“Turkey cannot simply protect freedom of speech”
Similar discussions conflict with different political opinions, causing fissures in them. We had better differentiate between the liabilities of the judicial and legislative branches of the power, member of the Constitutional Commission of the French Senate Bertrand Mathieu said during a debate over the bill criminalizing public denial of the Armenian Genocide.
"The legislative body is to give an assessment to historic events. It is the judicial body that criminalizes the denial of a bill. The Commission calls on Senate members to seriously contemplate over the bill before putting it to the vote, since the results may be unpredictable and irreparable.
Life shows that the adoption of similar bills has had serious consequences. According to the European law, freedom of speech does not only imply the right to talk about things freely, but also to oppose them and express a different opinion about them. The adoption of the bill will violate that right, hence it is anti-constitutional and dangerous and should be decided by court," he said.
Isabelle Pasquet, a member of the Communist Party of France, said in her addressing speech that the bill does not only refer to Armenians but, since it demands criminalizing denial of all genocides and the Holocaust denial is already a crime in France, the bill also covers Armenians.
The Communist Party member is for the adoption of the bill though she links the ‘hasty adoption' of such a serious bill with elections.
"The President of France is trying to curtsey some layers of the society, i.e. the motion is not frank," she said. "We shall always support our citizens of Armenian origin, but we reject everything that is unconstitutional."
Then she added that Armenian citizens of France should be protected from Turkish ultranationalists who have been staging massive protests in recent days.
"Turkey's recent moves and violent actions, which openly show why Turkey denies the genocide, prove again that Turkey cannot simply protect freedom of speech," she said.
