Blog #3: Erdogan accuses France of fascism after passing Armenian genocide bill

Within the past couple of weeks France has been pushing a bill through their government that makes it illegal to deny that the 1915 massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman empire is considered genocide. This bill would impose up to a year in prison and 59, 000 dollars on the perpetrator who claims that it was not genocide. The Turkish government does not agree with this law and claims that France is resembling a Fascist style of rule. This massacre of people during the early 20th century is considered by most countries a genocide and resulted in around 1.5 million people dying. France is not the first European country to retaliate for someone denying the Ottoman empire genocide. Switzerland has charged people with racist crimes for denying it also. The practice of making laws against the denial of genocide began after World War II when most of Europe made it illegal to deny the Holocaust. Whether it was genocide or not is not the question, rather, is the law constitutional and how?

The first amendment of our United States constitution states that everyone has the right to freedom of speech. This freedom is applied to everything that a person wants to say no matter how obscene or politically and historically incorrect they are. The Declaration of the Rights of Man, the French declaration, also covers the people with an amendment that protects freedom of speech. With that said it is also important that history does not repeat itself and the only way to guarantee that is to always remember the past. The laws involving the Holocaust and Ottoman empire massacres are only attempts at avoiding repetition of these incidents. A better solution to the issue would be to educate each generation on the truths of the massacre. The proposed law does resemble a fascist government, like Hitler's, that wants to take all its people's rights and independence. It is important that the French government hold their people's rights higher than their desire to ensure that a certain event in history remains intact. History, if taught properly, will speak for its self no matter what people say about it.


http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/europe/erdogan-accuses-france-of-fascism-after-passing-armenian-genocide-bill

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=145686239