Doğu Perinçek

Background and personal life

Doğu Perinçek was born at Gaziantep in 1942 to Sadık Perinçek of Apçağa, Kemaliye, and Lebibe Olcaytu of Balaban, Darende. Sadık Perinçek was the Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme Court and a parliamentary deputy of the Justice Party (AP), the predecessor of the True Path Party (DYP). Perinçek attended Ankara Sarar primary school, an Atatürk Lycee, and Bahçelievler Deneme high school. He interrupted his university education to study German at the Goethe Institute in Germany, going on to finish Ankara University's Law faculty, and working as an assistant lecturer in public law. He then completed a doctorate at the Otto-Suhr-Institut in Germany.

Prior to his detention as part of the Ergenekon case, Perinçek resided in Gayrettepe, Istanbul with his wife Şule Perinçek. They have two daughters, Zeynep and Kiraz, and two sons, Can and Mehmet Bora.

Education

Doğu Perinçek graduated from Ankara University's Faculty of Law in June 1964 with a bachelor of laws and began as an assistant lecturer on public law (State Theory and Public Rights) upon graduation. In 1968 he graduated with a doctorate of Laws. His doctoral thesis was titled ‘Türkiye’de Siyasi Partilerin İç Düzeni ve Yasaklanması Rejimi’ (The Internal Arrangement of Political Parties in Turkey and the Regime of Banning Them).

Political career

Perinçek was involved in the relaunch of the magazine Aydınlık in 1968, and was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey (1971), and of the Workers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey that succeeded it in 1974.

Perinçek withdrew from active politics after the 1980 military coup. In 1987 he was involved with the launch of the weekly news magazine 2000'e Doğru.

In the 1990s he was involved with the founding of the short-lived Socialist Party and then the Workers' Party. He has been the Workers' Party's leader since its foundation in 1992.

Legal issues

In 1990, Perinçek was arrested and put in Diyarbakır Prison after the issue of the Law of Censorship and Exile.

Perinçek is notable as being the first person to be convicted by a court of law for denial of the Armenian Genocide. On 9 March 2007, he was found guilty by a Swiss district court of conscious violation of Swiss laws against genocide denial with a racist motivation and was fined CHF 12,000. The case was a result of Perinçek's description of the Armenian genocide as "an international lie" at a demonstration in Lausanne on 25 July 2005; he later clarified to a Swiss court that there had been massacres, but reiterated his belief that these did not constitute genocide. The verdict was confirmed by the Vaud cantonal appeal court on 19 June, and by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland on 12 December 2007. Perinçek announced he will take recourse to the European Court of Human Rights. In December 2013 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Switzerland violated the principle of freedom of expression. The court said that "Mr Perincek was making a speech of a historical, legal and political nature in a contradictory debate". After the ruling the government of Switzerland announced its decision to appeal the court’s ruling. On 3 June 2014 the European Court of Human Rights accepted the appeal to move on to the Grand Chamber to clarify the scope available to Swiss authorities in applying the Swiss Criminal Code to combat racism. A preliminary hearing on the appeal by Switzerland was held on 28 January 2015.

The Grand Chamber ruled in favour of Perinçek on 15 October 2015. In a statement issued by Armenia's counsel, Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney said they were pleased the Court had endorsed their argument on behalf on Armenia. The judgment did not dispute the fact of the Armenian genocide and recognised Armenians' right under European law to have their dignity respected and protected, including the recognition of a communal identity forged through suffering following the annihilation of more than half their race by the Ottoman Turks.

The Grand Chamber also made clear that the court was not required to determine whether the massacres and mass deportations suffered by the Armenian people at the hands of the Ottoman Empire from 1915 onwards can be characterised as genocide within the meaning of that term under international law. It also added that it has no authority to make legally binding pronouncements, one way or the other, on this point. Furthermore, 7 judges, including then-President of the European Court of Human Rights Dean Spielmann stated, that it is self-evident that the massacres and deportations suffered by the Armenian people constituted genocide and that the Armenian genocide is a clearly established historical fact.

In Turkey, on 21 March 2008, Perinçek was detained as part of an investigation into the organization named Ergenekon. This followed the arrest and detention of 39 suspects in January 2008 during raids targeting Ergenekon.

The investigation's indictment also contains similar allegations, made by the National Intelligence Organization. Upon receiving news of Perinçek's arrest, Russian Eurasianist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin said "this operation against a pro-Russian group in Turkey has shown who our friends and foes are". This prompted allegations that he was affiliated with the group, which he adamantly denied. On 5 August 2013 Perinçek was sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. On 10 March 2014, Doğu Perinçek was released from prison together with many other prisoners.

Selected books