TURKISH COURT RULES NOBEL LAUREATE PAMUK CAN BE SUED FOR COMMENTS

DPA
GMT 10-7-2009 19:17:40

Istanbul – Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Nobel
Laureate Orhan Pamuk can be sued for remarks made several years ago
about the alleged massacres of Armenians and Kurds in during World
War One, the semi-official Anatolian Agency reported.

‘Thirty-thousand Kurds and a million Armenians have been killed and
almost nobody dares to mention that, except for me,’ Pamuk was quoted
as saying in a Swiss magazine in 2005.

Nationalist activists filed suit against Pamuk, saying his remarks
had insulted them and demanding compensation.

Although lower courts in Istanbul have twice rejected the case,
the higher court ruled that the case should be heard again.

Pamuk, the widely-acclaimed author of ‘Snow’ and ‘My Name is Red,’
won the Nobel prize in literature in 2006, the first Turkish author
to do so.

After he made his comments in 2005, charges were brought against him
that he had ‘insulted Turkishness.’ The charges were later dropped
for technical reasons.