"insulting Turkish identity"

[Hovik]

Yahoo! News Headline: Writer's Trial Threatens Turkey's EU Hopes

Writer's Trial Threatens Turkey's EU Hopes
By BENJAMIN HARVEY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 53 minutes ago

https://www.news.yahoo.com

Turkey's foremost novelist goes on trial Friday in Istanbul in a free-speech case that has divided the nation, embarrassed its liberals and cast a pall over its dream of joining the European Union.

For Europeans who oppose Turkey's membership in their prosperous club of democracies, the prosecution of Orhan Pamuk reinforces the view that the nation of 70 million Muslims, while a useful buffer between Europe and the Middle East, is no part of contemporary European civilization.

Pamuk, the critically acclaimed author of "My Name is Red," "Snow" and "Istanbul," faces up to three years in prison for saying to a Swiss newspaper in February that no one in Turkey is willing to deal with painful episodes in the country's past treatment of its Armenian minority or its continuing problems with its 12 million Kurdish citizens.

His remark that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it," is being prosecuted as a breach of a law against insulting the Turkish Republic or "Turkishness."

On Thursday, the European Union made the stakes clear. "It is not Orhan Pamuk who will stand trial tomorrow, but Turkey," said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, adding that prosecuting "a nonviolent opinion casts a shadow over the accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU."

In October, after the charges were filed against 53-year-old Pamuk, Rehn visited him at his home in Istanbul, bringing copies of his books to sign. That was five days after Turkey achieved its long-sought goal of opening negotiations for full EU membership. Now a delegation from the 25-nation EU's elected parliament is flying in to attend the trial.

The Bush administration regards Turkey as an ally and strongly backs its admission to the EU.

Pamuk's works deal with a conflicted Turkish identity born of straddling the cultural lines that meet here — Western and Eastern, conservative and modern, Islamic and secular. In 1998 he rejected a government honorific on the grounds that the Turkish state banned books, mistreated Kurds, encouraged "crazy nationalism" and violated human rights.

In an essay in this week's New Yorker magazine, he wrote that the case against him was thin and he did not expect to be jailed.

In the 1,400-word article, available at http://www.newyorker.com/talk/conten...9ta_talk_pamuk, he wrote: "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?"

He linked his case to others involving free speech in societies where old nationalist impulses are clashing with the forces of globalization, and said "lies about the war in Iraq and the reports of secret CIA 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."

Though Turkey has implemented broad and widely praised democratic reforms to meet EU membership criteria, its laws still permit prosecution for statements deemed to put Turkey or its officials in a bad light.

The killing of minority Armenians 90 years ago, not long before the Ottoman Empire was replaced by today's secular republic, is a particularly sore point. Armenians say as many as 1.5 million died in a campaign of genocide. Turkey insists it was war, not genocide, and that the numbers are inflated.

Turkey's leaders have long feared that opening such taboo topics to debate carries high political costs in lost prestige, concessions to ethnic groups, admission of past wrongs, and perhaps even ceding territory and the breaking apart of the Turkish state.

The dilemma has grown more acute now that even British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch supporter of Turkey's admission to the EU, is saying it can only happen if Turkey embraces European standards of free expression.

[Hovik]

Renowned Turkish Novelist Orhan Pamuk's File, Opened On The Charge Of Belittling Turk

RENOWNED TURKISH NOVELIST ORHAN PAMUK'S FILE, OPENED ON THE CHARGE OF BELITTLING TURKS, HAS BEEN SENT TO THE JUSTICE MINISTRY

YEREVAN, DECEMBER 13. ARMINFO. Reportedly, renowned Turkish novelist
Orhan Pamuk's file, opened on the charge of belittling Turks,
has been sent to the Justice Ministry. The Turkish newspaper Zaman
reports that Pamuk's lawyer Haluk Inanici told the Sisli 2nd Criminal
Court of First Instance has demanded to try the author according to
the former Turkish Criminal Law sending the file to the Ministry of
Justice. According to the former law, unless the ministry disallows,
the case will be over before it starts. However, contrary to Pamuk's
lawyer, the Sisli Chief Public Prosecutor's Office has not confirmed
the case has been sent to the ministry.

Pamuk's lawyer recalled in a written statement that a case has
been opened by the Sisli Chief Public Prosecutor's Office for a
statement by the author published in "Das Magazine," Switzerland
that stated "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in
this territory." Reportedly in the statement Pamuk could receive a
penalty of six months to three years imprisonment according to the
new law's 301st article.

