[JURIST] The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] ruled [judgment; press release, PDF] Thursday that Switzerland was wrong to prosecute former Turkish politician Doğu Perinçek for denying that the mass killings of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1915 was genocide. The court, by a vote of 10-7, held that Perinçek’s remarks were protected under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights [text, PDF], which protects freedom of expression. Perinçek, a staunch Turkish nationalist, was convicted [JURIST report] in 2007 by a Swiss court for remarks he made in Switzerland denying that the killings constituted genocide. A chamber of the ECHR had ruled [JURIST report] in 2013 that his prosecution was unlawful, and Switzerland sought a review by the Grand Chamber.

In recent years Armenian nationals have fought with the international community to recognize the killing of 1.5 million Armenian citizens as genocide [JURIST news archive]. Turkey has long disputed the numbers, alleging the killings were a result of a civil war that took place after the collapse of the Ottoman empire. In April the German parliament passed a resolution [JURIST report] labeling the killings a genocide. A similar resolution had been passed by the European parliament [JURIST report] the previous week in commemoration of 100 years since the killings began. In September 2014 the Parliament of Greece ratified a bill that criminalizes the denial of the Armenian Genocide [JURIST report], making it the third European country to do so after Switzerland and France. More than 20 countries have formally recognized the killings as genocide.