Author may be jailed for speaking of Kurd deaths
by Suna Erdem in Istanbul

The Times (London)
September 3, 2005, Saturday

The award-winning author Orhan Pamuk has been charged with insulting
Turkey’s national character with comments about the killing of
Armenians and Kurds.

The Istanbul court’s move will fuel opposition to Turkey’s entry to
the European Union. The author could be jailed for three years.

Denis MacShane, the former Europe Minister, plans to attend the trial
and is urging other European politicians and writers to do so. He said:
“For people like me who want to make a case for Turkey’s European
aspirations this is like a big slap in the face. It is a denial
of important European values.” Mr MacShane added that Mr Pamuk was
generally seen as Turkey’s greatest living writer and was “a great
advertisement for modern Turkey”.

In an interview with a Swiss newspaper in February, Mr Pamuk said:
“Thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these
lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it.” He was referring
to the conflict between the Turkish Army and Kurdish separatists and
the slaughter of Armenians -which Turkey denies was genocide.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress