Or, so say the police. Remember, this comes hard on the heels of the proposal of a new law making it a crime to deny the Armenian genocide. Yep, and all of the sudden, I guess, some "youths" got so hungry (you know, because they don't have "jobs") that they decided the only thing they could do (a la Les Miserables) was steal a statue and melt it down to its basic element to buy a loaf of bread, right?
Yeah, eat my @$$:
PARIS (Reuters) - A bronze monument near Paris commemorating the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks has been destroyed just two days after France's parliament passed a bill that would make it a crime to deny the genocide.
A local member of the Armenian church in Chaville, a town near Paris, said the heavy bronze sculpture was wrenched off its pedestal late Friday night or early Saturday morning.
"Police say it might have been stolen for the metal, but it seems too much of a coincidence that this should have happened just after parliament voted the Armenia bill," said Stephane Topalian, a member of the Armenian church council.
Ankara denies accusations that some 1.5 million Armenians perished in a systematic genocide during World War One, saying large numbers of both Christian Armenians and Muslim Turks died in a partisan conflict raging at that time.
Turkey has protested against Thursday's lower house vote, which establishes a one year prison term and 45,000 euro (30,326 pound) fine for anyone denying the massacres.
The bill still needs to be approved by the upper house Senate to become law.
Jeez, sorry I get so vulgar sometimes.
8 comments:
Aside from being a violation of the right of free speech, criminalizing opinions is never a good idea because it lets people evade the responsibility of making the decision to stand up for justice as individuals and allows the deniers to strike poses as "martyrs" for the "truth". (Of course, they do that anyway. In this country you're "brave" if you're Dixie B***h Natalie Maines risking your box-office receipts and ignored if you are Wafa Sultan or Ayaan Hirsi Ali risking your life, but I digress.) Plus it's an 8-lane highway straight to the hell of PC. Criminalizing Holocaust denial might shut up David Irving for a while, but it's worthless against the likes of Ahmadhimmijerker.
RevereRidesAgain,
I agree with you. One positive thing about the French law, though, is that, as I understand it, it will keep Turkey out of the EU.
RevereRidesAgain,
That's precisely the point I made in my last post, From Anti-Defamation to Intellectual Meritocracy. Changed times require changed measures.
This is not the 1st time. A monument in either the Netherlands or Belgium, I forget, (a rather old monument that involved a CROSS as its memorial as well as a plaque) was removed to a little seen area after angry Turks protested. This was a few years back, but has been posted on before. I'll find it and link later.
BTW, not to beat a dead horse, but Thea Halo and numerous other authors and scholars have documented the systematic genocide of ALL Christian groups in Asia Minor. Halo documented the genocide of the Pontic Greeks which happened simultaneously with the main thrust of the Armenian slaughters. Some groups are petitioning out there to make sure that the term "Armenian Genocide" is modified to include all of the Christian groups. We all applaud the Armenians' determination in keeping this issue alive through the years, they have done an excellent job. We are just asking that our relatives aren't forgotten as well. It's obviously been enough of a struggle anyway, bring in all parties to fight this one.
I'll grab the appropriate links for a story on this issue later as well for a post or longer article. Remember, unlike the Germans who have been forced to visit concentration camps, the Turks of younger generations have not been taught about this. In fact, it has been officially denied.
To my mind, the most important fact that has not been taught about the Turkish genocide of Armenians and other Christians is the fact that it was a Jihad, just like the one that is currrently being waged against Western Civilization.
I know about the Armenian genocide and how it affected abstract artist Gorky. I know about Ataturk whom I always took to be a secular figure. I know about the Greeks being chased out of land where they had lived for millennia. I just don't know how it all fits together. Does anyone know a trusty short history of this period on web? I'm not even going to attempt the wikipedia here, because I suspect that the bias would be off the map. The Turks are as crazy about Ataturk as they are about Mohammed.
Here's an article from Armeniapedia about the Armenian genocide.
And here's one about the genocide of Pontian Greeks.
Demosthenes--
http://members.fortunecity.com/fstav1/english.html
This site is the MOTHER LODE of links on this subject, among others. I don't know how easy it will be to find the most precise info due to the vast amount of links, but I keep it bookmarked and keep going back to it myself. Just turn down your speakers unless you want to get blasted by some cheesy Greek music.
That is, BTW, the English language URL. The site is up in multiple languages, I know French and German for sure. I think it grew out of the old (and excellent) "Turkish Crime of Our Century" site, which is linked there with an EXCELLENT timeline. I'd check that first, actually.
Here it is:
http://imia.cc.duth.gr/turkey/index.e.html
The Turkish Crime of Our Century
Great site, great photo archive (graphic), chronology outline is a great start to get your bearings on this subject.
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