Campaigning for Preservation of Historical Memory on Armenian Genocide in Europe

Genocide denial is usually carried out verbally, forbidding to deny is interpreted as restriction of freedom of expression. But denial assaults the dignity of the genocide survivals and their ancestors, therefore, their rights are protected under the right to respect of their identity. In some European countries genocide denial is criminalised as hate speech within policies on combating racism and xenophobia (Switzerland). Some other European states have special public commemorative days of Genocide (France). Others criminalise only Holocaust genial. This demonstrated the lack of legal certainty on the issue in Europe. The recent judgement of the ECHR, Perinçek v. Switzerland, brings up more questions than answers. Scholars express contradicting opinions about the lawfulness of the judgement. Through the analysis of the Perinçek judgement, existing legislations, socio legal and criminal law studies, the author makes recommendations developments of the legislations and policies in Europe for combating genocide denial