***
International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights
Studies
A Division of the Zoryan Institute
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Deborah Hay
DATE: March 7, 2014 TEL: 416-250-9807
International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights
Studies Publishes Statement Regarding European Court of Human Rights Ruling in
Swiss Papers
Bern, Switzerland—The International Institute for
Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A Division of the Zoryan Institute) produced
a full-page informational advertisement that appeared in Switzerland’s leading
German and French language newspapers Neue Zürcher Zeitung on March 6 and Le
Temps on March 7. The advertisements were the product of collaboration between
the Switzerland Armenia Association and the IIGHRS. Links to these articles in
English, French, and German follow this article.
The purpose of these ads was to raise awareness with the
Swiss public that the December 17, 2013 ruling of the Perinçek vs. Switzerland
case by the European Court of Human Rights, promotes racism and violence
against Armenians in Turkey and elsewhere. The statement further argued that
the Swiss government has a moral responsibility to appeal this ruling and
defend its laws against racism.
Seeing that to date the Swiss Government had not filed an
appeal against the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights, the IIGHRS
felt that it is crucial to educate the public about this critical legal and
moral issue. Switzerland was not a bystander to the Armenian Genocide in 1915,
and it should not be a bystander and allow its denial today. In this respect,
the Institute endeavored to raise awareness of the facts of the Armenian
Genocide through the speeches of the President of Switzerland in 1922 to the
League of Nations, and in the words of the current President about the action
needed against denial of the Holocaust or any other genocide. President
Burkhalter noted that it is the duty of the Swiss people to remind people, ‘of
the facts and the historical reality’, and stressed that Switzerland does not
want to just ‘pay lip service, but to take concrete action’ to fight denial.
Through the juxtaposing of these two historical speeches, the Institute
explained that while it does not disagree with the right to freedom of speech,
it takes issue with the ECHR’s highly debatable statements about the Armenian
Genocide that went far beyond the Court’s mandate or competence.
Read the Texts Here:
English http://zoryaninstitute.org/Announcements/ECHR_Statement_English_Edition.pdf
French http://zoryaninstitute.org/Announcements/ECHR_Statement_French_Edition.pdf
German http://zoryaninstitute.org/Announcements/ECHR_Statement_German_Edition.pdf
Copyright © 2014 The Zoryan Institute, All rights
reserved.
http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=953bb838fd033f9888c55b269&id=b372f8dac4&e=6b3c5eb4fa
Left: President Didier Burkhalter. (RDB/Xavier Voirol)
Right: Former five-time President Giuseppe Motta.
Switzerland was not a bystander of the Armenian Genocide
then, and
should not be a bystander to its denial now.
THE INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTE FOR GENOCIDE AND HUMAN RIGHTS STUDIES
On the occasion of the International Day of Commemoration
of the Holocaust in
January of this year, Pres. Didier Burkhalter said:
…there are still some today who deny the
extent of the Holocaust…just as they deny the extent of the other
crimes committed by the Nazis and of other genocides. It
is our duty to reject this attitude and to counter it by reminding people of
the facts, of the historical reality...Switzerland and other countries do not
want to just pay lip service to this, but to take concrete action.
This echoes the speech of five-time Swiss president
Giuseppe Motta in the League of
Nations in September 1922, where he said the following
about the Armenians:
When we think that this people had a population of about
two and a half
millions, of which only 300,000 now remain in Turkey,
while half a million
are exiles, supported by charity…we cannot refuse this
poor, suffering
people the tribute, not only of our sympathy, but also of
our determination to assist it in the fullest measure of our powers.
Indeed, the Swiss people have always taken action on
behalf of the Armenians out of
humanitarian concern. In the Federal Archives in Berne
there still exists the
famous pro-Armenian petition of 1896-1897 with the
signatures of nearly half a million people (13.7% of the population), asking
the federal government to intervene to stop the killings of Christians in the
Ottoman Empire.
The Swiss were often heroic in their fight to aid the
Armenians. From 1899-1922,
Jacob Künzler and his wife Elizabeth did their best to
alleviate the suffering of
Armenians in a mission hospital at the crossroads of the
death caravans on the way
to the Syrian Desert. As extreme as their experience was,
some Swiss even put their
lives on the line. For example, one Swiss engineer was
court-martialled because he
bravely gave bread to the starving Armenian women and
children of a deportation
convoy.
In 2007, a Turkish citizen was convicted in the Lausanne
Police Court of racial
discrimination for calling the Armenian Genocide an
“international lie.” Swiss courts
rejected two appeals, stating that the Armenian Genocide,
like the Jewish Genocide, is a proven fact and is recognised by Swiss
legislation. However the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) overturned this
conviction on December 17, 2013, citing
the right to free speech. The problem with the ruling is
not the right to free speech, which most people would agree with. The problem
is that the ECHR made highly debatable statements about the Armenian Genocide
that went far beyond the Court’s mandate or competence.
The Court, while pointing out that it was not called upon
to rule on either the veracity
of the Armenian massacres, or the appropriateness of
legally characterising those acts as “genocide”, nevertheless asserted its
doubt that there could be a general consensus about such events. Thus, the
Court, apparently unaware of the overwhelming body of published evidence,
unnecessarily called into question the historical truth of the Armenian
Genocide.
The Court took the view that the notion of genocide was a
precise, narrowly defined
legal concept, only applicable when found by an
international court to be clearly
established. It thereby overlooked the body of scholarly
legal literature that affirms the
Armenian case is genocide.
The Court further asserted, “The rejection of the legal
characterisation as ‘genocide’ of the 1915 events was not such as to incite
hatred against the Armenian people,” and that there was no need in Switzerland
to punish an individual for racial discrimination by challenging this legal
characterization. Yet the Court stated that “the negation of the Holocaust is
today the principal motor of anti-Semitism.”
In fact, the Human Rights Association in Turkey has made
a strong argument for the
racism inherent in the Armenian case. They wrote, “…we
are the most immediate, direct witnesses of how the denial of the genocide
against Armenians and other Christian ethnic groups of Asia Minor has right
from the start generated an anti-democratic system, allowing racist hatred,
hate crimes, and violation of freedom of expression and human rights in
general…This has paved the way for Armenians in Turkey to be treated as a
‘fifth column’ throughout the Republican history, to be discriminated against,
to be destined to lead their lives in constant fear as their lives were
threatened during various nationalist upheavals and pogroms that took place
during the Republican period.”
Denial has been called the final stage of genocide. It
dehumanizes the victims and
their descendants as being unworthy of concern and continues their victimization
through the psychological trauma of having to endure the
ongoing injustice. As such,
denial of the Armenian Genocide certainly causes harm to
Armenians, worldwide.
If the ECHR ruling stands, it would perpetuate
anti-Armenianism in Turkey and
elsewhere and it will definitely promote racism. Under
the Swiss penal code, any act
of denying, belittling or justifying genocide is a
violation of the anti-racism law.
Pres. Burkhalter is right to call for concrete action.
The Swiss Government has
a moral responsibility to appeal this ruling and defend
its laws against racism.
Switzerland was not a bystander of the Armenian Genocide,
and should not be a
bystander of the Armenian Genocide today.
On February 16, 2014 a group of scholars of Human Rights
and Genocide issued an open letter to the Swiss Justice Minister: “We do not
take issue with the notion of
freedom of expression, something that scholars agree is
most often an essential
part of open, democratic society. We are, however,
concerned about elements of the
Court’s reasoning that are at odds with the facts about
the historical record on the
Armenian Genocide of 1915, at odds with an ethical
understanding of denialism…We
believe it important that the government of Switzerland
request a reexamination of the
Court’s judgment.”
Taner Akçam, Clark University
Margaret Lavinia Anderson, University of California
Berkley
Joyce Apsel, New York University
Yair Auron, Open University of Israel
Peter Balakian, Colgate University
Annette Becker, University of Paris,
Institut Universitaire de France
Matthias Bjornlund, Danish Institute for Study Abroad
(DIS)
Donald Bloxham, University of Edinburgh
Professor Hamit Bozarslan, Director, EHESS, Paris
Cathy Caruth, Cornell University
Frank Chalk, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human
Rights Studies
Israel Charny, Past President International Association
of Genocide Scholars (IAGS); Institute
on the Holocaust and Genocide
Deborah Dwork, Clark University
Helen Fein, Independent Scholar
Marcelo Flores, University of Siena
Donna-Lee Frieze, Deakin University,
David Gaunt, Sodertorn University College
Wolfgang Gust, Independent Scholar, Director armenocide.com.de,
Hamburg
Herbert Hirsch, Virginia Commonwealth University;
co-editor, Genocide Studies
International
Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University
Tessa Hofmann, Institute for East European Studies
Richard Hovanissian, University of California, Los
Angeles
Raymond Kevorkian, University of Paris-VIII-Saint Denis
Hans-Lukas Kieser, University of Zurich
Mark Levene, University of Southampton, UK
Robert Jay Lifton, The City University of New York
Deborah Lipstadt, Emory University
Wendy Lower, Claremont McKenna College
Robert Melson, Purdue University; Past President, IAGS
Donald E. Miller, University of Southern California
A. Dirk Moses, European University Institute, Florence and Senior Editor,
Journal of Genocide Research.
James R. Russell, Harvard University
Roger W. Smith, College of William and Mary; Past
President, IAGS
Leo Spitzer, Dartmouth College
Gregory Stanton, George Mason
University; Past President, IAGS
Yves Ternon, Historian of modern genocide, independent
scholar, France.
Henry C. Theriault, Worcester State University;
Co-Editor-in-Chief, Genocide
Studies and Prevention
Eric D. Weitz, The City College of New York/Graduate
Center
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