SUPREME COURT OF APPEALS DISMISSED ALL CHARGES FROM ORHAN PAMUK
arminfo
2007-08-03 13:57:00
The Supreme Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld an Istanbul court’s
earlier decision to dismiss the case of Nobel Prize-winning Turkish
author Orhan Pamuk, who was on trial on charges of "denigrating
Turkishness." The Second Court of First Instance in Istanbul’s Sisli
district had earlier dismissed the charges on the grounds that the
necessary permission from the Justice Ministry to launch a probe into
the author had not been issued, a requirement under the former penal
code, which was being applied to Pamuk’s case.
The charges relate to a magazine interview in which Pamuk claimed that
30,000 Kurds and 1 million Ottoman Armenians were killed in Turkey.
The high-profile prosecution had caused a stir globally, raising
serious concerns about EU-hopeful Turkey’s commitment to the basic
democratic principle of free speech. A delegation of European
parliamentarians had traveled to Istanbul to observe the trial
alongside international human rights campaigners.