The Sisli 2nd Criminal Court of First Instance asked the Prosecutor's
Office that the date of the crime, 9 February 2005, be evaluated in
the frame of the former law or new law, to which they responded that
the former law is in favor of the accused and that was confirmed by
the office of the public prosecutor.

[Gavur]

Writers lament state's assault on free speech





16 December 2005 10:26

Ertugrul Kurkcu has been hauled before the judges for saying the wrong thing so many times that he has almost lost count. "Six or seven trials, always acquitted, but I did get a 10-month jail sentence from a military court for translating a Human Rights Watch report," says the veteran left-wing Turkish dissident.

He took one case to the European Court of Human Rights last year. The case was annulled and the Turkish government paid him €5 000 compensation.

Kurkcu's problem is that he keeps colliding with the country's notion of "Turkishness", and that spells danger for writers, historians and novelists, who bring the wrath of the establishment down on their heads every time they are deemed to have belittled it.

Turkishness is Orhan Pamuk's big problem too. Turkey's greatest living writer is due in court in the Sisli district of Istanbul on Friday on charges of "denigrating Turkishness", a criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to three years -- four if the offence is committed outside Turkey. His is the highest-profile freedom of expression and human rights case brought here in years.

He is expected to walk free, but the damage has probably been done just by putting him in the dock. Turkey's image as a dynamic, reforming country negotiating its way into the European Union has taken a hammering since the country moved against the prize-winning novelist for making what many outside Turkey would regard as a tame remark in an interview with a Swiss journalist.

His offence was to state that 30 000 people have died in the Turkish military's ongoing conflict with the Kurdish insurgency in the south-east of the country, and that around one million Armenians died on Turkish territory during World War I.

Kurkcu, like many other Istanbul liberals, commits the same "crime" virtually every day. "What Pamuk said is generally correct -- 30 000 in any case is the official government figure for the casualties and a million Armenians did lose their lives. Even the Ottoman figures talk of 600 000," he says.

Conservatives and nationalists view such remarks as heresy and there are punitive, if vague, laws that make it an offence to denigrate "the republic, the Turkish parliament, the institutions and organs of the state".

The Pamuk case is just one of many ongoing criminal prosecutions of publishers, writers, historians, journalists and university academics. Sixteen journalists were put on trial in the first nine months of this year, with 12 of them being found guilty, according to the independent watchdog Independent Communications Network. Another source, The Publishers Association, says that in the 18 months until this summer 37 authors were tried for criminal offences in connection with the publication of 47 books. And that is not counting the number of civil suits targeting journalists.

A raft of other regulations make it possible for Turkey to muzzle, fine and pressure the publishing industry, newspapers and television stations for stepping out of line. Censorship flourishes, too, through requirements that manuscripts be submitted to state authorities for approval and special licensing arrangements that oblige the books industry to get official stamps before a book can be published.

"Very recently there appears to have been an increase in old prohibitory tendencies," said a recent report from the Publishers Association. "Positive steps taken forward with respect to freedom of thought and expression have started moving backwards."

The author of the report, Ragib Zarakolu, has been prosecuted many times and is currently on trial.

While the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan boasts of vast improvements in its human rights record and has implemented crucial legal reforms aimed at getting the country into the EU, the prime minister is a zealous litigant on matters of free speech.

This year he has issued several lawsuits, including recently taking two cartoonists to court for depicting his facial features on a horse and a cat. In one case Erdogan was awarded about $7 000 in damages, although the appeal court rescinded the award.

Erol Onderoglu, who monitors freedom of expression for the watchdog Independent Communications Network, said none of the 12 journalists found guilty of criminal offences have been jailed, suggesting that the government and the judiciary are keen to control public opinion, but reluctant to attract negative publicity, especially abroad, by throwing dissidents in jail.

"Jailing is no longer recommended because we're at the gates of the EU," says Kurkcu.

An Armenian editor, Hrant Dink, is one of several writers currently on trial, although he is widely acknowledged as a tireless advocate of reconciliation between Turks and Armenians.

Many of the alleged crimes concern books on Armenian, Kurdish or security themes, but fiction is not immune. One novelist was put on trial because the dustjacket of his book carried "separatist colours" -- an alleged declaration of sympathy with Kurdish separatism.

When the courts sought to ban an unprecedented academic conference on the Armenian question in September, five university lecturers complained in the newspapers and were prosecuted for their efforts.

Despite the use of the courts to keep writers quiet, everyone agrees that things are much better than in the 1990s, when jail terms, killings and "disappearances" were common. "You can't compare the situation now with the situation then," says Onderoglu.

Pamuk said this week that this morning's trial qualifies him as a real Turkish writer, since Turkey is a country that "honours its pashas, saints and policemen at every opportunity but refuses to honour its writers until they have spent years in courts and in prisons".

For books as with newspapers, the trend is for acquittals or avoiding jail terms. But the impact on writers, historians, and journalists is to discourage free speech.

"I prefer outright censorship to self-censorship," says Nadire Mater, a writer and activist acquitted in 2001 after a two-year trial resulting from her book Voices From the Front, which consisted of transcripts of interviews with Turkish soldiers taking part in the Kurdish campaign.

"Surprisingly things are getting worse," she says. "They don't put people in prison any more. But they bring all these cases to pressure us, to terrorise us and produce self-censorship. Look at the Pamuk case. The message is, if they can put Orhan Pamuk on trial, I should steer clear of this stuff, not touch it."

Backstory
About 600 000 to 1,5-million Armenians were killed or deported from their homeland in Asian Turkey to present-day Syria between 1915 and 1917.

The Ottomans suspected them of sympathising with Russia. Armenians want the world, and particularly Turkey, to recognise the killings as genocide. Turkey claims the dead were victims of the first world war

The two countries have no diplomatic ties, and their borders are closed. In 1985 the UN Committee on Human Rights declared the Ottoman Empire responsible for the massacres. Two years later Europe agreed that Turkey's refusal to recognise the killings as genocide was an obstacle to its admission to the EU. - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Reincarnated Am]

Escape from denial is through a long, dark tunnel

Today Orhan Pamuk is to go on trial for suggesting that Ottoman and Turkish forces were less than gentle in dealing with assertive minorities. Shantanu Datta on the writer and his quest

Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.
— Franz Kafka, The Trial

Orhan Pamuk’s novels are nothing short of a publishing phenomenon: critical successes abroad, commercial winners at home in Turkey. So when circa 1999, a newspaper refused to believe My Name is Red had sold 100,000 copies, its publishers actually moved court. This led to further sales of 50,000.

In a sense, the refusal to believe in facts or acknowledge what is generally believed to be the truth mirrors the national crisis that has for long gripped Turkey, now caught in the cusp of change. More than the newspaper in self-denial, today, on the opening day of Pamuk’s trial for “insulting Turkishness”, the overriding question for Ankara is: as it reclaims so much of its Turkish past, post-Ataturk, what will its engagement be with modernity?

In the year 2005, the bizarre nature of the trial that expectedly also turns the spotlight on other Turkish writers and thinkers who face punishment for refusing to deftly navigate their creative landscape — booby-trapped with issues such as the Kurdish problem, the role of the army and the killing of the Armenians during World War I — does nothing more than put a shine on the conservative colour of the establishment.

Pamuk has been charged under Article 301 of Turkey’s recently revised penal code for saying that a million Armenians were killed in WW-I massacres and 30,000 Kurds in recent decades. He faces up to three years in prison.

Ankara has always rejected claims that Ottoman forces committed genocide — the denial prompting the tormented genius of a Canadian Armenian to present on film the profound reflection of the same historical memory and ask the question whether it is indeed possible to learn from history without having to retain the pain of the past.

Pamuk can, therefore, find a partner in “crime” in Atom Egoyan who in his brooding, yet gripping Ararat lays bare not only the atrocities of a war, but also the devastating anguish of selective amnesia. Operating in several layers, Ararat is a film within a film about the massacre of the Armenians that is based on the 1917 memoir of Clarence Ussher, who himself appears as a character in Ararat, also the title of the film within the film.

Mixing the past, the present and the future — just as Pamuk would have — is the extended sub-plot of Raffi, a young Canadian Armenian filmmaker and assistant in the film within the film, his art historian mother, a step sister who sleeps with him, and the recurring story of Arshile Gorky, the Armenian painter who grew up in the area where the killings occurred.

Ararat’s brilliance lies in the way it stuns you into introspection once you figure out the essential question — in this case, whether the stubborn and repeated denial of the truth ultimately turns it into falsehood — and witness how a decade-old historical trauma still dictates and conditions the lives of contemporary Armenians.

So what is the Turkish government doing setting up a grand trial for bestseller Pamuk (The White Castle, The Black Book, Snow) for the world to see when what he has said is widely regarded as the truth and, hey, is even on film? The zealous defenders of state orthodoxy have their reasons — he exploits religious and historical themes to gain the West’s approval. But for Pamuk, he is better off then Joseph K. He knows why he is in the dock. He wants to be able to speak his mind. Like when he refused to accept the prestigious title of State Artist: “For years, I have been criticising the state for putting authors in jail... and for its narrow-minded nationalism. I don’t know why they tried to give me the prize.”

Like Egoyan’s gut wrenchng intellectual and emotional quest in Ararat, Pamuk’s thematic prowess lies in the way he meshes in the traditional with the modern — in The White Castle, one among the two main characters, a Turkish master and his European slave, dies, but we’re never sure which one — as if to suggest that we need not abandon the past to be a part of future.

If Egoyan said it his way in Ararat, Pamuk is blunt. “If you try to repress memories, something always comes back. I am what comes back.”

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=84045

[Gavur]

ANKARA: Pamuk's Trial Adjourned Amid Nationalist Boos

BİA, Turkey
Dec 16 2005



The Sisli District Court judge adjournes the trial against Turkish
novelist Pamuk for Feb. 7. Nationalist groups charging Pamuk with
treason booed the novelist and threw eggs on the novelist and
supporters during entry in and exit out of the court hall.


BİA (Istanbul) - The trial of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk amid
tumultuous protests by nationalist adversaries who had informed him
of "denigrating Turkishness" is adjourned until when the Justice
Ministry will send its consent if Pamuk should be tried under article
159 of the former penal code, which the judge believes, is in favor
of Pamuk.

Lawmakers from the European parliament among whom were Daniel
Cohn-Bendit and Joost Lagendeik and leading Turkish intellectuals
were present Friday for the trial in which Pamuk, 53, risks six
months to three years in jail.

During entry in the Sisli District Justice Hall and exit nationalist
groups making signs of wolf heads with their hands shouted slogans
against Pamuk whom they charged with "threason" for admitting that
"30 thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in this land"
in an interview with a Swiss magazine.

The groups further attacked Pamuk's car blowing with fists and
kicking as it had to slow to make way out of the crowd. A British
diplomat and German MEP of Turkish origin Cem Özdemir too are
reported to be attacked inside the court building. The police soon
dispersed the attackers.

The court, in a ruling dated December 2, said that since the alleged
offence was committed before Turkey amended its penal code earlier
this year, Pamuk should be judged under the old law, which requires a
direct order from the justice ministry for the trial to proceed.

Justice Minister Cemil Cicek in remarks published Friday said he had
not received the prosecution file by Thursday afternoon, making it
unlikely the trial would begin Friday.

[Gavur]

Turkish Author's Trial Suspended

By Amberin Zaman, Special to The Times


ISTANBUL, Turkey — The internationally publicized trial of this nation's best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, on charges of insulting Turkey was suspended Friday at a tense hearing.

Many European Union observers who came to support Pamuk said they had expected the presiding judge to dismiss the case and end the damage it had caused to Turkey's efforts to join the alliance.


Judge Metin Aydin agreed instead to the prosecution's request that the trial be suspended until the Justice Ministry delivered an opinion on the case, which had been mired in legal ambiguities. The confusion stems in part from the fact that Pamuk made his controversial statement about Turkish repression of Armenians and Kurds before a new penal code was introduced in June.

The next hearing was set for Feb. 7.

British lawmaker Dennis McShane, who attended the trial as an observer, noted: "The accusation of insulting the state is something you associate with dictatorial regimes, not with a modern European state."


Turkey novelist's trial suspended amid scuffles

By Amberin Zaman
Los Angeles Times
Posted December 17 2005


ISTANBUL, Turkey · The internationally publicized trial of this nation's best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, on charges of insulting Turkey was suspended Friday in a tense first hearing marred by scuffles within and outside the Istanbul courtroom.

Many European Union observers who came to show support for Pamuk said they had expected the presiding judge to dismiss the case against the writer and end the damage it has caused to Turkey's efforts to gain membership in the European Union. Turkey began accession talks with the EU on Oct. 3.

Judge Metin Aydin agreed instead to the prosecution's request that the trial be suspended until the Justice Ministry delivers an opinion on the case, which has been mired in legal ambiguities. The confusion stems in part from the fact that Pamuk made his statement before the introduction of a new penal code in June.

The next hearing was set for Feb. 7. Justice Minister Cemil Cicek lauded the court for its decision.

British lawmaker Dennis McShane, attending the trial as an observer, said: "The accusation of insulting the state is something you associate with dictatorial regimes, not with a modern European state."

Pamuk, 53, is facing as much as three years in prison if convicted of "public denigrations of Turkish identity." The charge was triggered by an interview with a Swiss magazine in February in which he was quoted as saying: "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in Turkey and no one dares talk about it."

His comments referred to the Turkish army's brutal suppression of a Kurdish separatist rebellion in recent times and to the genocide campaign against Armenians perpetrated by Ottoman forces between 1915 and 1918.

Pamuk's words triggered fury among many Turks. That anger was evident Friday as demonstrators booed the author and pelted him with eggs as he left the courtroom.

Inside the courtroom, McShane was struck in the face by an ultranationalist attorney with the private group that first raised the complaint against Pamuk. The attorney reportedly was angered by the presence of foreigners at the proceedings.

"The real blow," McShane told reporters, "has come to Turkey's supporters in the European Union."

[Gavur]

Pamuk trial adjourned, tension remains high

Saturday, December 17, 2005








ISTANBUL – Turkish Daily News


Amid angry nationalist protests on the one hand and European Union criticism on the other, the high-profile trial of Turkey's internationally respected novelist Orhan Pamuk was adjourned until February after the judge said the court needed Justice Ministry approval in order to proceed.

The prosecution against Pamuk, an oft-mentioned candidate for this year's Nobel Prize, has led to strongly worded condemnation from the EU, which sees it as a move that calls into question EU candidate Turkey's commitment to improving freedom of expression.

The hearing at a court in Istanbul's Şişli district -- followed by dozens of international media members and observers -- was a tense one, with supporters, including parliamentarians from the EU Parliament, and protestors present both inside and outside the courtroom. A six-member delegation from Parliament and a British MP entered the courtroom to monitor the trial, sparking a brief scuffle with nationalist lawyers who back the prosecution of Pamuk.

Pamuk left the packed courtroom silently after the judge decided to adjourn the trial until Feb. 7, making his way through a throng of opponents. “Orhan, Turkey is embarrassed by you,” yelled one man as the author entered the dark blue van that spirited him away from the tense scene.

Pamuk's court case revolves around an interview the author gave to a Swiss newspaper in February of this year in which he said, “One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares talk about it.” The prosecutor who brought the case against Pamuk says this amounts to an “insult to Turkishness,” an offense that carries up to three years' imprisonment.

The Armenian issue is a highly sensitive one. Turkey vehemently denies allegations of any genocide, which Armenians claim was committed by the now defunct Ottoman Empire.

“This is Turkey, love it or leave it,” chanted a crowd of young men opposite the courthouse. Large thuds resounded as eggs smashed after being thrown from the angry mob at Pamuk's getaway van .



EU critical:

Pamuk's case is likely to fuel EU public skepticism about admitting Turkey to the bloc. This week, Olli Rehn, the EU commissioner for enlargement, said it would, in fact, be Turkey, not Pamuk, that would stand trial when Pamuk goes to court.

Outside the court, European Parliament member Camiel Eurlings told reporters: “I think this first day of the trial is a sad day for Turkey ... because the minister of justice did not take the opportunity to cancel this case.”

In a later news conference, Eurlings complained that prosecution lawyers had been aggressive and had physically harassed Dennis MacShane, Britain's former minister for Europe and a member of parliament, who said he had been punched in the face in the corridors of the court building.

“The accusation of insulting the state is something you associate with dictatorial regimes, not with a modern EU-aspirant state. This has come as a real blow to Turkey's supporters within the EU,” MacShane said.



Çiçek blames media:

Justice Minister Cemil Çiçek said the court decision was appropriate, given the impossibility of acting in the absence of any response from his ministry, and blamed the media for hyping the Pamuk trial and making it an EU issue.

Pamuk, on the other hand, expressed dismay at the court decision. “I am sorry that I could not make (my) defense,” the 53-year-old said in a written statement released by his publisher.

