Analyst demands genocide denial ban in Armenia

Defense and security policy analyst Eduard Abrahamyan has urged the Armenian parliament to pass a law criminalizing the denial of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey, condemning Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s recent remarks.

At a meeting with the Armenian community in Switzerland, Pashinyan questioned why the Armenian Genocide was not part of the national agenda in 1939 but became prominent in 1950.

“We need to understand what happened, why it happened, how we perceived it and who shaped that perception. Why wasn't the Armenian Genocide issue part of the national agenda in 1939, yet it surfaced in 1950?” he said.

In a social media post on Sunday, Abrahamyan accused Pashinyan of questioning the Armenian Genocide, engaging in victim-blaming and promoting denial.

He pointed to a law in Israel criminalizing the Holocaust denial and called for the adoption of a similar legislative measure in Armenia.

“Such statements must be categorized as attempts to justify a crime against humanity or as complicity,” Abrahamyan wrote. “As a descendant of an Armenian Genocide survivor, I demand that the National Assembly pass a similar memory law.”

Abrahamyan urged the public, media workers and politicians to join his demand.