Associated Press Worldstream
September 25, 2005 Sunday 7:23 AM Eastern Time
Genocide scholars again met with barrage of protests in Turkey
by BENJAMIN HARVEY; Associated Press Writer
ISTANBUL, Turkey
Demonstrators throwing rotten tomatoes and eggs and shouting protests
again greeted scholars debating the killings of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks early in the 20th Century on the second day of their conference
on Sunday.
The passionately opposed conference is the first public discussion in
Turkey about the massacre of Armenians, and the European Union said
it would be seen as a test of freedom of expression in Turkey, which
is a candidate for EU membership.
The group of about 20 protesters outside the conference venue was
smaller than the hundreds who showed up on Saturday, and organizers
of the conference say Turks have been surprisingly supportive of
their efforts, despite some panelists suggesting that Ottoman Turks
committed the first genocide of the 20th Century.
Discussing the mass killings of Armenians has long been taboo in
Turkey, and scholars who use the word genocide can be prosecuted
under a clause in the Turkish penal code on insulting the national
character.
The academic conference had been canceled twice, once in May after
the justice minister said organizers were “stabbing the people in the
back,” and again on Thursday when an Istanbul court ordered the
conference closed and demanded to know the academic qualifications of
the speakers.
“This is a fight of ‘can we discuss this thing, or can we not discuss
this thing?”‘ Murat Belge, a member of the organizing committee, said
at the conference opening. “This is something that’s directly related
to the question of what kind of country Turkey is going to be.”
The Armenian issue stirs deep passions among Turks, who are being
pushed by many in the international community to say that their
fathers and grandfathers carried out the first genocide of the 20th
century.
“There are so many documents in hand with respect to the destruction
of Armenians,” said Taner Akcay, a Turkish-born professor at the
University of Minnesota, and author of books on the subject
including, “A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of
Turkish Responsibility.”
On Saturday dozens of officers in riot gear kept hundreds of shouting
protesters at bay. Some protesters pelted arriving panelists with
eggs and rotten tomatoes.
Inside, the audience of more than 300 people was restrained, as only
those invited by the organizing committee and preapproved members of
the media were allowed past security.
The issue has been a taboo for many years in Turkey, with those who
speak out against the killings risking prosecution by a Turkish
court. But an increasing number of Turkish academics have called for
a review of the killings in a country where many see the Ottoman
Empire as a symbol of Turkish greatness.
Several governments around the world have recognized the killings of
as many as 1.5 million Armenians in the late Ottoman Empire as
genocide.
Turkey vehemently denies the charge, admitting that many Armenians
were killed, but saying the death toll is inflated and that Armenians
were killed along with Turks in civil unrest and intercommunal
fighting as the Ottoman Empire collapsed between 1915 and 1923.
After the conference was shut down Thursday, Turkey drew condemnation
from the European Commission.
Organizers skirted the court order by changing the venue of the
conference.
The court-ordered cancellation Thursday was an embarrassment for the
country’s leaders, who are set to begin EU negotiations on Oct. 3.
Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul lamented that “there’s no one better at
hurting themselves than us,” and sent a letter wishing the organizers
a successful conference. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan also
condemned the court’s decision, saying it did not befit a democratic
country.
The participants were all Turkish speakers and included members of
Turkey’s Armenian minority like Hrant Dink, the editor in chief of
Agos, a weekly Armenian newspaper in Istanbul. There are some 70,000
Armenians living in Istanbul.