"insulting Turkish identity"

[Hovik]

Turkey: Pamuk Trial Tests Commitment To Free Speech

TURKEY: PAMUK TRIAL TESTS COMMITMENT TO FREE SPEECH

Source: Human Rights Watch
08 Dec 2005 19:14:41 GMT

Statesman, India
Dec. 9, 2005

(Istanbul, December 8, 2005)-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, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch
is sending observers to Pamuk's trial, which begins Friday, December
16. Pamuk is to be tried on a charge of "insulting Turkishness"
under article 301 of the criminal code at Å~^iÅ~_li Primary Court
No. 2 in Istanbul. Turkey's most widely known novelist with works
translated into thirty-five languages, Pamuk was indicted for telling
the Swiss magazine Das Bild in February that, "Thirty thousand Kurds
and one million Armenians were killed in these lands." If convicted,
he could be imprisoned for up to four years.

"The trial of Orhan Pamuk will show the world which direction Turkish
justice is heading," said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia
director at Human Rights Watch. "The right signal would be prompt
acquittal and a strong statement from the bench affirming that Turkish
law protects freedom of expression."

Turkey has made significant progress in the protection of freedom
of expression since the early 1990s when hundreds of citizens were
imprisoned for their nonviolent opinions, and minority languages such
as Kurdish were forbidden by law. To Human Rights Watch's knowledge,
no prisoners of opinion are currently jailed.

However, many restrictions on freedom of expression persist in
Turkey. In recent months many writers have faced trial, and some have
been convicted for similar charges of insulting the army, insulting
the government or insulting the memory of Kemal Ataturk, the founder
of the Turkish republic. Under the new criminal code, Turkish courts
have acquitted some writers, but have sentenced others to fines and
terms of imprisonment, currently awaiting appeal.

"Pamuk's conviction or a postponement of his trial would signal a
serious reverse to recent reforms in Turkey," Cartner said.

Last year the Turkish parliament amended the constitution to make
international human rights treaties applicable in Turkish domestic
law. The Council of Europe and some European Union member states
have been helping to train Turkish judges and prosecutors in the
jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The European
Court has clearly ruled that the right of free expression includes
the right to criticize public institutions in very strong terms.

The European Union enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, has expressed
"serious concern" about the Pamuk case. He even suggested that it
may have been staged as a deliberate challenge to recent reform trends.

"From the world-renowned poet Nazım Hikmet in the 1930s to Orhan Pamuk
today, Turkish judges have prosecuted and imprisoned the country's
greatest writers," said Cartner. "A Turkish judge needs to make a
really strong declaration to prove that those days are finally over."

Numerous writers, politicians and human rights activists have been
brought before the courts under article 301 (insulting "Turkishness" or
the organs of state) and similar criminal provisions related to insult.

Hrant Dink, editor of Agos magazine, and Sehmus Ulek, vice-president
of the Mazlum-Der human rights organization, are also currently on
trial for "insulting Turkishness" under article 301.

Ersen Korkmaz, owner of Demokrat Iskenderun newspaper, is being tried
for "insulting the government" under article 301.

Fatih TaÅ~_, owner of the Aram publishing house, is charged with
"insulting Turkishness and the security forces" under article 301 of
the Turkish criminal code, and with "insulting the memory of Kemal
Ataturk" under Statute 5816, the law to protect Ataturk.

Ragip Zarakolu, owner of the Belge publishing house, is on trial for
"insulting Ataturk" under Law 5816, and "insulting the armed forces"
under article 301.

On December 2, 2005 five prominent newspaper journalists-Ismet Berkan,
Murat Belge and Haluk Å~^ahin of the daily Radikal, together with Erol
Katırcıoglu and Hasan Cemal of the daily Milliyet-were indicted
under article 301 for criticizing a court's decision in September
to halt a conference on the destruction of the Armenian population
of Anatolia in 1915. The conference went ahead later that month in
Istanbul's Bilgi University.

Each of the above individuals was charged for nothing more than the
peaceful expression of his opinions.

If the Turkish courts fail to protect free speech in the Pamuk trial,
the current government led by the Justice and Development party (AKP)
may try to deny its own responsibility in this matter by pleading that
it has no influence over independent courts. However, the government
has had a role in allowing this prosecution to be opened. Despite calls
from international and domestic human rights organizations, the AKP
government failed to repeal criminal code articles that infringe free
speech when adopting a new criminal code in June 2005. These include
article 299 (insulting the president), article 300 (insulting the flag)
and article 301 (insulting Turkishness, or the organs of state).

Moreover, the Turkish Ministry of Justice has failed to ensure that
the annual performance review of judges and prosecutors includes an
assessment of their knowledge of and compliance with international law.

--Boundary_(ID_SaMc0DRlXC8CrbDXT+sGcQ)--

[Reincarnated Am]

Author the Turks tried gag refuses to rewrite history

From Suna Erdem in Istanbul


DAYS before he goes on trial for publicly discussing his country’s slaughter of a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks, Orhan Pamuk, the most prominent Turkish writer, sounds anything but repentant.

The Turkish Government is afraid to stand up to a nationalist old guard, he told The Times. It is concealing information from its people. It is making only cosmetic reforms of repressive laws to win membership of the European Union.

He said: “I am a writer. It is humiliating to live in a country where this subject (the Armenian massacre of 1915-17) is a taboo and cannot be discussed.”

Mr Pamuk’s defiance will not play well in Ankara. His trial, which opens in Istanbul next Friday, has become an acute embarrassment for the Government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His conviction would play into the hands of countries, such as France and Germany, that oppose Turkish membership of the EU. Hundreds of supporters are expected to provide fodder for European television crews by demonstrating outside the court.

Mr Pamuk’s alleged crime was to tell a Swiss newspaper this year that “a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and no one but me dares to talk about it” — a reference not only to the Armenian slaughter but also to the two-decades-old conflict in southeast Turkey between Kurdish insurgents and the army.

The Turkish press wrongly reported that he had used the word genocide. He received death threats and, in August, a formal charge for “publicly denigrating Turkish identity”, for which, if convicted, he faces up to three years in prison. The official Turkish line is that hundreds of thousands of Armenians as well as Turks died in internecine fighting.

Mr Pamuk, a youthful 53, sounds far from contrite as he sits in his flat in a bohemian area of Istanbul with fine views of the Bosphorus. It was time that his country debated taboo issues such as the Armenian slaughter, he said. “This information is being hidden from the Turkish people and that isn’t good.”

He picked his words carefully, in view of his imminent trial, but insisted that Turkey needed to permit freedom of speech if it was to be fit for EU membership. For him the issue is not the accuracy of what he said about the killings — “I’m no expert,” he said — but his right to say it.

He said that Mr Erdogan’s Government had done much to prepare the country for EU membership but had failed to ensure that a “nationalist, oppressive” old guard — strongly represented in the judiciary — complied with its reforms. “I think they have been too cautious,” he said. “Although Turkey has made various ‘reforms’ concerning freedom of expression, sometimes it seems that these have been made for show and not out of conviction.”

Article 301, the law under which Mr Pamuk will be tried, is a case in point, and he listed several other writers it has snared. He said: “Yes, on paper and if you look at the atmosphere in the country, there is some relaxation with regards freedom of expression. But it is almost impressive quite how busy the route still is that takes writers to court or punishes them in jail.”

He was unimpressed by the official line that the judiciary is independent and beyond the reach of politicians. He said: “The first duty of a government that is to carry Turkey into Europe is to defend the freedom of expression of its citizens, not that of its judges and prosecutors.”

He also accused the Government of acting only after cases such as his own had run their course and Europe reacted negatively. That made writers pawns in the struggle to modernise and join the EU. He said: “Making reforms in the name of freedom of expression should not be subject to political bargaining.”

Mr Pamuk has grown tired of his role as an international poster boy for free speech. “I’m really keen to return to my desk,” he said. But he acknowledged that he does sometimes bring it on himself. “I suppose saying that one million Armenians were killed was a rather political thing to do.”


Kurdish guerrillas raided a military outpost yesterday, killing four Turkish soldiers, the state-owned news agency said. Two guerrillas were also killed in the clash.

WAS IT GENOCIDE?


At the start of the First World War the Ottoman Empire began the deportation of Armenians

The Ottomans suspected that the Armenians sympathised with their enemy, Russia

Most Armenians were allegedly removed from Armenia and Anatolia to present-day Syria. Many were killed or died of hunger

Estimates of the number of dead vary from 600,000 to 1.5 million

Turkey has always denied genocide, claiming that the deaths were war casualties

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1918692,00.html

[Hovik]

Turkish Pm Defends Trial For Mention Of Genocide

TURKISH PM DEFENDS TRIAL FOR MENTION OF GENOCIDE
By Marian Wilkinson National Security Editor

Sydney Morning Herald , Australia
Dec. 10, 2005

Insulting ... Orhan Pamuk's bestseller, Snow.

THE Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has hit back at human
rights groups championing the case of his country's leading novelist,
who faces trial next week for insulting the Turkish state.

In Sydney on his first visit to Australia, Mr Erdogan said the campaign
to defend Orhan Pamuk, who wrote the international bestselling novel
Snow, was creating pressure on the Turkish judiciary.

"I find that a little controversial to the principle of respecting
the rule of law," Mr Erdogan said.

Taking on what he called "international pressure groups" lobbying
for Pamuk, he said: "I don't think the way they act is very proper
in this case."

The acclaimed author is facing three years' jail for a newspaper
interview where he discussed the deaths of 1 million Armenians in 1915
and the deaths of thousands of Kurds during Turkey's recent civil war.

The prosecution of Pamuk has been a major embarrassment for Mr
Erdogan in Europe and has undermined Turkey's application to join
the European Union.

Mr Erdogan said he had read Pamuk's novel and urged people to wait
for the outcome of the case. "The result may very well be that he
will be acquitted," he said. "It will be up to the judicial process
to take its course."

In the past three years he had been in power, Turkey had made great
improvements in its human rights record, he said.

He compared the international outcry over Pamuk's case with his own
experience when he was mayor of Istanbul.

Mr Erdogan said he was jailed for 10 months for reciting a poem and
banned for participating in elections, but his case was ignored by
human right activists.

"At the time when I went to prison, there was no one who came to
talk to me about respect for the rule of law or human rights," he
recalled. "None of them came to me to help me or to talk to me about
what my situation was, so I find this somewhat of a double standard."

Mr Erdogan is the first Turkish prime minister to visit Australia
despite the strong links between the two countries since Gallipoli.

Yesterday he visited the Auburn Gallipoli mosque and met the local
Turkish community. He impromptu visit created some embarrassment
after he cancelled his scheduled luncheon address at the foreign
policy think tank, the Lowy Institute, to visit the mosque.

Mr Erdogan has been a vocal critic of the US-led invasion of
Iraq. During his official visit here he repeated his warning that
Iraq had become "a training ground for terrorists" since the war.

He discussed Iraq and the threat of terrorism during his talks
with the Prime Minister, John Howard, including the need for better
intelligence exchanges between Turkey and Australia. "We should not
be keeping intelligence from each other if we would like to succeed,"
he said. "We have to trust each other."

Turkey's independent position on Iraq has led at times to friction
between the US and Mr Erdogan. More recently, however, the country
had played a key role in fostering back-channel communications between
the US and sections of the Iraqi insurgency.

He said several Sunni insurgent groups had now agreed to participate in
next week's parliamentary elections after meetings in Turkey attended
by the US ambassador to Iraq.

"Their participation in the elections will ensure parliamentary
democracy is moving forward in the right direction," he said.

[Hovik]

MY NAME IS RED
review by Meera Krishnaswamy

India Varta. India
Dec. 9, 2005

Author: Orhan Pamuk Publisher: Penguin Price: Rs. 251

If you read only one book this coming year, let it be My Name Is Red by
Orhan Pamuk. You will probably need the entire year to finish reading
it. By saying that, I want to warn you that it is a bit tedious and
laboured read. But it will also be a year of fascinating reading.

Pamuk has hogged a lot of newsprint lately. First, speculation was
rife that he was going to be the winner of this year's Nobel Prize
for Literature. But, having probably realised that he is 20 years too
young for that, the committee settled on the deserving Harold Pinter.

Secondly, in a very closely watched event, he is up for trial
commencing on December 16. The charge -- 'public denigration' of
Turkish identity -- resulted from a remark he made concerning the
Turkish killings of 'thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians'
in an interview to a Swiss newspaper in February this year. So, he
is scheduled to be in the news next week. It is always a good idea to
read an author who is in the news even if it is not for the happiest
of reasons.

My Name Is Red is set in 16th century Istanbul where the Sultan of
the realm commissions the creation of a magnificently illustrated
work that will celebrate his reign. The best miniaturists of the land
are to work on it. However, conflict rears its ugly head over the
use of the imported 'Frankish' European style of painting. This is a
deadly struggle as the imported style is often in explicit violation
of Islamic tenets that forbid the depiction of figures. One of the
miniaturists is killed and the murderer has to be found. The scene
is set for a tale that concocts a heady combination of the powerful
forces of art, religion and love.

It is a captivating story that unfolds through the first person account
of voices as eclectic as those of a dog, a tree, a gold coin, a corpse
and culminates in the hunt for a murderer through the close examination
of paintings where his style might have betrayed his identity.

The murder mystery aspect of the book does not entirely succeed. There
are only three possible suspects and they are all so similarly
characterised that it is impossible to make out the difference
between them or to even actually care about it. I could say who it
is right here and it would not matter. But the narrative strength
survives this and other flaws. Set in a world where art is a matter
of life and death, this is a rewarding read for anyone convinced of
the importance and the power of art.

[Hovik]

What's Wrong With Turkey?

WHAT'S WRONG WITH TURKEY?
By Frits Bolkestein

Taipei Times, Taiwan
Dec. 12, 2005

There are numerous reasons, both historical and contemporary, why
the Istanbul government's application for EU membership needs to
be rejected.

On Dec. 16, Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey's most famous writers, will
enter an Istanbul court to face a charge of "insulting the national
identity" after he advocated open discussion of the Turkish genocide
of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915 and 1916. Pamuk faces three years
in prison. Turkey's effort to fine and imprison those who do not toe
the official line convinces me that I was correct to oppose opening
negotiations on the country's EU membership.

In December 1999, the European Council granted Turkey the status of
EU candidate-member, implying that Turkey would accede to the union
at some future, unspecified date. The council subsequently asked the
European Commission to decide by October last year whether Turkey had
sufficiently fulfilled the political criteria -- including democracy,
the rule of law and respect for the rights of ethnic minorities --
for membership. That decision was one of the last taken by Romano
Prodi's commission, of which I was a member. Of its 30 members, 29
said that Turkey had fulfilled the criteria sufficiently to proceed. I
was the lone dissenter.

The commission's own report on Turkey, prepared by Gunter Verheugen,
who was then in charge of EU enlargement, shaped my decision. This
report mentioned that in 2003 some 21,870 Turks submitted asylum
claims in the EU, of which 2,127 were accepted. In other words, the
EU's own governments acknowledged in 2003 that the Turkish government
had persecuted more than 2,000 of its own citizens.

Meanwhile, the commission published a progress report on Turkey
that granted that reforms were continuing, albeit at a slower pace,
under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's mildly Islamic-minded
government. Yet the report also presented serious misgivings:
human-rights violations, including torture, continued; the
military's influence remained too high; freedom of speech was not
universally observed; non-Muslim religious and cultural minorities
faced discrimination; and violence against women was not opposed
strongly enough.

Not much has changed since accession talks began this October. Beyond
the current persecution of Pamuk, unacceptable behavior abounds. In
March this year, the police violently disrupted a demonstration to
celebrate International Women's Day. In May, the largest teachers'
union was banned for promoting the education of Turkey's 14 million
Kurds in their own language.

Indeed, intolerance goes right to the top of the Turkish
government. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul abruptly cancelled a recent
press conference in Copenhagen when he spied a Kurdish journalist in
the audience and the Danes refused to evict him.

Such actions and attitudes amply justify my dissent of October
last year. But, even if these shortcomings were removed, Turkey
should still not be admitted to the EU, because it is not a European
country. Christianity, feudalism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment,
democracy and industrialization have made us what we Europeans are,
but they have not made Turks who they are.

So I am not convinced that reforms in Turkey implemented at
the insistence of the European Commission would continue after
accession. Indeed, I suspect that there will be backsliding.

Moreover, Turkey's accession would lead inevitably to that of
Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, and perhaps of Georgia, Armenia and
Azerbaijan. The first three of these countries are certainly more
European than Turkey. Leaving the three Caucasian republics aside but
including the successor states to Yugoslavia, this would mean an EU
of some 35 members. What sort of union would that be?

The EU is not simply a club of friends. It is based on freedom of
movement of goods, services, capital and people. The Commission,
as the guardian of the union's treaties, must protect these four
fundamental freedoms, which means that it must sometimes persuade,
and if necessary force, member states to change their laws. Alcohol
policy in Sweden, the Volkswagen-law in Germany, and discrimination
against foreign investment funds in France are examples of cases that
made the Commission unpopular. But they were necessary.

By the time I left the commission, I was sitting on a pile of 1,500
such infringement proceedings. In short, EU membership entails having
to accept incisive measures that deeply affect a state's internal
affairs.

That will be impossible with such disparate members. The EU would
fall victim to what the historian Paul Kennedy calls "imperial
overreach." The EU would become unacceptably diluted. That is why
former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing feared that Turkey's
entry would lead to the EU's breakup, and it is why former German
chancellor Helmut Schmidt said, "Accession of Turkey would be more
than the EU could bear."

But the strongest reason to oppose Turkey's accession is a question of
democracy: A majority of the EU's population simply does not want it.

Frits Bolkestein was a member of the European Commission from 1999
to last year and is a former Dutch minister of defense.

Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute for Human Sciences

[Reincarnated Am]

A Unique Anthology On Armenian Genocide

Not Only of Scientific But Also of Political Importance

The process of acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide made Turkey face the facts. To stop the extension of this process the Turks took on the countermeasures making negation their banner. The History Foundation of Turkey received an order from former prime minister Byulent Ejevit's government to fight against "ungrounded allegation on the Armenian genocide" and published a number of works about "the Turkish genocide at the hand of Armenians."

In the meantime, Turkish government-affiliated archives invited foreign scholars to familiarize with the so-called revealing documents.

No invitation letter was replied to. The History Foundation's publications merely exhausted Turkish denialism. The extension of Genocide recognition process displayed all impotence of Turkish countermeasures. Moreover, the issue of elimination of Genocide aftereffects is gradually taking ground. The readiness of American and French insurance companies to repay the descendants of Armenian Genocide survivors comes to stress the topicality of the issue.

But to raise the Genocide issue to the worldwide importance, we need to prove scientifically that Turkey is responsible and that the international community has obligations. Consequently we should show that it's futile to limit the Armenian Genocide only to the year of 1915. "The Armenian Genocide. Turkey's Responsibility and World Community's Obligations" 2-volume anthology published in Russian language in Moscow is perhaps a serious contribution in this respect.

The anthology published by cooperative efforts of the Russia's Armenian Union and the Armenian Institute of International Law and Politics was assembled by Prof. Yuri Barseghov. He is meanwhile the editor of the book and the author of the foreword and commentaries. Ara Abrahamian, chairman of the World Armenian Congress and Russia's Armenian Union, wrote the prologue to the anthology. The 1st volume was put out in 2002 and the two parts of the 2nd one in 2003 and 2005 respectively.

The anthology is comprised of 7 parts 1st of which presents internationally recognized documents confirming the responsibility of individuals and states for committing genocide. The 2nd and 3d parts present all official documents directly connected with the responsibility of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey for massacres in 1876-1923.

