Early Day Motion In the UK Parliament To Recognize The Armenian Genocide

Stephen Pound, MP, had suggested a bill to recognize the Assyrian & Armenian Genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire. There's no date set for the debate of this motion so far, but signatures are being collected since this bill was presented in Jan. 24, 2006, and the last count reported 58 signatures ...

Below is the text of this bill as appeared in The Early Day Motions Database Web Site , United Kingdom Parliament Publication Website and More Info. From Campaign for Recognition of the Armenian Genocide (CRAG) Website

ASSYRIAN AND ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN 1915

Stephen Pound
Bob Russell
Mr Martin Caton
Mrs Ann Cryer
Mr Andrew Dismore
Jeremy Corbyn



Nia Griffith

That this House is appalled by the genocide committed against the Assyrians in 1915 in their ancestral homeland by the then ruling government of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the Committee for Union and Progress, a genocide which led to the mass exodus of the Assyrians from their millennia-old native soil and resulted in the deaths of approximately two-thirds of the Assyrian population and one and a half million Armenians and the destruction of many Assyrian and Armenian villages and national and religious institutions; recognises the suffering of the Assyrian and Armenian people during the genocide of 1915, and accepts that the suffering of victims of genocide is augmented and perpetuated by indifference and denial, and that genocide prevention can only by achieved by learning from history and recognising and condemning previous acts of genocide; calls upon the UK and Turkish governments publicly and officially to recognise the Assyrian and Armenian genocide of 1915, and encourage other members of the international community to take similar steps, thereby fulfilling the obligation of international co-operation enshrined in the preamble to the 1948 Genocide Convention; and urges the UK Government to call on the European Union to make official Turkish recognition of the 1915 Assyrian and Armenian genocide one of the pre-conditions for Turkey's membership of the EU.

Read Full Post!

Christian Union Wants to Make the Denial of Genocide Punishable

ANP (DUTCH PRESS AGENCY) 1 June 2006

Christian Union wants to make the denial of genocide punishable

THE HAGUE (ANP) - The denial of genocide, such as the Holocaust, must be punishable. To this end the Christian Union (Christen Unie) party has submitted a bill to the Parliament. Anyone who intentionally denies a genocide or a crime against humanity in order to insult others or incite hate shall be accountable as having committed a crime which can carry a maximum sentence of one year imprisonment, according to the draft law.

The presenter of the bill, Dutch MP Mrs. Tineke Huizinga, wants to have this provision included in the Dutch Penal Code as a clear signal that such denials would not be tolerated. The law should also make it easier to combat discrimination on Internet, said Huizinga Thursday during the introducing of her bill.

For the victims of genocides and their surviving relatives the intentional denials of the committed evil or distorting of the facts are ³indigestible². Huizinga named as an example, next to the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War, the extent and dimensions of the slavery in which The Netherlands has played a ³disgraceful² role.

In addition, the parliament member recalled the Genocide of the Armenians in 1915 during the Ottoman Empire, which is still being denied by the present day Turkey and the Turks elsewhere.

Huizinga and other members of the Parliament have recently been bombarded by E-mails forwarded especially by the Turks who oppose the Christian Union bill. Huizinga emphasised that the bill does not seek to restrict the freedom of speech. According to her, the historical facts should always be open to discussion. The denial, approval or justification of genocide should therefore be punishable when it concerns a deliberate _expression to insult and discriminate people.

The Federation of Armenian Organisations in The Netherlands called the bill a step forward and is happy that the Armenian Genocide has been explicitly mentioned in the Explanatory Memorandum of the bill. A representative of the organisation, Mrs. Inge Drost, thinks that the adoption of the bill should make it possible to close Internet sites which engage in the denial of Armenian Genocide, such as seemingly innocent site www.armenië.nl

In a reaction, the National Bureau for Combating Race Discrimination and the Israel Information and Documentation Centre, likewise announced their support of the bill. The draft law should go first to the Council of State for advice, following which the Parliament can start the proceedings on the bill

Link

Read Full Post!