The Europe News website reports that thousands of Turks from across Europe marched through Paris today (January 23, 2012), denouncing a bill that would make it a crime to deny that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago was genocide.
The Turks -- many waving their country's flag -- marched to the Senate, where the bill is being debated today, after passage in December in France's lower house.
The measure sets a punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros ($56,793) for those who deny or "outrageously minimize" the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks as genocide.
France formally recognized the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide in 2001, but provided no penalty for anyone refuting it.
