NOVELIST IN TURKEY SAID TO BE CHARGED WITH INSULTING NATION
By Amberin Zaman, Los Angeles Times | September 1, 2005
Boston Globe, MA
Sept 1 2005
ANKARA, Turkey — Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey’s best-known novelists,
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 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 on the charges. Another law
prohibits Pamuk from commenting on his case while it is still pending.
Pamuk drew nationalist ire here and received anonymous death threats
after he told the Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger in an interview published
Feb. 6 that “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed . . .
and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”
Turkey has long denied that more than 1 million members of its
once thriving Armenian community were the victims of systematic
annihilation, a campaign that Armenians and many others have labeled
genocide. The government position is that several hundred thousand died
as a result of exposure, famine, and disease as they journeyed to Syria
after being deported for collaborating with invading Russian forces.
Pamuk’s most recent best-selling novel, “Snow,” explores tensions
between Turkey’s secular elite and religious conservatives.
News of Pamuk’s case came a day before European Union foreign ministers
were to meet in Wales, primarily to discuss Turkey. The EU has long
cited Turkey’s checkered record on human rights as the chief obstacle
to its membership in the 25-nation bloc.
Turkey won a date to open membership talks after its parliament passed
numerous reforms that, among other steps, eased restrictions on the
language spoken by the country’s large Kurdish minority. The talks
are scheduled to begin Oct. 3. Several countries, including France,
are seeking to block Turkey’s entry amid mounting public opposition
to the inclusion of a large, poor, and predominantly Muslim country.
Other critics charge that Turkey’s new penal code, which came into
force in June, still falls short of EU standards by proscribing free
debate of the Armenian tragedy and criticism of Turkey’s 1974 invasion
of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress