Turkish official gets reprimand for banning top author’s books

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
April 21, 2005, Thursday

Ankara — A local official from a small town in western Turkey who
banned from sale the books of one of Turkey’s most respected authors
has been “reprimanded” by investigators from the Interior Ministry
but will be allowed to keep his job, the Milliyet newspaper reported
on Thursday.

Mustafa Altinpinar, a sub-governor in the town of Sutcular near
Isparta, ordered a ban on author Orhan Pamuk’s books on February 15
after Pamuk had reportedly told a Swiss magazine that 30,000 Kurds
had been killed in fighting between security forces and the Kurdish
Workers’ Party in the 1980s and 90s.

Pamuk also said in the interview that one million Armenians had been
killed by Turks during the First World War. Both topics are extremely
sensitive in Turkey.

Newspapers at the time severely criticized the censorship action,
and the Interior Ministry immediately suspended Altinpinar from his
post pending an investigation.

Sensitivity over whether the deaths of as many as 1.5 million Armenians
during and after the First World War actually constitute genocide is
running especially high in Turkey at the moment as Armenians prepare
to commemorate the 90th anniversary of when the killings began.

Turkey denies that a genocide ever took place and claims that the
number of people who died was much lower than the 1.5 million figure
often cited.

While Pamuk did not actually use the word genocide, his mere
acknowledgement that “one million” Armenians were killed was enough
to raise the ire of extreme nationalists in Turkey.

Pamuk’s books included “My Name is Red” and “Snow”, the latter of which
was named in The New York Times’ Top 10 books for 2004. dpa cw wjh