TURKISH WRITERS PUBLISH GENOCIDE APOLOGY

Legalbrief
Dec 9 2008
South Africa

Academics and writers in Turkey have risked a fierce official backlash
by issuing a public apology for the alleged genocide suffered by
Armenians at the hands of Ottoman forces during the World War I.

The Guardian reports that, breaking one of Turkish society’s biggest
taboos, the apology comes in an open letter that invites Turks to
sign an online petition supporting its sentiments. The contents
exposes its authors – three scholars, Ahmet Insel, Baskin Oran and
Cengiz Aktar, and a journalist, Ali Bayramoglu – to the wrath of
the Turkish state, which has prosecuted writers, including the Nobel
prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk, for supporting Armenian genocide
claims. Turkey rejects the assertion of many historians and Armenia’s
government that up to 1.5m Armenians died in a wave of expulsions
that amounted to state-sanctioned genocide. The letter has triggered
a furious response from ultranationalists, who have labelled it a
‘betrayal’ and an ‘insult to the Turkish nation’.