1111) Hrant Dink: "I will be among the first to head for France and break the law"

. . .Turkey and France can race to see who can jail me first .

The head editor of the Turkey-based Armenian "Agos" newspaper, Hrant Dink, has said this week that he will be heading for France to . . . . . protest the bill that would call for punishment for those publicly denying the so-called Armenian genocide. Dink's announcement has awakened particular interest in that it comes in the wake of a year during which Dink himself was tried in Turkey for "insulting Turkishness" by defending the veracity of the Armenian genocide.

Commenting on the "genocide denial bill," which is scheduled to come before the French Parliament October 12, Dink said "When this bill appeared first, we were fast to declare as a group that it would lead to bad results......As you know, I have been tried in Turkey for saying the Armenian genocide exists, and I have talked about how wrong this is. But at the same time, I cannot accept that in France you could possibly now be tried for denying the Armenian genocide.

If this bill becomes law, I will be among the first to head for France and break the law. Then we can watch both the Turkish Republic and the French government race against eachother to condemn me.

We can watch to see which will throw me into jail first.....I really think that France, if it makes this bill law, will be hurting not only the EU, but Armenians across the world. It will also damage the normalizing of relations between Armenia and Turkey. What the peoples of these two countries need is dialogue, and all these laws do is harm such dialogue."

9 Oct 2006
Hürriyet