Genocide denial

Genocide denial is the attempt to deny or minimize the scale and severity of an instance of genocide. Denial is an integral part of genocide[1][2][3] and includes the secret planning of genocide, propaganda while the genocide is going on,[1] and destruction of evidence of mass killings. According to genocide researcher Gregory Stanton, denial "is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres".[4]

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Some scholars define denial as the final stage of a genocidal process.[1] Richard G. Hovannisian states, "Complete annihilation of a people requires the banishment of recollection and suffocation of remembrance. Falsification, deception and half-truths reduce what was, to what might have been or perhaps what was not at all."[5]

Examples include Denial of atrocities against indigenous peoples, Holocaust denial, Armenian genocide denial, and Bosnian genocide denial. The distinction between respectable academic historians and illegitimate historical negationists and revisionists, including genocide deniers, rests upon the techniques which are used in the writing of such histories. Illegitimate historical revisionists and negationists rewrite history in order to support an agenda, which is usually political, by using falsification and rhetorical fallacies in order to obtain their desired results.