EU REBUKES TURKEY FOR PROSECUTING AUTHOR
by Marcin Grajewski, REUTERS NEWS AGENCY
The Toronto Star, Ontario
September 19, 2005 Monday
BRUSSELS
Turkey’s “provocative” plan to prosecute novelist Orhan Pamuk shows
that some members of its judiciary are resisting reforms vital to
Ankara’s drive to join the European Union, according to a high-ranking
EU official.
Pamuk faces up to three years in jail for backing allegations that
Armenians suffered genocide at Ottoman Turkish hands 90 years ago –
a highly sensitive issue in Turkey, which is due to start EU membership
talks on Oct. 3.
Turkish prosecutors are also investigating comments by the best-selling
author that some 30,000 Kurds were killed more recently in Turkey in
separatist clashes with security forces.
“I find a recent decision to prosecute writer Orhan Pamuk raises
serious concern,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told the
European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee last week.
“I must say that a decision of the district judge in Istanbul to
bring the court case on Dec. 16 … cannot be just a coincidence,
I think it is a provocation.”
Dec. 16 is the first anniversary of a decision by EU leaders to open
entry talks with Turkey provided that the Muslim country overhauls
its penal code and extends its customs agreement with the EU to new
member states, including Cyprus.
Pamuk’s comments about the Armenians and the Kurds during an newspaper
interview drew an angry reaction from Turkish nationalists and
politicians at the time and the author received death threats.
The public prosecutor in Istanbul’s Sisli district found Pamuk’s
remarks violated Turkey’s revised penal code, which deems denigration
of the “Turkish identity” a crime.
Rehn said he was worried that some Turkish prosecutors interpreted the
code in a way that breaches the European Convention of Human Rights,
undermining Turkey’s quest to join the EU.
“We will have to return to this matter after very careful and precise
legal analysis, I already discussed this matter with (Turkish)
Foreign Minister (Abdullah) Gul,” he said.
“Certain elements within the judiciary … are resistant to the reform
process and court cases are still being opened against individuals
who express criticism in a completely non-violent way.”
Any violation of human rights in Turkey is likely to weaken already
fragile support for the country’s EU membership among the bloc’s
citizens and politicians.
Ankara has long denied that Armenians suffered genocide, or systematic
killing, at Ottoman hands during and after World War I, saying they
were victims of partisan fighting which also claimed the lives of
many Muslim Turks.
Turkey is also very sensitive to portrayals of the Kurdish issue. Its
security forces have been battling separatist guerrillas in the
impoverished southeast since 1984. Fighting has recently flared up
after a period of relative calm.
Pamuk is best known for his historical novels set in Ottoman Turkey,
including My Name is Red and The White Castle.
GRAPHIC: Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk says the killing of Armenians 90
years ago was deliberate.