ACCLAIMED WRITER CHARGED FOR REMARKS

Seattle Times, WA
Sept 1 2005

Istanbul, Turkey
Acclaimed Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has been charged with insulting
the nation and its people by speaking out against the mass deaths of
Armenians during and after World War I and the more recent killings
of Kurds, his publisher said yesterday.

Pamuk, 53, will go on trial in December and could face three years
in prison under the country’s revised penal code, which deems
denigrating Turks and Turkey a punishable offense, the Iletisim
Publishing House said in its written statement. Turkish officials
declined to comment. Another law prohibits Pamuk from commenting on
his case while it is pending.

The charge stems from an interview Pamuk gave to a Swiss newspaper in
February in which he said certain topics were regarded as off-limits
in Turkey. As examples, he listed the massacre of Armenians in 1915
and the war between Turkish security forces and Kurdish guerrillas.

“Thirty-thousand Kurds were killed here, 1 million Armenians as well.

And almost no one talks about it,” Pamuk told the newspaper,
Tages-Anzeiger. “Therefore, I do.”