TURKISH AUTHOR STANDS TRIAL ON CHARGES OF TURNING TURKS AGAINST MILITARY SERVICE
Suzan Fraser
AP Worldstream
Jun 07, 2006
Turkish author and journalist Perihan Magden went on trial Wednesday,
charged with turning people against military service after she defended
the rights of a conscientious objector in a weekly magazine column.
Magden is the latest in a string of writers and journalists to stand
trial for expressing their opinions despite heavy pressure from
the EU _ which Turkey hopes to join _ to scrap repressive laws and
improve freedoms.
In her column published in weekly Yeni Aktuel magazine in December,
Magden defended conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan who was sentenced
to a record four-year term in a military prison for disobedience after
refusing to wear his military uniform. Turkey, she wrote, needed to
establish a civilian service as an alternative to compulsory military
conscription.
At an Istanbul court on Wednesday, Magden denied that she was trying
to turn people against military service.
“I only argued that conscientious objection is a human right. It is my
right and duty to defend conscientious objection,” she said, according
to CNN-Turk television. The trial was adjourned until July 27.
Conscription in Turkey is obligatory for men over 20, and the country
does not recognize the right to conscientious objection. Objectors
have been prosecuted on charges of turning people against the military.
Magden could face up to three years in prison if convicted of the
charge of “alienating the people against military service.”
Conscientious objections find few supporters in Turkey where the
military is revered, conscription has widespread support and young
men are sent off to do their military service amid celebrations.
Magden, the author of “Two Girls,” and “The Messenger Boy Murders”
faced a group of nationalists who jeered her as she entered the
courthouse Wednesday, the Anatolia news agency reported. Security
forces moved the group _ made up of mostly of veterans and families
of soldiers killed in fighting against Kurdish rebels _ away from
Magden and her supporters.
In the most high-profile case, novelist Orhan Pamuk stood trial earlier
this year on charges of insulting “Turkishness” for commenting on the
mass killings of Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I,
which a number of governments and scholars have said were the first
genocide of the 20th century.
The charges were dropped amid intense international pressure.
Turkey vehemently denies that the mass killings were genocide, saying
the death toll is inflated and Armenians were killed in civil unrest
as the Ottoman Empire collapsed.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has made clear
it has no plans to change laws used to prosecute Pamuk and others,
saying the charges are eventually dropped and defendants are acquitted.
EU officials argue, however, that even if the charges are dropped the
threat of prosecution remains as a deterrent against people wishing
to express opinions.
In an interview with Milliyet newspaper published Wednesday, Hansjoerg
Kretschmer, the EU’s representative in Turkey, criticized Magden’s
trial and similar trials.
“If you think that the right for conscientious objection should exist,
why shouldn’t you be able to say so?” the paper quoted Kretschmer as
saying. “These are things that are unacceptable in Europe.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress