TURKS DEMAND FREEDOM FOR ARMENIAN INTELLECTUAL

Hurriyet Daily News
Dec 27 2009
Turkey

Sarkis Haszpanyan was tortured in Turkey in the aftermath of the Sept.

12, 1980, military coup, his friends say.

Turkish intellectuals have launched an online petition protesting
the imprisonment of an Armenian who was arrested after he gave a
newspaper interview in 2008.

The petition, published at the gercek-inatcidir.blogspot.com, is an
effort to free Sarkis Haszpanyan, who was arrested and imprisoned
in Armenia after he gave an interview. The petition was launched by
Sait Cetinoglu, author and editor at Belge International Publishing,
and received more than 30 signatures in its first day.

The support is coming not only from Turkish intellectuals living in
Turkey but also from other parts of the world. Visitors to the site
can read an open letter to Armenian President Serge Sarkisian penned
by Turkish intellectuals.

"Haszpanyan is being punished unjustly. Let this torture end," said
Cetinoglu, speaking to Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "Sarkis
was tortured in Turkey in the aftermath of the Sept. 12, 1980, military
coup. He escaped to France as a refugee. In 1991, when Armenia gained
independence, he went there and put up a struggle. This should not
be his fate."

Temel Demirel, another leader of the campaign, said Haszpanyan is
"a part of Anatolia."

Demirel said he and Haszpanyan were tortured at the same time after
the 1980 coup. "Authoritarian regimes that imprison and torture people
because of their thoughts are enemies of humanity and democracy,"
he said.

For an interview

What led to his imprisonment was a November 2008 interview published
in the Haygagan Jamanag (Armenian Time) newspaper, known for supporting
Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrossian. Armenia was preparing
for the presidential elections at the time.

"[In the interview] Hazspanyan said some people might be planning to
assassinate Sarkisian," Hayk Kevorkyan from the newspaper told the
Daily News. "He was arrested right after the interview was published."

"They were already looking for an excuse to arrest him. The interview
played right into their hands," Kevorkyan said, adding that there are
currently 15 political prisoners in Armenia. "Bloody events occurred
right after the March 2008 presidential elections, which are still
waiting to be uncovered. At that time, 150 people were arrested and
questioned for completely political reasons."

David Shahnazarian, a representative of the Armenian National Congress,
or ANC, congratulated Turkish intellectuals on their efforts. "We
want Armenia to respect human rights, democracy and [freedom of]
thought as soon as possible," he told the Daily News.

Shahnazarian is known as the "right hand" of Ter-Petrossian and was
the president of the Armenian National Security Council in the 1990s.

Born in Hatay, Sarkis Haszpanyan was an active member of an outlawed
communist organization in Turkey in the 1970s, together with the late
Hrant Dink, who was a close friend of his. Dink was assassinated in
Istanbul on Jan. 19, 2007.