Happy is the one who can call himself a Turk
Khilafah.com, UK
March 17 2006
In December 2005 the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk was held on trail
for violating the Turkish Republic’s criminal code, article 301: the
crime of “denigrating Turkishness”. The novelist faced nationalist
protesters hurling abuse and threatening violence. Scuffles broke
out inside and outside the cramped courtroom. Armed police in riot
gear were deployed, but failed to prevent the ugly scenes. Although
Pamuk has become the most well known individual to be arrested under
a series of patriotic laws, he is by no means the only one. Scores
of writers and journalists are being prosecuted for this crime of
“denigrating Turkishness”. Fatih Ta’, owner of the Aram publishing
house, was charged with “insulting Turkishness and the security
forces” under article 301 code, and with “insulting the memory of
Kemal Ataturk” under Statute 5816, a law to protect Ataturk. Ragip
Zarakolu, owner of the Belge publishing house, was put on trial for
“insulting Ataturk” under Law 5816, and “insulting the armed forces”
under article 301. Although he Turkish authorities dropped the charges
a month later, they failed to avoid international condemnation.
There was outrage and indignation at the Turkish moves to trample
on the principle of freedom of speech, and condemnation at Turkey’s
denial of an event that so many in the West say was the first organised
genocide of the 20th century. However, few mentioned how ridiculous
the law of “insulting the memory of Kemal Ataturk” actually is, or how
inhumane it is to have statutes that force citizens to honour such
a nebulous notion as “Turkishness”. These acts of legislation are
meaningless and insulting to the intelligence of the Muslims of Turkey.
The western press and other bodies made much of the Pumuk trial at
the time. On December 8, 2005, Human Rights Watch said: “The Turkish
judiciary must promptly acquit the novelist Orhan Pamuk and sharply
dismiss the indictment against him if Turkey is to allay serious
doubts about its commitment to free expression”. The nub of the Pumuk
case was that he expressed an opinion to a Swiss magazine Das Bild in
February 2005 that, “Thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians
were killed in these lands.” He expressed an opinion on events that
occurred during the First World War that are discordant with those
of the Turkish government.
This, in the modern Turkish Republic, is illegal. Similarly the
British historian David Irvin expressed an opinion about events that
happened during the Second World War. His views were also in conflict
with the official opinions held by certain governments, such as in
Austria where it is illegal.
The other similarity between the two cases is that they both involve
self publicists that have courted controversy. They have both gone
up against laws that they knew had the potential to be their undoing.
Irving was arrested in November 2005 for speeches he made in Austria in
1998 in which he denied the existence of gas chambers and extermination
camps in Europe during the period of Nazi rule. Austria has the
strictest holocaust denial laws in Europe and Irving was well aware of
this fact. However Austria also has a poor record for actually dealing
with suspects of Nazi war crimes. This case was more about “sending
a massage” rather than exposing the opinions of a quasi-historian to
be bereft of strong supporting evidence.
The rights and wrongs of the opinions of these two controversial
figures are not the issue of concern here. What is of interest is
the reaction of the western press to these two individuals voicing
their opinions, especially, as these two cases hit the news at a
time when Europe was debating the whole notion of free speech. The
vigorous defence of freedom of speech, in relation the Danish cartoons
and Orhan Pamuk, seems not to be extrapolated to protecting Irving’s
right to free speech. Similarly the outrage expressed towards Turkey,
for forcing people to hold their view and their view alone, was not
extended to Austria.
The response of Europe to the Danish cartoons, coupled with the
condemnation heaped upon Turkey and the fact that one their scholars
is now languishing in a cell prove that the idea of free speech is
merely an illusion.
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