Amal Clooney To Challenge Appeal Of Dogu Perincek, Turkish Politician Who Claims Armenian Genocide Never Took Place [PHOTO]

Amal Clooney, humanitarian lawyer and wife of George Clooney, is about to become part of another high profile case. According to The Telegraph, Clooney will be part of a legal team representing Armenia in a case involving denial of the Armenian genocide by a Turkish politician.

For those who do not know much about the genocide itself, ArmenPress reports that it occurred in 1915 during World War I, and that up to 1.5 million Armenians were slaughtered by Ottoman Turks. On the other hand, The Daily Sabah reports that Turkey accepts mass deaths of Armenians during their forced deportation during the war, but claims the death toll was much lower and attributes mass deaths to diseases and isolated cases of attacks.

The politician in question is Dogu Perincek, a member of the Left-wing Turkish Workers' Party. In 2008, Perincek called the genocide "an international lie," and was found guilty by a Swiss court of denying that it ever took place.

He then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which ruled in December 2013 that Switzerland had violated his right to free expression.

Armenia is challenging the appeal, and argues that denying the genocide should be a crime, just as negating the Holocaust of six million Jews is a punishable offence in many countries. The case will be heard by the Strasbourg court's 17-member Grand Chamber, with the first hearing scheduled for January 28.

A strong legal team will be on Armenia's side this time, consisting of Clooney and her associate, Geoffrey Robertson. Robertson is especially important to this case, as he is the author of the book, "An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?"  

The Huffington Post reports that two Armenian government representatives - Gevorg Kostanyan and Emil Babayan - will also be joining them.

Tags
Amal Clooney
Dogu Perincek
Armenian Genocide
Turkey
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