TURKISH SUPREME COURT OVERRULES REJECTION OF LAWSUIT AGAINST NOBEL LAUREATE

Anatolia News Agency
Jan 23 2008
Turkey

ANKARA (A.A) -22.01.2008 -4th Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals,
overruled a local court’s verdict rejecting an amends lawsuit filed
against Nobel laureate novelist Orhan Pamuk – for his statements
published in a Swiss magazine – .

4th Chamber of the Supreme Court of appeals overruled the first
instance court’s decision upon the appeal filed by the plaintiffs,
on Tuesday.

The Supreme Court said in its verdict that "personal rights"
also covered feelings of ethnicity, citizenship and identity and
reasoned that as well as honour and dignity of individuals, feelings
of belonging to a nation as defined by the constitution were under
legal protection.

The verdict stressed that if the remarks attributed to Pamuk targeted
the Turkish nation – which the plaintiffs are citizens of – the
plaintiffs had the right to actively file a lawsuit against the
novelist and concluded that the first instance court should have
examined the lawsuit based on its merits.

In June 2006 a local court had rejected an amends case filed against
Pamuk by Turgut Koboza and five other individuals – who are relatives
of martrys – .

The petition for the lawsuit had recalled that "in an exclusive
interview with the magazine Pamuk had said, ‘we have killed 30,000
Kurds and 1 million Armenians, and nobody but me dares to talk about
it in Turkey’."

The petition had also said Pamuk incriminated Turkish nation as a
whole with his words.

Six plaintiffs were seeking 36,000 YTL from Pamuk (one dollar equals
1.22 YTL).

The local court had rejected the case reasoning that Pamuk’s
remarks could not be considered a violation of personal rights of
the plaintiffs, only based on their ties of citizenship with the
Turkish nation.