Turk politician again charged in Switzerland

[Tongue]

Turk Politician Again Charged In Switzerland For Denying Armenian Genocide

(AP) - Swiss authorities brought a third charge against a Turkish politician for allegedly breaking Switzerland's racial discrimination laws by denying that the killings of Armenians around the time of World War I was a genocide, police said Monday.

Dogu Perincek, the leader of the Turkey's Workers' Party, made the remarks Sunday in a speech in central Switzerland, Bern cantonal (state) police said in a statement. He already had been charged twice by Swiss authorities for two previous, similar incidents.

Denying that the Holocaust or other cases of genocide took place is regarded as racial discrimination under Swiss law, and can be punished by up to three years in prison and an unspecified fine.

"Based on the fact that, in the course of his address, Dogu Perincek denied the Armenian genocide and expressed prejudices against the western world, the Bern cantonal police has put down a complaint because of suspicion of racial discrimination," the police statement said.

Perincek will be questioned Tuesday by police in neighboring Vaud canton, where he already is under investigation for similar remarks made in May, Bern police spokeswoman Anastasia Falkner said. Swiss authorities launched a second investigation into Perincek in July for making similar remarks in northern Switzerland, and Perincek was briefly detained after that speech. Turkey called the Swiss ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to protest Perincek's detention and investigation.

Similar disputes have erupted in the past between Turkey and Switzerland. In June, a Turkish Cabinet minister postponed a visit to Switzerland to protest an investigation of a Turkish historian who denied in a separate speech that the killings were genocide. In July, Turkey canceled a proposed visit by Swiss Economics Minister Joseph Deiss because of "schedule clashes," Deiss's spokesman said.

In a separate development, Turkey's Foreign Ministry said Friday it "greeted with sadness" the passage by a U.S. congressional committee of two resolutions that denounce the deaths of Armenians early last century as genocide, and hoped U.S. legislators would not allow the resolutions out of committee.

"In the period ahead, we believe that members of the U.S. Congress will act with a responsibility befitting the Turkish-American relationship, and strongly hope that the resolutions will stay in the committee and not be carried to the floor," the statement said.


Link

[Hovik]

Turkish Politician Faces Swiss Probes Over Armenian Genocide Denial

TURKISH POLITICIAN FACES SWISS PROBES OVER ARMENIAN GENOCIDE DENIAL

Agence France Presse
September 19, 2005 Monday 3:53 PM GMT

Swiss justice authorities announced Monday that they are investigating
a Turkish politician who said the killings of Armenians during World
War I could not be classified as genocide.

Dogu Perincek, leader of the small leftist Turkish Workers Party,
is suspected of breaching Switzerland's anti-racism laws, which ban
any denial of genocidal killing, Bern investigators said.

Perincek fell foul of police who recorded a speech he made at a rally
organised in Bern Sunday by his party.

Separately, justice officials in Zurich said they were set to launch an
investigation after Perincek repeated his remarks at a press conference
in the city Monday, saying the genocide claim was a "historical lie."

The politician said he was the victim of a "witch hunt."

Perincek is a regular visitor to Switzerland and it is not his first
brush with justice officials -- his latest trip followed a summons
by investigators in Lausanne, who are looking into similar comments
he made there in the past and are due to question him Tuesday.

Perincek said he would stick to his position, and provide officials
with "historical proof" to counter genocide claims.

The politician was detained and questioned briefly in July after a
speech at a meeting near Zurich. After his release, he repeated his
denials in an interview with a Swiss newspaper and said Switzerland's
anti-racism laws were tantamount to "medieval inquisition."

Perincek also faces a complaint lodged in mid-July by the
Swiss-Armenian Association following a speech he gave here in May.

Perincek's previous tussles with the Swiss sparked a spat with Turkey,
with Ankara calling off a visit by Swiss Economy Minister Joseph
Deiss in July.

Turkish authorities have pressed the Swiss government over his case
and other probes of alleged genocide denial -- including one by
leading Turkish historian Yusuf Halacoglu at a conference near Zurich.

But Swiss officials have consistently responded that the country's
justice system is independent of the government.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in orchestrated
killings during the final years of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Like their counterparts in France and Canada and a number of other
countries, Swiss lawmakers have accepted that the slaughter was an
act of genocide.

Turkey has acknowledged that massacres took place under the Ottoman
Empire, but contests the figures and the use of the term genocide.

Turkish authorities say that 300,000 Armenians and as many Turks
were killed in a civil war when the Armenians, backed by Russia,
rose up against the empire.

[Reincarnated Am]

I hope they fry that M/F, I guess that’s what he’s asking for..!

[Gavur]

The moron gets 6 months!

According to Milliyet.com Turkish news sourc The D.P. (displaced person) gets 6 months sentence from Swiss court for denying The Armenian Genocide.

[TurQ]

They are giving what he is asking for, that was what he desired for fame.

According to Milliyet.com Turkish news sourc The D.P. (displaced person) gets 6 months sentence from Swiss court for denying The Armenian Genocide.

[Gavur]

Lets see what will happen (when France passes the same law) to the young puppy movement against Armenians there.

[Gavur]

Turkish Politician To Stand Trial In Switzerland For Denying Armenian Genocide

TURKISH POLITICIAN TO STAND TRIAL IN SWITZERLAND FOR DENYING ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

AP Worldstream
Mar 05, 2007

A Turkish politician due to stand trial for allegedly breaking
Switzerland's anti-racism laws said he will produce documents proving
that the mass killings of Armenians in the early 20th century were
"regrettable reciprocal massacres," but not genocide, according to
an interview published Monday.

Dogu Perincek, the leader of the Turkish Workers' Party, said he had
obtained Russian documents proving the killings by Turks between 1915
and 1918 were the result of ethnic fighting that also claimed Turkish
victims, according to the interview in daily Le Matin.

The case will test whether it is a violation of Switzerland's
anti-racism law to deny that the Turks committed genocide in the 1915
killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians.

The Swiss parliament's lower house voted in 2003 to recognize the
slayings as genocide, but the resolution was nonbinding. Members of
the governing Cabinet have expressed concerns about the resolution's
impact on relations with Turkey.

Perincek was charged with breaking the law after repeatedly denying
the genocide during a visit to Switzerland in 2005, and is due to
appear in a Lausanne court Tuesday.

He could face up to three years in prison and an unspecified fine
if convicted.

The law was "the result of deeply rooted anti-Turkish prejudice,"
Perincek said, according to Le Matin, adding that he hoped to end the
"witch hunt" against him. The law has also been applied to Holocaust
denial.

"Here (in Switzerland) stating your opinion is a punishable act,"
Perincek was quoted as saying.

Descendants of Armenians who survived and fled abroad have been
lobbying Western countries to label the killings genocide.

In January, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill
to this effect in Congress. The bill is opposed by the White House
out of concern it could damage relations with Turkey, a vital Muslim
ally and NATO member.

Last October, the French parliament passed a bill making it a crime
to deny the killings were genocide. The bill, which still requires
approval from the French Senate and President Jacques Chirac, stands
in direct contrast with a Turkish law that punishes those who use
the term genocide to describe the deaths.

Turkish groups in Switzerland are planning demonstrations in support
of Perincek, whose hearing in a police court is scheduled to last
two days. Any decision can appealed to the country's supreme court.

[Joseph]

The link below has pictures of the now nationalist Dogu Perincek with Ocalan and the PKK. Now he is a spokesperson for the Turkish state. Great guy, Turks must be proud...he's not an opportunist or anything.

http://www.nihalatsiz.org/vatan_haini_perincek.htm

[Joseph]

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/front/Court_confirms_verdict_against_Perin_ek.html?siteSect=104&sid=8549273&cKey=1198068459000&ty=nd

December 19, 2007 - 11:58 AM

Court confirms verdict against Perinçek

The Swiss Federal Court has confirmed the sentence given to a Turkish politician, Doğu Perinçek, for denying the 1915 Armenian massacre was genocide.
The district court in Lausanne originally found Perinçek guilty of racial discrimination in March and ordered him to pay a fine of SFr3,000 ($2,600) – a charge against which he appealed.

He was also handed a suspended fine of SFr9,000 and ordered to pay SFr1,000 to the Swiss-Armenian Association as a symbolic gesture.

Perinçek's lawyer said that his client would certainly appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg against the decision.

The president of the Turkish Workers' Party had repeatedly denied during a visit to Switzerland in 2005 that the First World War era killings of more than 1.5 million Armenians amounted to genocide.

Under the Swiss penal code any act of denying, belittling or justifying genocide is a violation of the country's anti-racism legislation.

Lausanne is the capital of canton Vaud, one of two Swiss cantons, along with Geneva, where the parliaments have voted in recent years to recognise the Armenian massacre as genocide. The Swiss government has not done so though.

[Joseph]

Read the part in bold lettering. Classic

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=91833

Swiss court rejects Perinçek's appeal

Thursday, December 20, 2007


GENEVA – AFP

Switzerland's Federal Tribunal on Wednesday rejected a Turkish activist's appeal over his conviction for having denied that mass killings of Armenians during World War One constituted genocide.

The tribunal, which is the country's supreme court, confirmed in every respect an earlier ruling against Doğu Perinçek, leader of a small left-wing party, the Workers' Party (İP).

On March 7 this year, a court in Lausanne fined Perinçek 3,000 Swiss francs (1,900 euros) and handed down a suspended sentence for having "denied the Armenian genocide three times during meetings held in Switzerland in 2005, motivated by racist motives."

Pierre-Henri Winzap, the judge who heard the Lausanne case, ruled that Perinçek's comments had not been motivated by a wish to start a historical debate.

He had described the defendant as an "arrogant provocateur" with "racist and nationalist motives".

The ruling made Perinçek the first person to be convicted in Switzerland for denying the Armenian genocide, following his claim the killings were an "international lie".

Wednesday's Federal Tribunal ruling is unlikely to please the Turkish government.

A Turkish foreign ministry statement issued shortly after the original March judgment described it as unacceptable and criticized Swiss media coverage of the case as biased.

It added: "We hope this injustice will be corrected in the future stages of the legal process by the impartial and independent judges we believe exist in Switzerland."

Having exhausted all legal avenues in the Swiss courts, Perinçek can now appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

According to the Armenians, 1.5 million of their kinsmen were killed from 1915 to 1917 under an Ottoman Empire campaign of deportation and murder. Rejecting the genocide label, Turkey argues that 250,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia during the war.

A number of countries and official bodies, notably the European Parliament, France, Canada and now a US House of Representatives committee, have labeled the killings a genocide.

Switzerland's lower parliamentary chamber recognized the killings as genocide towards the end of 2003.