More news from France & How to support Sabiha

Hi, friends, Here are more news from France and our internal political debates in relation to Armenia and Turkey, I mean in relation to the recent visit paid in Erevan by French president Jacques Chirac telling there that Turkey would not entry the EU until the country officially says there has been a Turkish genocide against the Armenian people, in relation also to the initiative of the French social-democrat ("socialiste") group at the National Assembly promoting a new naw (to be discussed tomorrow amoung MPs) making a crime of denying the Armenian genocide. First, as some of you have asked us (see former post about our September HCA turkish-armenian debate in Lyon), HOW TO SUPPORT Sabiha Ahmine (who helped us by the TurkishArmenian dialogue in Lyon and has been dismissed partly because of that) : you can write protest emails to the Mayor of Lyon Gerard Collomb : gerard.collomb@mairie-lyon.fr You can write in your own language (even better? Let's be really cosmopolitan!), it mustn't be in English ! In the current battle to help Sabiha (and the progressist people trying in Lyon to deal positively with immigration & international issues), every sign of support, even a short one, is welcome and may help. Now, about the bad "electoralist" (or non-sense? as you wish) climate in France : the two last political initiatives of Chirac in Erevan and the socialist MPs at our National Assembly make of course the battle more difficult for our Turkish friends (amoung them our Turkish friends, hi, people, are you there?). Indeed the discussion about the historical massacre of Armenian people in Turkey at the beginning of former century has been progressing for a few year and the French attitude may confort & radicalise (and it already does) Turkish people hostile to this public debate, especially in a period where Turkish efforts to apply for the EU are been just rejected with new arguments. Besides, Armenian people from Turkey have already reacted, telling that the socialist proposal of law was not welcome at all. In France also, we try to react. Especially, the Turkish organisation ACORT has published a protestation against these political initiatives and said ACORT was wanting more than ever to promote an Armenian-Turkish dialogue in France amoung immigrants... Besides, French HCA (AEC) is preparing at that time a seminar with its partner Echanges&Partenariat from IPAM (our activist "family")... including a debate on those issues in November, together with Acort. That's all, folks! Take care ! Karine