Yesterday, Gevorg Kostanyan, Amal Clooney, and Geoffrey Robertson, who represent the Armenian side made speeches at the hearings in “Perinçek vs. Switzerland”.
Gevorg Kostanyan, the RA Prosecutor General in his speech stressed that the Court was presented with a distorted and inaccurate facts and legal errors, which creates favorable conditions in the world for the persons who deny genocide. “We are here to be sure that such acts should never be repeated by a court that speaks in the name of human rights,” the RA Prosecutor General stressed (the English version of his speech can be found below).
Advocate Geoffrey Robertson, representing the interests of Armenia correlated the Armenian Genocide with the Holocaust of Jews. He claimed that Genocide denial can have a double impact: “It makes survivors of Genocide and their children and grandchildren feel the worthlessness and contempt to them feel lowlity that the initial perpetrators intended and it incites admiration for these perpetrators and the dangerous desire to famulate them,” Mr Robertson stressed in his speech (the English version of his speech can be found below).
Amal Clooney in her speech emphasized that the ECHR Lower Chamber allowed a number of essential mistakes by upholding Doğu Perinçek’s claim against Switzerland. In particular, this step of the Chamber doubted the reality of genocide. She said that the court without any examination, study of documents, questioning witnesses, as well as the involvement of the Armenian side had decided that the Armenian Genocide was not proven and there were even no grounds to prove it i(the English version of his speech can be found below).
Information on “Perinçek v. Switzerland” case trial is available here.
Photos from ECHR website
