Academics Appeal on Behalf of Jailed Duke Student
Letter to Armenian president calls for release of
Yektan Turkyilmaz
Duke University (Durham, North Carolina)
News & Communications
Friday, August 05, 2005
Note to Editors: The following letter has been signed by more than
200 academics from the United States, Turkey, Armenia and elsewhere
in support of Duke student Yektan Turkyilmaz who is being detained
in Armenia on charges of taking books out of the country without
permission.
Robert Kocharian
His Excellency
President of the Republic of Armenia
Your Excellency,
We write to you today to express our grave concern about Yektan
Turkyilmaz and his pending trial in Armenia. Mr. Turkyilmaz is
a Ph.D. student at Duke University in the United States. He is
a Turkish citizen who was arrested on June 17, 2005, as he was
leaving Armenia. He has been held under high security conditions
at the National Security Service building in Yerevan ever since his
arrest. Last week, the request to release him on bail, accompanied
by personal guarantees of a member of the Armenian Parliament and
a prominent Armenian- American historian, was turned down. It now
appears that Mr. Turkyilmaz will stand trial on customs violation
charges under Article 215 Paragraph 2 of the Armenian Criminal Code,
which includes a prison sentence of 4 to 8 years.
Mr. President, we the undersigned care deeply about improvements
in Armenian-Turkish relations and consider the unimpeded work of
independent scholars to be a sine qua non of vital steps in the right
direction. The way that Mr. Turkyilmaz has been treated is setting
a negative precedent.
Yektan Turkyilmaz is fluent in six languages, including Armenian, and
has been the first Turkish scholar to work in the Armenian National
Archives. His dissertation research at a leading American university
is being supported by several prestigious awards. We understand that
he has been questioned about his research and theoretical orientations,
and the digital copies of his archival research have been confiscated.
There can be no justification for this treatment.
Furthermore, we understand that he is now being charged with attempting
to take old books out of Armenia without permission. We understand
that none of the books he had with him were absolutely prohibited from
being taken out of the country, but only required permissions. We are
convinced that Mr. Turkyilmaz did not know about this requirement at
the time and would have undoubtedly complied with this requirement as
he has demonstrated to be a serious scholar and a friend of Armenian
culture on many occasions. We recognize that laws have to be applied
consistently under rule of law. However, as the investigator in
charge of this case states, the current law places no obligation
on the sellers of old books to inform the purchasers that special
permissions will be needed to take the books out of the country, and
makes no distinction between violations involving nuclear weapons and
books. While it may be appropriate to impose a fine for the unknowing
violation of customs regulations, prison terms of 4 to 8 years are
grossly disproportionate and would send a deterrent signal to other
independent scholars.
The political implications of this arrest cause grave concern. Yektan
Turkyilmaz is one of a very few Turkish scholars who have critically
tackled the events of 1915 and other instances of political violence
in the first part of this century. Being the only researcher who
can understand Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian at the
same time (besides English and French), his research promises to add
new dimensions to the study of a very troubled historical period in
Anatolia and the South Caucasus. The fact that he was arrested soon
after he gained access as the first Turkish scholar to the Armenian
National Archives adds to these concerns. The fragile space of dialogue
that has recently been opened up between Turkish and Armenian scholars
is put to the risk of being greatly damaged by Turkyilmaz~Rs prolonged
detention. This arrest would also raise serious doubts as to whether
Armenia encourages independent scholarly research on its history.
Mr. President, we respectfully urge you to intervene to ensure that
this unfortunate state of affairs comes to a swift and amicable
end. We request the immediate release of Yektan Turkyilmaz and a
return of his digital research material so that he can continue his
scholarly activities.
Committee for Solidarity with Yektan Turkyilmaz
For more information, contact:
John F. Burness, Senior Vice President for Public
Affairs and Government Relations |
919-681-3788 | [email protected]