The Guardian, UK

Protesters Denounce Conference in Turkey

Saturday September 24, 2005 9:16 PM

AP Photo IST107
By BENJAMIN HARVEY
Associated Press Writer

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) – Scholars held the first-ever public discussions in
Turkey on Saturday about the early 20th-century massacre of Armenians,
choosing words carefully, avoiding emotional language and picking apart
history year by year at a gathering that nationalists denounced as
traitorous.

The European Union called the academic conference a test of freedom of
expression in Turkey, which is hoping to begin talks for membership in the
bloc next month.

The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May after the
justice minister said organizers were “stabbing the people in the back,”
and again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the conference closed
and demanded to know the academic qualifications of the speakers.
“This is a fight of ‘can we discuss this thing, or can we not discuss this
thing?”’ Murat Belge, a member of the organizing committee, said at the
conference opening. “This is something that’s directly related to the
question of what kind of country Turkey is going to be.”

The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being pushed by
many in the international community to say that their fathers and
grandfathers carried out the first genocide of the 20th century.

“There are so many documents in hand with respect to the destruction of
Armenians,” said Taner Akcay, a Turkish-born professor at the University of
Minnesota, and author of books on the subject including, “A Shameful Act:
The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility.”
Dozens of officers in riot gear kept hundreds of shouting protesters at bay.
Some protesters pelted arriving panelists with eggs and rotten tomatoes.

Inside, the audience of more than 300 people was restrained, as only those
invited by the organizing committee and preapproved members of the media
were allowed past security.
The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey, with those who speak
out against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish court. But an
increasing number of Turkish academics have called for a review of the
killings in a country where many see the Ottoman Empire as a symbol of
Turkish greatness.

The panelists, all Turkish speakers, carefully avoided any emotional
language during the first day of the two-day conference.

“Everyone waits for you to pronounce the genocide word – if you do one side
applauds and the other won’t listen,” Halil Berktay, program coordinator of
the history department at Sabanci University, said at the conference
Saturday.

Several governments around the world have recognized the killings of as many
as 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as genocide.

Turkey vehemently denies the charge, admitting that many Armenians were
killed, but saying the death toll is inflated and that Armenians were killed
along with Turks in civil unrest and intercommunal fighting as the Ottoman
Empire collapsed between 1915 and 1923.

After the conference was shut down Thursday, Turkey drew condemnation from
the European Commission.

Organizers skirted the court order by changing the venue of the conference.
The court-ordered cancellation Thursday was an embarrassment for the
country’s leaders, who are set to begin EU negotiations on Oct. 3.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul lamented that “there’s no one better at
hurting themselves than us,” and sent a letter wishing the organizers a
successful conference. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also condemned
the court’s decision, saying it did not befit a democratic country.

The participants were all Turkish speakers and included members of Turkey’s
Armenian minority like Hrant Dink, the editor in chief of Agos, a weekly
Armenian newspaper in Istanbul. There are some 70,000 Armenians living in
Istanbul.

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