| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Author Faces Up to Three Years For "Insulting Turkishness" |
| 2005-12-14 |
| EFL...another genocide that never happened... Turkey's most internationally-acclaimed novelist will go on trial here charged with "insulting Turkishness". The charges relate to a magazine interview in which Orhan Pamuk said 30,000 Kurds and one million Ottoman Armenians were killed in Turkey and no-one dares talk about it. He could face up to three years in jail. This high-profile prosecution has caused a stir in Brussels. A delegation of MEPs will travel to Istanbul to observe the trial alongside international human rights campaigners. Orhan Pamuk fled the country after the interview was published amid what he calls a hate campaign. Now he is back, determined to use his time in court to defend his comments, and his right to make them. "What happened to the Ottoman Armenians in 1915 was a major thing that was hidden from the Turkish nation; it was a taboo," the writer explains, at an Istanbul cafe overlooking the waterfront. "But we have to be able to talk about the past." Armenia insists its people were victims of a genocide nine decades ago; Ankara denies any such thing. Turkey implemented wide-ranging legal reforms as part of its bid for EU membership. But the new penal code still contains tight restrictions on what you can write and say. Under Article 301 it is illegal to insult Turkishness, the Republic or most state institutions. It is left to the prosecutor to decide what exactly constitutes an insult. There are currently more than 60 writers and publishers besides Orhan Pamuk on trial in Turkey for what EU officials call their non-violent expression of opinion. The strict taboo on the fate of the Armenians was cracked last September when Bilgi University hosted a controversial academic conference. Nationalists and staunch conservative protesters gathered outside the gates to shout their anger, convinced the event was sponsored by Turkey's enemies abroad. Friday's trial has thrust a reluctant Orhan Pamuk into the role of political symbol. Now in the international spotlight, he says he feels responsible for less well-known writers suffering the same fate. But the novelist admits he longs to return to his books more than anything. "I feel this political responsibility, a solidarity with all these people who are being harassed. I am with them," he says. |
| Posted by:Desert Blondie |
| #6 Brave man. Ever seen Midnight Express? |
| Posted by: Secret Master 2005-12-14 17:21 |
| #5 good thing for me that Greece doesn't have this law :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-12-14 12:50 |
| #4 And Brussels. Who cares about the trial? It's the charge that's the problem. |
| Posted by: Gluck Spater8841 2005-12-14 11:28 |
| #3 De Nile is that river that runs through Ankara, right? |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-12-14 11:20 |
| #2 Not quite ready for the EU, methinks. |
| Posted by: bigjim-ky 2005-12-14 11:09 |
| #1 "But we have to be able to talk about the past." Threats of jail time if one questions the events surrounding an atrocity. Hmmmm...where'd I hear that one before? Musta been that pesky Peloponnesian War. |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2005-12-14 11:06 |
