French teacher insists Turkish student accept genocide

The controversy centers around 13-year-old French student of Turkish descent Mustafa Doğan. Doğan’s history teacher asked a question about the events of 1915 and the “Armenian genocide” in a written exam. Having previously argued with the teacher over the issue, the Turkish student became angry and wrote, “Even if it did happen, they deserved it.” Doğan told Today’s Zaman his teacher threatened to give him a zero on the exam if he denied the genocide. The school principal phoned the student’s father, who said that there was no law stipulating punishment for those who denied the so-called genocide. Following the quarrel, the school’s disciplinary committee suspended Doğan for two days and gave him an assignment in which he was to recognize the validity of the genocide within two days, despite his apology for his comment about Armenians deserving their fate. The homework was to be titled “Armenian Genocide Committed by the Ottoman Empire: A Crime against Humanity.”

Following the emergence of the events, members of the Armenian diaspora in France have sprung into action, urging immediate passage of a draft bill pending in the Senate that would make it a crime to deny the alleged genocide. The school principal had told Today’s Zaman and also Turkish association COJEP International, which is following the case closely, that the student’s punishment was given not because of his denial of the alleged genocide but because of the phrase he had used regarding Armenians “deserving” whatever happened to them. But when Doğan submitted an assignment describing the concept of genocide in general terms and including an apology for his statement, his teacher rejected it, saying the student needs to submit an assignment researching the historical context of the “genocidal” events, writing a detailed list of how many people were killed and how it was organized, meeting with genocide survivors, stating that he recognizes the genocide and focusing on militant Turks who committed the genocide.

COJEP head Veysel Filiz told Today’s Zaman that Doğan’s teacher’s insistence in regard to the incident and the homework assignment is not understandable given that the offense committed by Doğan has been retracted; even his father, Mehmet Doğan, described his child’s usage of the phrase a mistake.