“It is not good for Turkey or for our democracy for trials concerning freedom of thought -- which should never happen in the first place -- to be lengthy affairs,” he said.

[Gavur]

Judge halts free speech trial of Turkey's best-known novelist

By: LOUIS MEIXLER - Associated Press

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- A judge halted the trial of Turkey's best-known novelist Friday, saying the Justice Ministry must first approve the explosive legal case that raises questions about the country's commitment to free speech.

Judge Metin Aydin's insistence that the ministry first approve the case against Orhan Pamuk for insulting national honor is forcing Turkey's politicians to grapple with whether they are willing to press forward with a high-profile trial despite opposition from the European Union.

The head of the European Parliament delegation monitoring the trial, which opened Friday and was closed after a half-hour, warned that the hearings were "very bad for Turkey's image in Europe."


Turkey began accession talks with the EU on Oct. 3, and Dutch conservative Camiel Eurlings cautioned that the impact of the Pamuk trial on those talks "could be huge, and it could be negative."

In a brief statement to the press, Pamuk said "it is not good for Turkey, for our democracy, for such freedom of expression cases to be prolonged."

He faces up to three years in prison for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that Turkey is unwilling to deal with painful episodes in its treatment of the country's Armenian minority or its continuing problems with its 12 million Kurdish citizens.

The deep emotions that the case has stirred were obvious at the trial Friday.

As Pamuk left the courthouse, a group of several dozen nationalists shouted: "Traitor!"; "Turkey is ashamed of you!"; "Shame on you!"; and pelted his car with eggs. Pamuk was escorted by riot police, who used shields to push the crowd back.

Inside the courthouse, Denis MacShane, Britain's former minister for Europe and a member of the British Parliament, told The Associated Press that "the accusation of insulting the state is something you associate with dictatorial regimes, not with a modern European state. This has come as a real blow to Turkey's supporters in the European Union."

"You can't put one of the world's best living novelists on trial and say this is just growing pains," MacShane added.

Pamuk, who has often been mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature, told the Swiss newspaper that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it."

Prosecutors have charged him with insulting the Turkish Republic and "Turkishness," a charge that requires Justice Ministry approval.

The court applied Dec. 2 for Justice Ministry approval. Rather than drop the case, Aydin said he would wait for the government's answer.

Justice Minister Cemil Cicek indicated that he was in no rush to give approval. The court is scheduled to meet again Feb. 7.

"This is how it should be done, you asked a question, of course you will wait for the answer," Cicek told reporters.

Pamuk, in an essay in The New Yorker magazine to be published in its Dec. 19 issue, wrote 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."

Turkey has carried out a sweeping series of reforms to expand freedom of expression as part of its EU membership drive, but nationalist prosecutors and judges often still interpret laws in a restrictive manner, especially on sensitive issues such as the massacre of Armenians at the time of World War I or the fight against Kurdish guerrillas in the country's southeast.

[Gavur]

"One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands "

TURKEY SUSPENDS ... by Nicolas Cheviron, AFP 17.12.2005 at 10:38


A Turkish court suspended on Friday the high-profile trial against author Orhan Pamuk for insulting the nation amid violent demonstrations and EU warnings it could jeopardize the country’s hopes of joining the bloc.

The ruling at the opening hearing to suspend the case until February 7 came in a brief but tense hearing marred by far-right demonstrators attacking and booing the author as he made his way into and out of the cramped courtroom amid throngs of reporters.

The court had ruled on December 2 that since the alleged offence was committed before Turkey amended its penal code earlier this year, Pamuk should be judged under the old law, which requires a direct order from the justice ministry for the trial to proceed. With no authorization coming by the time the hearing began, the court agreed to a prosecution request to suspend the trial until the ministry decides on whether or not to try Pamuk.

The ruling came despite opposition from Pamuk’s lawyer, Haluk Inanici, who asked the court to either proceed and hear his client’s testimony, or drop the case altogether.

The 53-year-old Pamuk, the much-translated author of internationally renowned works such as "My Name Is Red" and "Snow", is accused of "denigrating the Turkish national identity" in remarks published in a Swiss magazine concerning the Armenian massacres during World War I.

"One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it," Pamuk told Das Magazin, causing public outcry at home that he was selling out national interests. He faces six months to three years in jail if convicted.

