“Consistency in the fight against the denial of the crime of genocide at has an important role in the prevention of new crimes against humanity,” he added.

The government of Switzerland announced Tuesday that it will appeal a December 17, 2013 decision by the European Court of Human Rights overturning the conviction of Dogu Perinçek for denying the Armenian Genocide.

The decision was made by Switzerland’s Federal Office of Justice, which is asking the ECHR Grand Chamber to review the ruling to clarify the scope available to Swiss authorities in applying the Swiss Criminal Code to combat racism. Switzerland created this penal provision, which entered into force in 1995, to close loopholes in its criminal law and enable the country to accede to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

In 2007, Turkish politician Dogu Perincek was convicted by the Federal Court of Switzerland for publicly denying the Armenian Genocide, which included his public statement that “the genocide is an international lie”.

The ECHR subsequently ruled that it was not a crime for Perincek to publicly deny the Armenian Genocide, contrary to Swiss laws prohibiting denial and other European directives urging states to take a stronger stance in fighting denial of genocide and crimes against humanity.

ANC Australia voiced the serious concerns of Armenian-Australians, and Armenians worldwide, regarding the ECHR’s December 17, 2013 decision, which rejected the Swiss court’s 2007 decision to penalise, under Swiss Penal Law, Perincek’s vehement denial of the Armenian Genocide.

ANC Australia presented to the Swiss Ambassador a list of factual inaccuracies that were evident in the ECHR’s judgment and called upon the Swiss Government to appeal the judgment.

ANC Australia Executive Director, Vache Kahramanian commented at the conclusion of the meeting: “We welcome the opportunity to have met with the Swiss Ambassador to Australia and to have discussed this important issue.”

“Switzerland has been an international leader in both genocide recognition and the criminalisation of genocide denial and therefore we strongly urge the Swiss authorities to appeal the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights,” Kahramanian added.

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.

The Strasburg ruling is not just unacceptable for Swiss citizens of Armenian origin, but also for the Swiss justice system which has condemned twice at the highest level the denial of the genocide of the Armenian people.

The Switzerland-Armenia Association (SAA) requested a legal opinion from renowned international public lawyers as well as Swiss penal code experts. This document was submitted to the Federal Council and Head of the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP) and the Swiss representative at the ECHR with the urgent request to consider thoroughly an appeal for a revision of the ruling.

A refusal to appeal the ECHR ruling would mean that Switzerland

– bids farewell to the basic principles of the protection of human rights, primarily however human dignity;

– back steps from her international commitments in combating racism (cf Switzerland’s report before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD);

– proactively favors a weakening of her own law;

– takes clearly sides, violating thus massively neutrality principles. Switzerland’s mediation role in the solution of the conflict between Armenia and Turkey on the one hand, and between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the other – the latter elevated to a central task in the annual program of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship by President Didier Burkhalter-would lose entirely its credibility.

In addition, a refusal would also mean that Switzerland essentially ignores the numerous calls of Swiss and international NGOs for a revision appeal at the Great Chamber of the ECHR, including positions of recognized international experts in genocide research and in human rights. The latter emphasize the factual foundation of the genocide on the Armenian people and speak against the establishment of a hierarchy of genocides as de facto carried out by the ECHR ruling. In the case of a refusal, Switzerland would further ignore the substantively argued position of the largest and oldest Turkish human rights organization (Human Rights Association in Turkey, IHD), as published yesterday. This position describes the racial impact of the ECHR ruling of 17th December 2013 and considers a revision of this ruling with a view towards the situation of national minorities in Turkey as indispensable. IHD emphasizes amongst others that the ECHR has contradicted, with its ruling, previous decisions of the European Parliament.

It is assumed that the decision for a revision appeal rests entirely in the competence of Swiss Federal Concillor Simonetta Sommaruga. The sudden visit of State Secretary Yves Rossier on 27th January 2014 in the Armenian capital Yerevan, however, opens up the speculation that the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs will also claim a role in the decision. Should, however, Switzerland refrain from using her right to request a revision, this would send the wrong signals with unforeseeable international consequences: Switzerland’s good offices in a resolution of a conflict would not be taken seriously any longer. The SAA recalls that the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s visit to Bern on 10th October 2013 led the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs to announce a strategic partnership with Ankara. President Burkhalter has therefore not hidden the fact that this was primarily tied to the Swiss expectations to be invited by Turkey in 2015 on the occasion of Turkey’s Chairmanship of the G20 Summit. A passive position would further show that Switzerland does not give priority to the defense of her own basic constitutional rights. Finally, a refusal to appeal the ruling would give those populist forces an upswing who have traditionally sought to abolish the anti-racism penal code and the Swiss Federal Commission Against Racism. At the European level, Switzerland would confirm the supremacy of the legal body of the freedom of expression before all the other legal bodies and thus contribute to the violation of future human rights principles.

