CBC British Columbia, Canada
Jan 7 2007

Nobel author puts Turkish oppression on front page

Last Updated: Sunday, January 7, 2007 | 1:58 PM ET
CBC Arts

Provocative Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk took over editorship of a Turkish
newspaper for one day, devoting it to stories about the oppression of
artists.

Pamuk had been put on trial by the government for "insulting Turkishness,"
before the author’s case was dropped on a technicality last January after
months of condemnation from other writers, artists and heads of state.

Author Orhan Pamuk, seen in this file photo, was once charged with
‘insulting Turkishness.’
(Canadian Press) Sunday’s Radikal newspaper featured a cover story that
criticized the Turkish press and government for stifling free expression.

Pamuk resurrected a headline from 1951 that encouraged Turks to spit on
acclaimed poet Nazim Hikmet, who spent years in prison for his leftist
affiliations.

"This expression, which was used beside Nazim Hikmet’s picture, summarizes
the unchanging position of writers and artists in the eyes of the state and
press," said the story.

While Radikal has a circulation of only about 30,000, it is a highly
regarded political paper. Its editor-in-chief, Ismet Berkan, faced similar
charges to Pamuk’s in 2006.

Pamuk, 54, has a journalism degree, but never practised the craft. His books
include Snow, My Name is Red and the memoir Istanbul.

Other articles on Radikal’s front page examined the low percentage of women
in Turkish politics and the reaction to the video of Saddam Hussein’s
execution in Iraq.

Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature last year, had faced charges
after a Swiss paper quoted him as saying that "30,000 Kurds and one million
Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about
it."

The writer cited the killing of Armenians by forces of the Ottoman Empire in
1915-1917 and the deaths of the Kurds as a genocide – something Turkish
governments have denied.

Pamuk was charged under a section of the Turkish penal code that says a
"person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand
National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term
of six months to three years."

Human rights organizations and artists’ groups have called on the government
to do away with the code.