AZG DAILY #5, 16-01-2010
Armenian Genocide
Update: 2010-01-16 01:56:12 (GMT +04:00)
"WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON IN TURKEY?" HRANT DINK COMMEMORATION IN
LONDON ON 19TH JANUARY
The Hrant Dink Society
The Hrant Dink Society, c/o The Temple of Peace, Cardiff, Wales,
invites on Hrant Dink Day, 19th January 2010, to the UK Parliament for
a series of meetings: "What is really going on in Turkey?"
Speakers include Ragip Zarakolu, one of the founders of the Turkish
Human Rights Association and publisher, prosecuted over 40 times, most
recently for publishing a novel.
1/ "Problems of the ‘Other’ and of ‘Minorities’ in Turkey" (Ragip
Zarakolu, Desmond Fernandes and Arzu Pesman – Kurdish
Federation-FEDBIR), "Hrant Dink’s Vision" (Ragip Zarakolu),
"Rediscovering Turkish Armenia" (Vardan Tadevossian) and "The shared
Jewish and Armenian experience" (Ruth Barnett) – in Committee Room 16
at 5 p.m.
Sponsor : Nia Griffith MP
2/ "The lessons of Holocaust, Genocide and current problems of Ethnic
Cleansing" – Eilian Williams – Discussion in Committee Room 16 at 6
p.m.
"Consequences of the Genocide for Assyrians in Turkey and Iraq" – Saad
Tokatly : "The current problems of Assyrians and other Middle East
Christians"
The meeting will also be used to Promote EDM 287 by Dr Bob Spink on
the Holocaust and Andrew Dismore’s Presentation Bill to introduce a
national day to learn about and remember the Armenian Genocide, to be
read a Second time on Friday 30 April 2010 (Bill 42).
Sponsor: Dr Bob Spink MP
3/ Meeting in the Ho use of Lords (Committee Room 3A at 7 p.m.) –
‘Holocaust and Genocide’ (Professor Khatchatur I. Pilikian), The
Launch of ‘Friends of Belge Press’ and ‘The Current Human Rights
Situation in Turkey’ (Ragip Zarakolu, Desmond Fernandes and Haci
Ozdemir – International Committee Against Disappearances, British
Section).
Sponsor: Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
Free Entrance to all events
Directions to the UK Parliament can be found at:
directions.cfm
Nearest underground station: Westminster.
Background information about Ragip Zarakolu and the Launch of ‘The
Friends of Belge Press’: Ragip, alongside the late Hrant Dink and
Gülcin Cayligil, was the recipient of Turkey Journalists’ Society ‘s
(TGC’s) Press Freedom Prize in 2007. He also received the
International Publishers Association’s 2008 Freedom to Publish Prize
for his exemplary courage in upholding freedom to publish. In November
2009, Ragip (publisher of Belge) and writer N. Mehmet Güler, as
defendants, were absurdly "facing prison sentences" based upon the
dialogue of a character in a novel. "Publisher Ragip Zarakolu stated
in … (the 19 November 2009) hearing: ‘As the chairman of the
Committee of Freedom of Expression and Publishing and as a publisher,
I cannot do censorship". Zarakolu is [being] tried … Because of the
book "More difficult decisions than death" (‘Ölümden Zor Kararlar’)
published by Belge Publishing in March [2009] … [The] defendants are
facing prison sentences based on article 7/2 of the Anti-Terror Law
(TMY) because characters of the book are called ‘Siti’, ‘Sabri’ and
‘Siyar’. Zarakolu has been chairman of the Turkey Publishers
Association (TYB) Committee for Freedom of Publishing for 15 years. He
stated: ‘The novel plays in [a] historical period Turkey lived
through. There are similar examples in world literature. Ernest
Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, for instance, deals with the
Spanish civil war …’ … President Judge Zafer Baskurt reviewed the
file and decided to postpone the case till 25th March 2010. Zarakolu
stated that the pressure ‘has come as far as prosecuting the heroes of
a novel’. The publisher said to bianet: "This trial is like a present
for my 40th year in journalism" … Istanbul Public Prosecutor Hikmet
Usta based his indictment of 22 May on dialogue in the novel" (BIA,
Erol Önderoglu, November 20, 2009).
As Vercihan Ziflioglu noted in a 9th December 2009 article entitled
‘Fictional characters from book on trial in Turkey’: "Fictional
characters are being put on trial again in Turkey. ‘Ölümden Zor
Kararlar’ (Decisions tougher than death), a novel by N. Mehmet Güler
that was published through Belge International Publishi ng last March,
has become the focus of a criminal case … Author Güler and publisher
Zarakolu are standing trial at the Istanbul Court of Serious Crimes.
The novel was added to the list of banned books in June and copies
have been recalled from the market …Many writers and translators
have been put on trial in recent years under Article 301 of the
Turkish Penal Code. The first example of imaginary characters standing
trial occurred with Elif Safak’s novel, ‘The Bastard of Istanbul’.
Safak stood trial for ‘insulting Turkishness’ through an Armenian
character in her novel and was acquitted … ‘The trial turned out to
be like a present for my 40th anniversary in journalism’, said
Zarakolu, who is a founder of a human rights association and won many
national and international prizes for journalism. ‘Over 50 cases have
been opened against me…", he said. ‘Should the writer be free in his
thoughts or should he serve the principles of the state and
militarism?’ He compared current conditions to living in the era of
Sultan Abduülhamit and noted that the ‘oppressor mentality’ must be
overcome …"
Previously, cases were initiated against Ragip and Belge for
publishing Prof. Dr. Dora Sakayan’s "Garabe d Hacheryan’s Izmir
Journal: An Armenian Doctor’s Experiences " and George Jerjian’s "The
truth will set us free/Armenians and Turks Reconciled". As Bjorn
Smith-Simonsen, Chairman of the IPA Freedom to Publish Committee, had
observed at the time: "Ragip Zarakolu has been subjected to a series
of long, time-consuming and expensive court hearings … The conduct
of the trial in itself has begun to take the form of harassment and
punishment against the defendant for daring to produce works that
touch on sensitive issues" (IPA/IFEX, 14 December 2007).
As BIA News noted in 2002, "whole print-runs of dozens of … Books"
at Belge had previously been "confiscated and in 1995 the offices of
[publishing] house Belge (The Document)", run by Ragip and the late
Ayse Zarakolu, "were fire-bombed. Run from a basement in Istanbul,
Belge published pioneering books acknowledging the Kurds’ very
existence and historical works on the atrocities in the early years of
the twentieth century against the Ottoman Empire’s large Armenian
minority Armenians – and on the Greeks … The publication in the
early 1990s of the poems of Medhi Zana in Kurdish was enough to bring
charges of sepa ratist propaganda under the draconian anti-terrorism
law. In 1997, [Belge] published in Turkish Wie teuer ist die Freiheit
(How expensive freedom is), a collection of articles and reports by
German journalist Lissy Schmidt, who had been killed three years
earlier on assignment in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. The book
was banned and confiscated by the government, while [Ayse] Zarakolu
and the book’s two translators were sent for trial …
"In 1977, [the late Ayse] and Ragip set up Belge with the mission of
‘striking down taboos’ and ‘investigating the rights of minorities’
… In 1990 [Belge] published a work by Ismail Besikci, a sociologist
who was the first academic to work on about the Kurdish question and
about the Kurdish people in Turkey and who was imprisoned for 15 years
for his books. [Ayse] Zarakolu became the first publisher imprisoned
under Turkey’s 1991 anti-terror law when she was jailed for five
months for printing another book by Besikci in 1993. ‘I am here today
since thought has been deemed a "crime", indeed a terrorist crime’,
she wrote from her prison cell. ‘Like writers, publishers are also
preparing their suitcases not for new studies and works but for prison
… As long as people cannot express their identities and their views,
they are not really free," she wrote just before her arrest in 1994.
‘We believe in what we are doing. Despite fines and possible future
prison sentences, we at Belge will continue to give suppressed voices
a chance to be heard. If we persist, we will win’".
English PEN has confirmed that a trial against Ragip and Belge "opened
on 24 September 2003 under article 312 of the Penal Code for
publication of the book 12 Eylul Rejimi Yargilaniyor (The Regime of 12
September on Trial), edited by Dr Gazi Çaglar. [It was] said to have
referred to the activities of the Turkish forces in South Eastern
Turkey as ‘organised genocide’"
( inprison/writersunderthreat/turkey/ragipzarakolu/
). Owen Bowcott (The Guardian, 13 April 2002) also noted the way in
which Ayse Zarakolu was being targeted by the state even after she
passed away: "Two weeks after the death of this internationally
renowned publisher, a letter arrived from No 1 state security court,
ordering her to appear at 9am on March 21. ‘We have opened a case
against you, in absentia’, the summons warned. ‘If you do not come,
you will be arrested’. After her son was arrested for his funeral
oration, the trial date arrived. The lawyers assumed their positions
and proceedings began. ‘It was like something out of the pages of
Kafka’, says her widower, Ragip Zarakolu. ‘Everybody was there: the
prosecutor, advocate, judges, correspondents, friends. Only the place
of the accused was empty’ … Zarakolu’s alleged crime involved
publication of a work entitled The Song Of Liberty by Huseyin Turhali,
an exiled Kurdish lawyer. She is also being summonsed from her grave
to answer charges that she published The Culture Of Pontus, an
anthropological study by Omer Assan examining the ancient Greek
heritage of the region around Trabzon on the Black Sea …"
A joint International PEN Writers in Prison Committee and the
International Publishers’ Association June 2008 statement confirmed,
after another trial that Ragip Zarakolu and Belge faced, that:
"Observers believe that Zarakolu is being singled out by the more
conservative elements of the judiciary because of his decades of
struggle for freedom of expression, and particularly his promotion of
minority rights. Throughout his life, Ragip Zarakolu has been
subjected to a series of long, time-consuming and expensive court
hearings. The conduct of the trial in itself took the form of
harassment and punishment against the defendant for daring to produce
works, which touch on sensitive issues such as the Armenian question,
Kurdish and minority rights. The condemnation of Ragip Zarakolu shows
that the recent cosmetic change to Article 301 TPC was not enough to
put an end to freedom of expression trials in Turkey. Turkish
legislation … Must be amended or repealed to meet international s
tandards, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European
Union".
Ragip’s 2008 acceptance speech for the IPA Freedom to Publish award
noted the following: "A deeply militarist mindset lays deep roots …
Unfortunately, since September 11, 2001, national security state
anti-terror laws have been given even more power in Turkey – indeed,
in many countries – to restrict freedom of expression. Our publishing
house, Belge International Publishing, was targeted under anti-terror
laws when we published books about the Kurdish Question and the
Armenian genocide. Books that critiqued state terror and condemned
terrorism were accused under anti-te rror law. The Erdogan government
reformed the anti-terror law in 2004, deleting a clause that
controlled the opposition press. But in 2006 the National Security
Council demanded that the clause be restored in a stricter form. Now
the Kurdish and opposition publications may be silenced for a year
waiting for trials to begin. Their defence lawyers’ rights are
restricted. Jailed journalists are sent to special isolation prisons
where they have fewer rights than ‘ordinary’ criminals …".