The 4th part includes the views of experts on international law and genocide as well as conclusions and verdicts of legal bodies. The 5th part is dedicated to the political history of the Armenian Cause. The 6th part includes documents reflecting international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The last, 7th, part includes commentaries that emphasizes the significance of the anthology in eliminating the aftereffects of the Genocide.

The commentaries give political assessment of all international agreements - Kars, Moscow, Lausanne - concerning the Armenian Cause. With all this said, we can state that Yuri Barseghov's "The Armenian Genocide. Turkey's Responsibility and World Community's Obligations" is a unique book not only owing to the selection of documents and comments on them but also for approaching the issue from the point of view of the international law and assessment of international agreements.

Translation of the anthology in English, French and German will be a serious contribution to the process of Armenian Genocide's acknowledgment and will help create condition for elimination of Genocide aftereffects. It will internationalize the issue of aftereffects and together with Genocide recognition process will tighten grip on Turkey, which tires to shirk responsibility. This is a book that has not only scientific but also practical significance.

By Hakob Chakrian

http://www.azg.am/?lang=EN&num=2005121301

[Hovik]

Finally: Pamuk Speaks To Us!!!

ON TRIAL
by Orhan Pamuk

Issue of 2005-12-19
Posted 2005-12-12



In Istanbul this Friday, in Sisli, the district where I have spent my whole life, in the courthouse directly opposite the three-story house where my grandmother lived alone for forty years, I will stand before a judge. My crime is to have "publicly denigrated Turkish identity". The prosecutor will ask that I be imprisoned for three years. I should perhaps find it worrying that the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was tried in the same court for the same offense, under Article 301 of the same statute, and was found guilty, but I remain optimistic. For, like my lawyer, I believe that the case against me is thin; I do not think I will end up in jail.

This makes it somewhat embarrassing to see my trial overdramatized. I am only too aware that most of the Istanbul friends from whom I have sought advice have at some point undergone much harsher interrogation and lost many years to court cases and prison sentences just because of a book, just because of something they had written. Living as I do in a country that honors its pashas, saints, and policemen at every opportunity but refuses to honor its writers until they have spent years in courts and in prisons, I cannot say I was surprised to be put on trial. I understand why friends smile and say that I am at last "a real Turkish writer". But when I uttered the words that landed me in trouble I was not seeking that kind of honor.

Last February, in an interview published in a Swiss newspaper, I said that "a million Armenians and thirty thousand Kurds had been killed in Turkey"; I went on to complain that it was taboo to discuss these matters in my country. Among the world's serious historians, it is common knowledge that a large number of Ottoman Armenians were deported, allegedly for siding against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, and many of them were slaughtered along the way. Turkey's spokesmen, most of whom are diplomats, continue to maintain that the death toll was much lower, that the slaughter does not count as a genocide because it was not systematic, and that in the course of the war Armenians killed many Muslims, too. This past September, however, despite opposition from the state, three highly respected Istanbul universities joined forces to hold an academic conference of scholars open to views not tolerated by the official Turkish line. Since then, for the first time in ninety years, there has been public discussion of the subject, this despite the spectre of Article 301.

If the state is prepared to go to such lengths to keep the Turkish people from knowing what happened to the Ottoman Armenians, that qualifies as a taboo. And my words caused a furor worthy of a taboo: various newspapers launched hate campaigns against me, with some right-wing (but not necessarily Islamist) columnists going as far as to say that I should be "silenced" for good; groups of nationalist extremists organized meetings and demonstrations to protest my treachery; there were public burnings of my books. Like Ka, the hero of my novel "Snow", I discovered how it felt to have to leave one's beloved city for a time on account of one's political views. Because I did not want to add to the controversy, and did not want even to hear about it, I at first kept quiet, drenched in a strange sort of shame, hiding from the public, and even from my own words. Then a provincial governor ordered a burning of my books, and, following my return to Istanbul, the Sisli public prosecutor opened the case against me, and I found myself the object of international concern.

My detractors were not motivated just by personal animosity, nor were they expressing hostility to me alone; I already knew that my case was a matter worthy of discussion in both Turkey and the outside world. This was partly because I believed that what stained a country's "honor" was not the discussion of the black spots in its history but the impossibility of any discussion at all. But it was also because I believed that in today's Turkey the prohibition against discussing the Ottoman Armenians was a prohibition against freedom of expression, and that the two matters were inextricably linked. Comforted as I was by the interest in my predicament and by the generous gestures of support, there were also times when I felt uneasy about finding myself caught between my country and the rest of the world.

The hardest thing was to explain why a country officially committed to entry in the European Union would wish to imprison an author whose books were well known in Europe, and why it felt compelled to play out this drama (as Conrad might have said) "under Western eyes". This paradox cannot be explained away as simple ignorance, jealousy, or intolerance, and it is not the only paradox. What am I to make of a country that insists that the Turks, unlike their Western neighbors, are a compassionate people, incapable of genocide, while nationalist political groups are pelting me with death threats? What is the logic behind a state that complains that its enemies spread false reports about the Ottoman legacy all over the globe while it prosecutes and imprisons one writer after another, thus propagating the image of the Terrible Turk worldwide! When I think of the professor whom the state asked to give his ideas on Turkey's minorities, and who, having produced a report that failed to please, was prosecuted, or the news that between the time I began this essay and embarked on the sentence you are now reading five more writers and journalists were charged under Article 301, I imagine that Flaubert and Nerval, the two godfathers of Orientalism, would call these incidents bizarreries, and rightly so.

That said, the drama we see unfolding is not, I think, a grotesque and inscrutable drama peculiar to Turkey; rather, it is an expression of a new global phenomenon that we are only just coming to acknowledge and that we must now begin, however slowly, to address. In recent years, we have witnessed the astounding economic rise of India and China, and in both these countries we have also seen the rapid expansion of the middle class, though I do not think we shall truly understand the people who have been part of this transformation until we have seen their private lives reflected in novels. Whatever you call these new 鬩tes "the non-Western bourgeoisie or the enriched bureaucracy" they, like the Westernizing 鬩tes in my own country, feel compelled to follow two separate and seemingly incompatible lines of action in order to legitimatize their newly acquired wealth and power. First, they must justify the rapid rise in their fortunes by assuming the idiom and the attitudes of the West; having created a demand for such knowledge, they then take it upon themselves to tutor their countrymen. When the people berate them for ignoring tradition, they respond by brandishing a virulent and intolerant nationalism. The disputes that a Flaubert-like outside observer might call bizarreries may simply be the clashes between these political and economic programs and the cultural aspirations they engender. On the one hand, there is the rush to join the global economy; on the other, the angry nationalism that sees true democracy and freedom of thought as Western inventions.

V. S. Naipaul was one of the first writers to describe the private lives of the ruthless, murderous non-Western ruling 鬩tes of the post-colonial era. Last May, in Korea, when I met the great Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe, I heard that he, too, had been attacked by nationalist extremists after stating that the ugly crimes committed by his country's armies during the invasions of Korea and China should be openly discussed in Tokyo. The intolerance shown by the Russian state toward the Chechens and other minorities and civil-rights groups, the attacks on freedom of expression by Hindu nationalists in India, and China's discreet ethnic cleansing of the Uighurs'all are nourished by the same contradictions.

As tomorrow's novelists prepare to narrate the private lives of the new 鬩tes, they are no doubt expecting the West to criticize the limits that their states place on freedom of expression. But these days the lies about the war in Iraq and the reports of secret C.I.A. prisons have so damaged the West's credibility in Turkey and in other nations that it is more and more difficult for people like me to make the case for true Western democracy in my part of the world.

(Translated, from the Turkish, by Maureen Freely.)

[Reincarnated Am]

"Repealing Article 301" Calls AI

Amnesty international in a public statement expresses extreme concern for increased number of writers journalists and novelists who are prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code. The article is generally used against critics of the state.

BIA News Center
13/12/2005

BİA (London) - In a public statement Amnesty International expresses "extreme concern" at the frequent use of Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TPC) to prosecute human rights defenders, journalists and other members of civil society peacefully expressing their dissenting opinion.

Article 301, on the denigration of Turkishness, the Republic, and the foundation and institutions of the State, was introduced with the legislative reforms of 1 June 2005 and replaced Article 159 of the old penal code. Amnesty International repeatedly opposed the use of Article 159 to prosecute non-violent critical opinion and called on the Turkish authorities to abolish the article.

The organization is now concerned that the wide and vague terms of Article 301 mean that it too can be applied arbitrarily to criminalize a huge range of critical opinions. According to the text of the Article:

1. Public denigration of Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.

2. Public denigration of the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security structures shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.

3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.

4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

The final qualification of the article in paragraph 4 suggests that expressions amounting to "criticism" rather than "public denigration" are not punishable. Amnesty International considers that the attempt to draw a distinction between criticism and denigration is highly problematic. The lack of legal certainty of the crime will lead to arbitrary interpretation by prosecutors and judges. Even the Turkish Minister of Justice himself, Cemil Cicek, has reportedly stated that "the whole issue comes down to how the laws are interpreted".

According to Amnesty International " Article 301 poses a direct threat to freedom of expression, as enshrined in Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and in Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)."

Recalling "Turkey is a State Party" to both conventions it has a "legal obligation to uphold this freedom" says AI.

Nevertheless Amnesty International receives a steady flow of cases opened against individuals under Article 301, for expressing a wide variety of opinions. Some of these cases are outlined below. The organization hopes that the international attention focused on the novelist Orhan Pamuk's case will also cast light on the cases of lesser known individuals prosecuted under the same legislation.


Cases opened under Article 301

Orhan Pamuk is an internationally-known Turkish author whose novels, including Snow and My Name is Red, have been translated into many languages and have received wide critical acclaim. He is facing charges under Article 301 for comments he made during an interview he gave to a Swiss newspaper (Tages Anzeiger) on 5 February 2005. In the interview, Orhan Pamuk stated, "30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians were murdered. Hardly anyone dares mention it, so I do. And that's why I'm hated". The first hearing of his case will take place in the Sisli Court of First Instance No. 2 in Istanbul on 16 December 2005.

Hrant Dink is a journalist and the editor of the Armenian-language weekly newspaper Agos, which is published in Istanbul. On 7 October 2005, Hrant Dink was given a six-month suspended prison sentence by the Sisli Court of First Instance No. 2 in Istanbul for "denigrating Turkishness" in an article he wrote on Armenian identity. According to the prosecutor in the case, Hrant Dink had written his article with the intention of denigrating Turkish national identity. The court suspended the sentence as the journalist had no previous convictions, on condition that he does not repeat the offence. Hrant Dink is currently appealing the decision. However, he is also being prosecuted under Article 301 for another offence (see below). Should he be imprisoned, Amnesty International would consider him to be a prisoner of conscience.

Seyhmus Ulek is the Vice-President of the Turkish human rights NGO Mazlum Der. On 28 April 2005 the Sanlıurfa Court of First Instance No. 3 started hearing a case against him and Hrant Dink, under Article 159 of the old TPC (now Article 301) for speeches they made during a conference organized by Mazlum Der's Urfa branch on 14 December 2002 entitled "Global Security, Terror and Human Rights, Multi-culturalism, Minorities and Human Rights". Sehmus Ulek referred in his speech to the nation-building project of the Turkish Republic as it had affected, in particular, the southeastern area of the country; Hrant Dink discussed his own relationship to official conceptions of Turkish identity. The next hearing of the case will take place on 9 February 2006.

A trial began in May 2005 at the Beyoglu Court of First Instance No. 2 in Istanbul against publisher Ragip Zarakolu for his publication of a Turkish translation of a book by Dora Sakayan entitled Experiences of an Armenian Doctor: Garabet Hacheryan's Izmir Journal (Bir Ermeni Doktorun Yasadıkları: Garabet Haceryan'ın İzmir Guncesi; Istanbul: Belge 2005). Ragip Zarakolu had been charged under Article 159 of the TPC for "denigrating Turkishness and the security forces", and then under Article 301 after the new TPC came into effect. Another case had been opened against him in March, in which Ragip Zarakolu was charged with "denigrating the state and the republic" under Article 159 (also converted to Article 301) and "insulting Ataturk's memory" under Law No 5816 for publishing a Turkish translation of a book by George Jerjian entitled The Truth Will Set Us Free: Armenians and Turks Reconciled (Gercek bizi Ozgur Kalıcak; Istanbul: Belge 2004).

Fatih Tas is a 26-year-old student of Communications and Journalism at Istanbul University and the owner of Aram publishing house. He is currently being tried under Article 301 because he published a Turkish translation of a book by the American academic John Tirman, entitled Savas Ganimetleri: Amerikan Silah Ticaretinin Insan Bedeli (Istanbul: Aram, 2005) (The Spoils of War: the Human Cost of America's Arms Trade), that reportedly includes a map depicting a large section of Turkey as traditionally Kurdish and alleges that the Turkish military perpetrated a number of human rights abuses in the south-east of the country during the 1980s and 1990s. Fatih Tas argues that the book contains nothing that has not previously been discussed in the Turkish Parliament or media, and was not intended to insult Turkey or Turkishness. The prosecutor reportedly demanded that each "insult" in the book should be tried as a separate charge and called for Fatih Tas to be given a prison sentence of ten and a half years. The next hearing of his case will take place on 2 December 2005 at the Court of First Instance No.2 in Istanbul. In relation to other statements made in the book, Fatih Tas also faces charges under Articles 1/1 and 2 of Law 5816, which prohibits publicly insulting the memory of Ataturk.

Murat Pabuc was a lieutenant in the Turkish army who retired on grounds of disability. Whilst still serving, he witnessed the massive earthquake that hit Turkey in August 1999, as well as the institutional corruption that he alleges followed it. He became disillusioned with his military duties, seeing soldiers as being alienated from ordinary people, and began to refuse orders. He eventually began undergoing psychiatric treatment. In June 2005 he published his book Boyalı Bank Nobetini Terk Etmek The literal translation of this title is "Abandoning the Duty of the Painted Bench". It alludes to a Turkish anecdote which portrays a pastiche of a soldier following orders unquestioningly. He believes that this was the only way for him to express what he had experienced in the army. As a result he is facing a trial for "public denigration of the military" under Article 301.

Birol Duru is a journalist. On 17 November 2005 he was charged with "denigrating the security forces" under Article 301 because he published on the Dicle news agency a press release from the Human Rights Association (IHD) Bingol branch which stated that the security forces were burning forests in Bingol and Tunceli. The president of IHD's Bingol branch, Rıdvan Kızgın, is also charged under other legislation for the contents of the press release. Rıdvan Kızgın has had over 47 cases opened against him since 2001, and Amnesty International is currently running a web action for him as part of its ongoing campaigning work on human rights defenders in Turkey and Eurasia. Birol Duru is due to be sentenced on 8 December 2005.

http://www.bianet.org/2005/12/01_eng/news71534.htm

[Hovik]

Turkish Court Has Doubts About Judging Author Pamuk

TURKISH COURT HAS DOUBTS ABOUT JUDGING AUTHOR PAMUK

Agence France Presse -- English
December 13, 2005 Tuesday 4:11 PM GMT

The Istanbul court scheduled to try Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk on
Friday for statements concerning the World War I massacre of Armenians
says it can only proceed if ordered to do so by the government,
Pamuk's attorney said Tuesday.

In a ruling dated December 2 and made public Tuesday by defense
attorney Halil Inanici, the court said the alleged offense was
committed before Turkey amended its penal code earlier this year to
bring it up to the standards of the European Union, with which it
began accession talks on October 4.

Pamuk should be tried under the old law, which is more favorable to
the defendant, the court argued, partly because it requires a direct
order from the justice ministry for the trial to proceed.

"The case file must be returned to the prosecutor to be transmitted
to the ministry of justice for authorization to try the defendant,"
the court wrote, according to minutes of the proceedings produced by
the attorney.

"If the ministry's reply does not reach the court before the start
of proceedings (on Friday), it will not be possible to go ahead with
the trial," Inanici argued.

Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said Tuesday he would consider all
requests from the court before making his own judgment.

"For the time being, no document from the court has come in to us,"
the Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying.

"If what you write is true, the file will arrive and we will examine
it extremely closely, under the current law," he said in response to
a journalist's question.

"Afterwards ... we will give our decision," Cicek added.

Earlier, the minister said he was not competent to decide on whether
to try Pamuk and that he would leave it to the tribunal, according
to a report in the liberal daily Radikal.

Inanici disagreed.

"The court has reached a decision and the ministry must apply it,"
he told AFP. "It must say whether or not it will allow the trial
to proceed."

Pamuk, the internationally acclaimed author of such works as "My
Name is Red" and "Snow", is accused of "denigrating the Turkish
national identity" for remarks in an interview in February with a
Swiss magazine.

"One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands
and nobody but me dares to talk about it," Pamuk had told the weekly
Das Magazin.

Pamuk's remarks, referring to the 1915-1917 mass killings of Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire and to the Kurdish conflict in southeast
Turkey, sparked a public outcry that the writer was selling out
national interests.

The massacre of Armenians is one of the most controversial episodes
in Turkish history.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in a genocide
orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire in the final years of its existence,
while Turkey rejects the figure and categorically denies any genocide
took place.

The decision to try Pamuk has drawn international criticism and the
EU has warned that if he is sentenced, Turkey's bid to join the bloc
will suffer.

A delegation of five members of the European parliament is scheduled
to attend the opening of the trial.

Pamuk could be jailed for six months to three years if convicted.

[Hovik]

Insult To Freedom: Turkey's Denial Of Freedom Of Expression Threatens Its Future

INSULT TO FREEDOM: TURKEY'S DENIAL OF FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION THREATENS ITS FUTURE

Houston Chronicle, TX
Dec 14 2005

Imagine a modern nation that prides itself on being a civilized
democracy. Now imagine that the same nation makes it a heinous crime
for anyone to criticize the government or denigrate the national
identity. That nation would look very much like Turkey.

While the Turkish government is pleading with the European Union
to grant Turkey membership, the nation retains a law, Article 301,
which states: "A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the
republic or Turkish National Assembly" shall be imprisoned for six
months to three years. If the insult occurs outside Turkey, the term
can be increased by a third.

Turkey's most famous novelist, Orphan Pamuk, is to be tried Friday
in an Instanbul court for a mere remark he made that was quoted in a
Swiss newspaper. Pamuk noted that 30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians
had been slain in Turkey, "and nobody but me dares to talk about it."

Among the 60 or more publishers, writers and journalists who have been
charged is Fatih Tas, who published in Turkish translation Spoils
of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade, by John Tirman,
executive director of MIT's Center for International Studies.

Prosecutors allege that the book insults Turkey and the founder of
its republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Another publisher faces trial for publishing a book entitled Truth
Will Liberate Us. Not, apparently, if one lives in Turkey. Several
newspaper columnists were charged with insulting the judiciary,
which banned a conference on Turkish history.

Totalitarian control of expression is incompatible with freedom and
democracy. It is intolerable in a member of the European Union. It
offends principles and treaties recognized by all civilized nations
and some that aren't. As the international writers group PEN points
out, Turkey signed both the U.N. International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights,
which uphold freedom of expression.

Turkey is a historic ally of the United States. Its citizens have
established friendly and profitable ties to Houston and Texas. It
is a Muslim country that in many respects sets an example for other
nations in the region regarding representational government and the
proper role of religion in a secular state.

However, Turkey's outrageous oppression of free expression undermines
Turkey's relationship with the West, where many Turks believe their
future resides. Far from anything a novelist or journalist might write,
Article 301 is the greatest insult to Turkey and its people.

It must be repealed for their sake and for the sake of Turkey's
friendships abroad.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/3523178.html