions. Let us secure the freedom to access the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Perincek also spoke about \u201c90 kilos\u201d of documents that his team submitted to the court as evidence in an attempt to prove why the Armenian Genocide should not be labeled as such.<\/p>\n Perincek spoke about \u201cthe pain\u201d he \u201cshares\u201d with the Armenian people, while claiming that massacres and forced deportations were \u201cmutual\u201d in the Ottoman Empire.<\/p>\n \u201cLet us protect peace and brotherhood in Europe, in Turkey. The accusation of the Armenian Genocide has turned into a taboo, it\u2019s turned into a tool to discriminate against Turkish people, to humiliate Turks,\u201d said Perincek, adding, \u201cToday Turks and Muslims are the black people of Europe. Let also the oppressed ones defend themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n Until two days before the hearing, Perincek was under a travel ban due to an ongoing Ergenekon related case against him. The Istanbul 4th High Criminal Court lifted the travel ban on Jan. 26. \u201cNow, the [next step] is [for] the historical case in Strasbourg to finalize the lie of Armenian genocide,\u201d read a statement released by the socialist Workers\u2019 Party, which Perincek chairs, reported Turkish sources.<\/p>\n Christian Laurent Pech, also representing Perincek, said the trial was not about whether the proper characterization of what happened to the Armenians in 1915 is genocide. \u201cIn these troubled times, we find it important to recall that one of the main purposes of freedom of expression is to protect opinions that might not be popular whether in Switzerland, Turkey or elsewhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Stefan Talmon, representing the government of Turkey, argued that Perincek was merely sharing an opinion, which is not the same as targeting a certain group of people. \u201cCalling something an \u2018international lie\u2019 is not the same as calling a certain group of persons \u2018liars,\u2019 as such, it has no racial connotation,\u201d said Talmon.<\/p>\n A \u2018well-reasoned\u2019 judgment<\/strong><\/p>\n Representing the government of Switzerland, Frank Schurmann laid out reasons why his government believes that the Swiss court handed down \u201cwell-reasoned judgments reaching a perfectly justifiable result.\u201d He argued that the lower court in reaching its verdict ignored the context in which Perincek\u2019s statements were uttered. He forcefully argued that victims of genocidal crimes, as well as their descendants, deserve to have their rights legally protected from statements that were an assault on their human dignity.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not denial per se which warrants punishment, but the hate and discriminatory intent that must also be present,\u201d argued Schurmann. \u201cLet us also recall the applicant\u2019s identification with Talaat Pasha, one of the instigators of the fact in issue, found guilty by the court martial of the Ottoman Empire,\u201d he said, and cited the intervention offered to the court in favor of Armenia by Turkish human rights organizations, which helped further place Perincek\u2019s statements into a larger context.<\/p>\n Professor Daniel Thurer also spoke on behalf of the Swiss government, providing further arguments and in support of the Swiss court\u2019s position.<\/p>\n Genocide denial can have \u2018double impact\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Armenia\u2019s Prosecutor General Gevorg Kostanyan presented the history of the Armenian Genocide and introduced Geoffrey Robertson QC to address the Grand Chamber. Robertson, who is representing Armenia on behalf of Doughty Street Chambers along with human rights barrister, Amal Clooney, provided the court with an in-depth historical background of the Armenian Genocide and warned about the dangers of genocide denial.<\/p>\n \u201cGenocide denial can have double impact. It can make genocide survivors and their children and grandchildren feel the worthlessness and contempt and inferiority that the initial perpetrators intended,\u201d said Robertson, adding that denial can incite, \u201cadmirations for those perpetrators and a dangerous desire to emulate them.\u201d<\/p>\n While there was much debate from Perincek\u2019s counsel that the defendant did not have discriminatory intentions, Robertson reminded the Grand Chamber that the Swiss court had, in fact, decided that Perincek\u2019s motives were racist, and that \u201chis words in the Turkish language were designed to arouse his supporters in Turkey to hate Armenians and to applaud his hero Talaat Pasha, the Ottoman Hitler.\u201d Robertson made it clear that Perincek traveled to Switzerland with the purpose of being convicted; something that he had tried doing in France, Germany, and most recently in Greece.<\/p>\n According to Robertson, the denial of the Armenian Genocide is inherently insulting to all Armenians. While he called the Holocaust an \u201cappalling example of the worst of crimes against humanity,\u201d he stated that it is wrong to excuse or to minimize other mass murders on the grounds of race and religion because they have fewer victims or different methods of killing. \u201cWhat matters to Armenians, and Jews, and Bosnians, and Bengalis to Rwandan Tutsis and today, Yezidis, is not the manner of their death or whether an international court has convicted the perpetrators, but the fact that they were targeted as unfit to live because they were Jews or Armenians or Yezidis,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n