European Court of Human Rights overrules Armenian genocide denial conviction

The European Court of Human Rights stated that a Turkish politician who was convicted for denying the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire was genocide was wrongly prosecuted.

The ECHR ruled that Dogu Perincek had not called for "hatred or intolerance" when he stated "the Armenian genocide is a big fat lie" in 2005.

He had initially been sentenced by a Swiss court for racial discrimination for 2007.

However, the ECHR ruling says his comments "could not be regarded as affecting the dignity of the members of the Armenian community to the point of requiring a criminal law response".

See more from the BBC here.

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