"We saw that the mentality of Ittihad regime remains unchanged"

The Switzerland-Armenia Association (SAA) does not hide its deep disappointment at the decision of the Court of Human Rights and has effectively lost its trust in the European justice system. However, we believe strongly that this is not yet the final word on this issue. Organizing and implementing "Operation Lausanne 2005", the Turkish state and its Talaat Pasha Committee achieved the opposite of what they wanted: silence on the Armenian genocide. Never before in Switzerland or around the world has the press covered this crime against humanity in such painstaking detail, thus rendering the consensus on its reality quite irreversible.

While the SAA is a small organisation, we are aware of having borne a great responsibility in this situation: on the one hand, we took the risk to bring Dogu Perincek in front of a justice system with all its eventual consequences; on the other hand, we forced the hand of the Government of Turkey, and it made some important mistakes.

At first, we stood alone in front of a powerful state, but were able to gain ground in front of the Swiss juridical machinery. As the case reached the European level, we found ourselves facing an unfavourable political constellation. However, the mobilisation of international human rights associations, including those in Turkey, was unparalleled and demonstrated that the lies of the Turkish state were in the midst of an internal shredding process. That said, much work remains. The SAA considers that:

A. This process has revealed that the majority of the judges of the Grand Chamber have a very poor level of knowledge, if not a superficial one, of the intentional willingness of M. Perincek and the Talaat Pasha Committee to publicly deny in Switzerland, six times in four months, the Armenian genocide. This action had a dual purpose: injuring the dignity of the Armenians in Switzerland and attacking the anti-racism norm and law of our country;

B. Knowing that there is not a unilaterally articulated European concept of morality, the Court forgot to consider that this is the concept of Switzerland. The majority did not respect the fact that by introducing this article in their Criminal Code, the Swiss authorities had evidently considered the specific sensitivities of their population. The Court has thus unduly restricted the margin of appreciation of Swiss domestic law;

C. This decision was far from being unanimous and the President and the Vice-President of the Court vehemently criticised the judgment and the analytical methodology of the majority;

D. The antiracism norm in Switzerland is in danger because of its application to the Armenian case; it will require hard work to defeat this peril;

E. Swiss public opinion is divided between those who defend the freedom of speech unconditionally and those who have understood that this is certainly essential and fundamental in a democratic society, but not absolute. The dignity of Armenians in Switzerland must be considered, regardless of geographic or temporal considerations concerning the denial of this genocide.

We note simply that this verdict pretends to protect the dignity of Armenians, all the while subjecting it to the full "freedom of expression" that literally undermines the veracity of the first mega tragedy of the 20th century. The Court maintains the use of two weights and two measures as the first Chamber did, making an inadmissible distinction between the denial of the Armenian genocide and the denial of the Holocaust. Moreover, this distinction was veiled as supposed impartial historical research, the latter reflecting an anti-democratic and anti-Semitic ideology. On the other hand, the denial of the Armenian genocide is a precise State ideology which denies the evidence of the annihilation of an ethnic and religious group as such, a century ago.

We should be modest and understand that we must learn more. We have a State with a well-oiled denialist machinery before us and European States currently have other priorities concerning Turkey, so they are not ready to condemn it in a blatant way on the world stage.

Though we are disappointed by this verdict, it is obvious that in Lausanne during the trial of 2007, the SAA managed to unmask before the entire world the fact that Turkey was behind the denialist agenda of the Talaat Pacha committee - and that indeed little has changed in this sense between the criminal regime of the Ittihad and the present government of Turkey.  So, the message to those who affirm that M. Perincek “definitely closed down the 100 years of lies” is that they are absolutely right: thanks to this hateful denialism, there is no one any longer in the entire world who actually doubts the reality of the Armenian genocide.