We hope that President Didier Burkhalter – who by the way has only recently condemned with clear words the denial of all crimes against humanity on the occasion of his visit to Auschwitz at the end of January 2014 – as well as the Head of the FDJP, Federal Concillor Simonetta Sommaruga, are aware of their responsibility towards Switzerland and the world at large.

“As human rights defenders in Turkey, we are the most immediate, most direct witnesses of how the denial of the genocide against Amenians 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 the freedom of expression and the human rights in general,” argued HRA in a copy of the letter received by the Armenian Weekly.

HRA concluded: “In the name of human rights, of the struggle against racist hatred and of justice in Turkey and elsewhere, we would like to express our belief that the Swiss Court’s decision to penalize Doğu Perinçek’s denialism was a step to protect us all, the entire humanity against racism and our heartfelt support to Swiss Court’s exercising its right to appeal against the ECHR decision dated 17th December 2013.”

Below is the full text of the letter:

After having read the European Court’s decision on Dogu Perinçek v. Switzerland (ECHR. 370, 230, 17 December, 2013) we, as concerned genocide scholars, believe it imperative to respond to historical and conceptual inaccuracies that are articulated in the decision, and we believe those inaccuracies have serious ethical and social significance.

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 and at odds with an ethical understanding of denialism.

The decision asserts that: 1) “genocide as a precisely defined legal concept was not easy to prove”; 2) “the Court doubted that there could be a general consensus as to the events such as those at issue, given that the historical research was by definition open to discussion and a matter of debate, without necessarily giving rise to a final conclusion or to the assertion of objective and absolute truths”; the court uses the phrase “heated debate” in referring to the current political context surrounding the Armenian genocide.

First, it is the overwhelming conclusion of scholars who study genocide (hundreds of independent scholars, who have no affiliations with governments, and whose work spans many countries and nationalities and the course of decades) that the Ottoman mass killings of Armenians conforms to all the aspects of Article 2 of the U.N. CPPC definition of genocide.

In 1997, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the major body of scholars who study genocide, passed a resolution unanimously recognizing the Ottoman massacres of Armenians as genocide. The InternationalCenter for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) prepared an analysis for the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) in 2003, stating that “the Events [of 1915] include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention (UNCPPCG).

In 2000, 100 leading Holocaust scholars signed a petition in The New York Times affirming the events of 1915 were genocide and urging worldwide recognition. An Open Letter from the IAGS to Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, in June, 2005, enjoined the Turkish government to own up to “the unambiguous historical record on the Armenian genocide.” The only three histories of genocide in the 20th century that genocide-studies theorists (such as William Schabas) agree on are the cases of the Armenians in Turkey, in 1915; the Jews in Europe, in 1940–45; and the Tutsis in Rwanda, in 1994. The destruction of the Armenians was central to Raphael Lemkin’s creation of the concept of genocide as a crime in international law, and it was Lemkin who coined and first used the term Armenian Genocide in 1944.

The idea put forth by the Court that crimes of genocide may only apply to the events in Rwanda and at Srebrenica because they were tried at the ICC is incomplete. Crimes of genocide have been assessed as historical events by scholars for decades now, and both the crimes committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915 and those committed against the Jews of Europe by the Nazis in the 1940s were deemed genocide by Lemkin. As legal scholars have noted, crimes of genocide can be tried retroactively, and William Schabas has pointed out that in the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, in 1961, the word genocide was used retroactively to designate crimes committed against the Jews.

Further, under Article 10, “the Court clearly distinguished the present case from those concerning the negation of the crimes of the Holocaust. . . . because the acts that they had called into question had been found by an international court to be clearly established.” We would note that the perpetrators of the Holocaust were prosecuted at the Nuremberg Trials (1945–46), not for the crime of genocide, but for “crimes against humanity,” even though Raphael Lemkin had previously created the term “genocide.” The Armenian case, contrary to the Court’s assertion, does have a clear legal basis for its authenticity. First, “crimes against humanity” was the very phrase coined by France, the United Kingdom, and Russia in their 1915 joint declaration in response to the massacres of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish government. After WWI, the Ottoman government convened military tribunals (1919–20) to try 200 high-level members of the military and government for premeditated mass murder of the Armenian population. The ICTJ decision of 2006 also affirms such a legal basis.

The Court also decided, on the basis of Article 17 (prohibition of abuse of rights), that “The rejection of the legal characterization as ‘genocide’ of the 1915 events was not such as to incite hatred against the Armenian people.” Yet the ECtHR states (para 19) that “the negation of the Holocaust is today the principal motor of anti-Semitism.” We would note similarly that the denialism of the Armenian genocide in Turkey resulted in the assassination of Armenian Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, and has resulted in violence to others in Turkey.

In referring to the Armenian genocide as “an international lie,” Mr. Perençik reveals a level of extremism that belies all sense of judgment. We believe that the Court makes a misstep when it privileges Turkey’s denialism (a country with one of the worst records on intellectual freedom and human rights over the past decades) as a “heated debate.” As the IAGS has written in an Open Letter on denialism and the Armenian genocide (October, 2006), “scholars who deny the facts of genocide in the face of the overwhelming scholarly evidence are not engaging in historical debate, but have another agenda. In the case of the Armenian Genocide, the agenda is to absolve Turkey of responsibility for the planned extermination of the Armenians—an agenda consistent with every Turkish ruling party since the time of the Genocide in 1915. Scholars who dispute that what happened to the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 constitutes genocide blatantly ignore the overwhelming historical and scholarly evidence.”

As noted genocide scholar Deborah Lipstadt has written: “Denial of genocide whether that of the Turks against the Armenians, or the Nazis against the Jews is not an act of historical reinterpretation . . . . The deniers aim at convincing innocent third parties that there is another side of the story . . . when there is no other side.” We believe that the Court’s decision and reasoning contributes to denialism and this has a corrosive impact on efforts for truth and reconciliation, and ethics.

We believe it important that the government of Switzerland request a reexamination of the Court’s judgment in this case.”

“Dear Ambassador,

On December 17, 2013, a Chamber judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter, the “ECHR”), in the case of Perinçek vs. Switzerland (application no. 27510/08), held that Article 261bis, paragraph 4 of the Swiss Criminal Code violates Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The majority judgment is neither final nor binding and the delay to refer the decision to the Grand Chamber of the Court expires on March 17, 2014.

The Armenian Bar Association is the largest, most diverse group of Armenian-American judges, lawyers, law professors and students united by the greatest -and often elusive- universal interest, namely justice. We vigorously condemn what we consider as a blatant travesty of justice.

Given the powerful dissent of Judges Vučinić and Pinto de Albuquerque, we are confident that the Grand Chamber of the Court will agree that the case deserves further examination, to reverse the majority decision and deliver a just final judgment, upholding Swiss Law.

With this non-final ruling, the ECHR casts a shadow of doubt on the veracity of the Armenian Genocide. Under the guise of protecting freedom of expression, the court tramples on universal values against inciting hatred, and abuse of rights. The judgment also risks creating an unfortunate legal precedent for all abhorrent versions of denial and hate speech, thereby establishing a blueprint of immunity that would encourage future perpetrators of genocide.

The decision further enhances the credibility of individuals such as Mr. Doğu Perinçek, who has been convicted to life in prison in Turkey, under conspiracy and various other charges.

The Armenian Bar Association thanks Switzerland for its brave stand on Genocide recognition and denial prevention. We hereby request that you convey our message to the Federal Council of Switzerland, so that it may apply to the ECHR Grand Chamber, if it has not done so already.”

The Armenian National Committee presented to Ambassador de Cerjat the main points and arguments of Perincek vs. Switzerland case on the grounds of which the verdict of the Federal Court of Switzerland was appealed against.

The Ambassador was informed about the general circumstances of the case, the position of the Armenian people as well as on the necessity for this ruling to be appealed against. It was also mentioned that Perincek went on purpose to Switzerland, to effect his declarations, calling the Armenian Genocide an “international lie”, to challenge Switzerland’s respective law.

Such a ruling, being the first legal court decision classifying the denial of Armenian Genocide to the right of freedom of expression, on the eve of 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide paves the way, mainly through contradictions and groundless announcements, towards not only anti-Armenian rhetorics, but empowers Turkish extremist movements in Europe and elsewhere, hampering the calls for justice and the basic principles for reconciliation.

The Armenian National Committee has expressed its readiness to support Switzerland by any means to the process of appealing. Switzerland should appeal against the abovementioned ruling based on its fundamental principles of democracy and justice in order to have the opportunity that such a disorienting decision adopted against the Armenian people to be corrected. Switzerland should protect its legislation from anyone’s objectives to provoke hatred and racism.

At the end of the meeting the delegation of the ANC Belgium assured the Ambassador that he will be kept informed on the developments of the issue, expecting that Switzerland will appeal against the abovementioned ruling.