TURKISH NOBEL LAUREATE ORHAN PAMUK ORDERED TO PAY COMPENSATION FOR REMARKS ON ARMENIANS

The Sofia Echo

March 28 2011
Bulgaria

Turkish Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk has been convicted
of “insulting Turkishness” and ordered to pay nearly $4,000 in
compensation.

Turkish news media reported Sunday that a small claims court in the
Sisli district of Istanbul ordered Pamuk to pay compensation to several
plaintiffs over a remark he made in 2005 that was published in a Swiss
newspaper. He said that 30,000 Turks and one million Armenians were
killed in Turkey “and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”

Armenians claim that at least one and a half million of their people
perished at the hands of Ottoman Turks in the early decades of the
20th century, in what they describe as genocide.

The Turkish government fiercely denies that the killings were massive
and systematic, and claims that Turks and Armenians alike were killed
in the violence surrounding the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The topic
is largely taboo in Turkey.

Pamuk is Turkey’s most prominent writer. He received a Nobel Prize
for literature in 2006.

Turkish news reports say that among those who will receive compensation
is Kemal Kerincsiz, a nationalist lawyer who is currently under arrest
in a suspected conspiracy against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

From: A. Papazian