UNESCO CENSORSHIP FOR OTTOMAN ARCHIVES
>From the Zaman Daily Times

Judeoscope.ca, Canada
June 12 2006

UNESCO, an organization founded to promote collaboration among
member countries to the United Nations through education, science
and research, attempted to alter historical documents it did not like.

An exhibition of Ottoman Archives in Paris last week was cancelled
due to controversy over censorship.

UNESCO asked that five of the 50 documents sent by the Turkish General
Directorate of State Archives be removed from the exhibition and two
of them be modified.

The documents censored include the friendship letters sent by Armenian
dignitaries to the Ottoman palace in 1889 and 1898.

UNESCO claimed the letters would anger the Diaspora Armenians.

Another document about Jews was also asked to be modified.

The Ottoman Empire protected the Jews expatriated from Spain and
Portugal at the end of the 15th century and settled them in different
regions.

UNESCO has been uneasy about the expression, “The Jews who took refuge
in the Ottoman State and settled in Edirne upon being expatriated from
Spain and Portugal…” in the document included in the Tahrir Defteri,
a written survey of a province.

UNESCO asked the word “expatriated” to be removed from the text and
be replaced with “Spanish and Portuguese Jews.”

The document will only be allowed to be exhibited only after this
change has been made.

Turkey’s permanent representative for the organization discussing
the issue with UNESCO officials approved the removal of the five
documents and the modification of the two documents.

The document on the Polish residents of Polonozkey in Istanbul that
UNESCO asked to be removed was not excluded from the exhibition.

The Turkish representative later communicated these developments to
the Foreign Ministry and General Directorate for State Archives.

The ministry and general directorate reacted harshly against the
attempt for censorship and insisted on exhibiting the documents in
their original form.

The General Directorate for State Archives emphasized the documents
they chose meticulously do not offend any nation and said the samples
show the Ottoman State displayed an impartial attitude towards humanity
with no practice of any religious or ethnic discrimination.

As no consensus between Ankara and Paris was established, the
exhibition scheduled to be held at the UNESCO Headquarters on June
8-22 was cancelled.

UNESCO officials stated the exhibition was postponed upon the Turkish
Embassy’s demand but offered no response to questions regarding the
censorship attempt.

Turkey’s Ambassador to UNESCO Numan Hazar said the exhibition has
been postponed “due to technical problems.”

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