Turkish author Pamuk risks jail time over remarks on Armenian massacres

Middle East Times, Egypt
Sept 1 2005

September 1, 2005

ISTANBUL — Prominent Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk is set to be
tried in December over his controversial remarks about the Armenian
massacres and could end up serving three years in jail, his publisher
said on Wednesday.

Pamuk, the widely translated author of such internationally renowned
works as The White Castle and Snow, triggered a public outcry when
he said in an interview with a Swiss newspaper in February that “1
million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares
to talk about it”.

As a result, Pamuk, who earlier this year won the prestigious peace
price of the Association of German Publishers and Booksellers,
received several death threats and a local official ordered the
seizure and destruction of his works.

The reclusive author has since refused to speak to the press at all.

A prosecutor in Istanbul has indicted 53-year-old Pamuk on the grounds
that his remarks amounted to public denigration of the Turkish identity
and has demanded a prison term of between six months and three years,
Iletisim publishing house said in a statement.

The trial is expected to start on December 16, it added.

The massacre of Armenians during World War I is one of the most
controversial episodes in Turkish history.

Armenians say that up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in
orchestrated killings nine decades ago during the last years of the
Ottoman Empire, the precursor of modern Turkey.

Turkey argues that 300,000 Armenians and thousands of Turks were killed
in what was civil strife during World War I when the Armenians rose
up against their Ottoman rulers.