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Geopolitics

Turkish Hackers Target ‘Pitiful, Pathetic’ French For Armenian Genocide Vote

The French National Assembly’s decision last week to approve a bill criminalizing public denial of the 1915-16 Armenian Genocide in Turkey triggered a stiff rebuke from Ankara. Over the weekend, Turkish hackers took down the French Senate’s website.

Armenian civilians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed Ottoman soldiers (Wikipedia)
Armenian civilians are marched to a nearby prison in Mezireh by armed Ottoman soldiers (Wikipedia)


*NEWSBITES

PARIS -- Hackers have followed the Turkish government's lead in lashing out at the French parliament for its approval last week of a measure criminalizing public denial of Turkey's Armenian Genocide.

As of Monday afternoon, the website for the French Senate remained offline following a cyber attack attributed to a Turkish hacker group called Iskorpitx. The hackers also claimed responsibility for a Sunday attack on the personal website of Valérie Boyer, the conservative French deputy who drafted the bill making denial of the World War I-era Genocide a criminal offense.

On the homepage of Boyer's site, the hackers posted an image of the Turkish flag accompanied by a message written in both Turkish and English. "You, the diaspora Armenians, are such cowards that you don't have guts to open up the Armenian archives and face the truth," the message read. It went on to describe the French as "pitiful and pathetic" for "disregarding the truths."

Dep. Boyer, a member of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for the Popular Movement (UMP) party, told reporters she has also received death and rape threats. She said her parents and children have been threatened as well.

Boyer and other members of France's National Assembly passed the controversial bill last Thursday. It will still need Senate approval before going into law. The bill proposes that anyone found guilty of publicly denying the Armenian genocide face a year in jail and a fine of 45,000 euros. An estimated 500,000 ethnic Armenians reside in France.

Furious about the move, Turkish authorities immediately recalled the country's ambassador to France. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also said he was freezing all political visits and joint military projects.

Armenians claim Ottoman Turks massacred up to 1.5 million people between 1915-16. The Turkish government puts the number at 300,000 and insists the Armenians were not victims of genocide, but rather causalities – along with some Turks – of a failed revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

Read the full story in French on Le Monde

Photo - Wikipedia

*Newsbites are digest items, not direct translations

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Israel

Bibi Blinked: Can Netanyahu Survive After Backing Down On Judicial Putsch?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu has backed down in the 11th hour on his plans to push forward on a major judicial reform bill that had sparked massive protests.

Bibi Blinked: Can Netanyahu Survive After Backing Down On Judicial Putsch?
Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

Benjamin Netanyahu played the sorcerer's apprentice and lost. By announcing Monday night the suspension of his judicial reform, which has deeply divided Israeli society and brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the nation's streets, he signed his defeat.

One thing we know about the Israeli prime minister is that he has not said his last word: the reform is only suspended, not withdrawn. He promised a "real dialogue" after the Passover holiday.

Netanyahu is not one to back down easily: he had clearly gone too far, first by allying himself with extreme right-wing forces from the fringes of the political spectrum; but above all by wanting to change the balance on which the Jewish State had lived since its foundation in 1948. His plans threatened to change the nature of the state in a patently "illiberal" direction.

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