Armenians of the Netherlands welcome court ruling against Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression
April 15, 2020
««Crimes of Turkey against the Armenian people, humanity and civilization, over the past 100 years»»
The Federation of Armenian Organizations of the Netherlands (FAON) welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, aimed at preventing Turkish-Azerbaijani aggression against the Armenians.
According to Armenpress, in a decision of April 14, the court confirmed the decisions of previous instances to convict the head of the Azerbaijani-Turkish cultural association in The Hague for propaganda of national discrimination and calls for violence.
At a protest rally in Almelo against the erection of a monument to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, Ilkhan Ashkin said that “Karabakh will become the grave of Armenians.”
The Federation of Armenian Organizations of the Netherlands (FAON) hopes that henceforth the prosecutor’s office will be vigilant and adequately respond to hate speech against Armenians on their own initiative, especially from Turks and Azerbaijanis living in the Netherlands.
“The Federation of Armenian Organizations of the Netherlands is pleased with this verdict. Currently, this person has been sentenced to 120 hours of forced labor, as an alternative measure of restraint, deprivation of liberty for 60 days of imprisonment and one month of conditional imprisonment with a trial period of two years was chosen, ”said Chairman of FAON Mato Hakhverdyan.
“This decision is the result of the consistent struggle of our compatriots living in the Netherlands and is a decisive victory against manifestations of racism. The Dutch court reaffirmed its role as the guarantor of tolerance and the rule of law, ”said Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to the Netherlands Tigran Balayan.
Background
As you know, on June 1, 2014, a rally was held in Almelo against the establishment of the Memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide on the territory of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Almelo. The convict was one of the organizers of the rally and deviated from the objectives of the rally.
He begins to talk about the Karabakh conflict from the scene and shouts “Karabakh will become the grave of Armenians”, to which a crowd of several thousand people answers, repeating this slogan many times.
Dutch-Armenian organizations, in particular the Federation of Dutch-Armenian Organizations and the Armenian National Committee of the Netherlands, in 2014 filed a complaint against anti-Armenian statements made during the rally.
In the Court of Cassation, the defense argued that in his statements the accused did not mean the Armenians as a nation, but only those who “occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The Court of Appeal ruled that the allegations were directed against all Armenians. In the context of the protest against the establishment of the Memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide, this means incitement to violence against Armenians because of their ethnicity. The Supreme Court found this view of the Court of Appeal to be correct and dismissed the appeal.
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ENGLISH TRANSLATION “lousavor avedis”
