Legislation
Some countries, including Argentina, Armenia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Uruguay have adopted laws that punish genocide denial. In October 2006, the French National Assembly, despite the opposition of foreign minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, passed a bill which if approved by the Senate and signed into law, will make Armenian Genocide denial a crime. On October 7, 2011 French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that Turkey's refusal to recognize the genocide would force France to make such denials a criminal offense. On December 22, 2011, the lower house of the French legislature approved a bill making it a crime (punishable by a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros) to publicly deny as genocide the killing of Armenians by troops of Turkey's former Ottoman Empire. On January 23, 2012, the French Senate adopted the law, which criminalizes the denial of genocides, including the Armenian Genocide in France. However, on February 28, 2012, the Constitutional Council of France invalidated the law, stating, among other things, that it curbs freedom of speech. After that the French President Sarkozy has called on his cabinet to draft new legislation to punish those who deny that the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman troops is a genocide.
Read more about this topic: Armenian Genocide Denial
Famous quotes containing the word legislation:
“The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The laboring man and the trade-unionist, if I understand him, asks only equality before the law. Class legislation and unequal privilege, though expressly in his favor, will in the end work no benefit to him or to society.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)