Friday’s ruling was harshly criticized by members of the European Parliament attending as observers. The trial is widely seen as a test of freedom of expression in Turkey, which began membership talks with the EU in October. "It is a bad day. The government missed the chance to cancel the case and now risks a deterioration of Turkey’s standing in Europe," Camiel Eurlings, the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey, told journalists.

Another European MP, Joost Lagendijk, warned that the continuation of the trial would spell trouble for Turkey’s hopes of joining the EU. "If the government says at the end of the day, ’Yes, you can carry on with the trial, then Turkey is in big trouble," he said. "If new cases like this appear, the negotiating process will come to a halt," he warned, adding that Turkey should amend its penal code if it allows people to be jailed for expressing their opinions.

Turkey’s Justice Minister Cemil Cicek, meanwhile, congratulated the court. "This is exactly what should have happened," Cicek said in Ankara, quoted by the Anatolia news agency. "If one asks a question, one should wait for the answer."

The hearing was tense throughout, with a woman demonstrator hitting Pamuk on the head with a folder as he was entering the courthouse amid chants of "traitor," and "sold out intellectuals." At the end of the hearing, several demonstrators tried to stop Pamuk’s car by throwing themselves on the hood while others, making the sign of the nationalist Gray Wolves movement, threw eggs at people leaving the courthouse. Police took two demonstrators into custody, the CNN-Turk news channel said.

Inside the courtroom, lawyers not related to the case criticized members of the European parliament for attending the trial as observers. "You are not showing respect for the court. EU observers cannot come here to control the judges," one shouted.

Another European MP, Dennis McShane of Britain, told reporters that he was punched in the face in the corridors of the court building.

The Armenian question is one of the most sensitive issues in Turkish history. Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen died in a genocide orchestrated by Turkey’s predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, in its final years of existence, while Turkey rejects the figures and categorically denies a genocide took place.

(GI-Photolur photo: Orhan Pamuk.)

[Reincarnated Am]

Novelist's trial raises free-speech issues

Turkish court tosses hot potato into Istanbul's lap

By NICHOLAS BIRCH
Saturday, December 17, 2005 Page A28
Special to The Globe and Mail, with a report from AFP and AP


Turkey's hopes of sidestepping international controversy over freedom of speech seemed to have evaporated yesterday, after a judge threw the explosive case involving the country's best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, into the government's lap.

Judge Metin Aydin's delayed his trial for "denigrating Turkishness" until Feb. 7, giving the Justice Ministry time to decide whether to approve the case against Mr. Pamuk.

Turkey, which in October began formal talks to join the European Union, must now decide whether to push ahead with the trial in the face of widespread opposition.

The charge against Mr. Pamuk stems from comments published in a Swiss magazine in February that one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey in the early 20th century. Mr. Pamuk faces up to three years in prison.

The genocide is widely acknowledged outside the country, but Turkey itself denies it took place.

The case has struck a powerful chord in the country. A large group of nationalists shouted: "Traitor," "Turkey is ashamed of you" and "Shame on you" and pelted Mr. Pamuk's car with eggs as he left the courthouse. He was escorted by riot police who used shields to push the crowd back.

The court ruled this month that since the alleged offence was committed before Turkey amended its penal code earlier this year, Mr. Pamuk should be judged under the old law, which requires a direct order from the Justice Ministry for the trial to proceed. The changes to the code were made as part of the country's successful bid to negotiate for EU membership.

With no decision from the ministry by the time of yesterday's hearing, the court agreed to a prosecution request to suspend the trial until the ministry reaches a decision on whether or not to try Mr. Pamuk.

The legal quibbling over the penal code had enabled the government to stand back from the affair, blaming overzealous prosecutors while insisting on the independence of the judiciary.

Now, the spotlight is on its own commitment to freedom of speech, according to members of an EU delegation in Istanbul yesterday.

"Turkey's image has already been damaged by the government's failure to prevent this trial," the European Parliament's rapporteur for Turkey, Camil Eurlings, said outside the packed courtroom yesterday.

"The responsibility now lies with the Justice Minister."

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has complained that there was nothing like the current outrage when he was imprisoned at the end of the 1990s for reciting a poem deemed to "incite religious hatred."

Within Turkey, the Prime Minister has long been noted for his zealous legal pursuit of cartoonists who dare to portray him in animal form.

But doubts about the depth of his commitment to freedom of speech surfaced internationally only in September, when he intervened in a furor over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper.

"Freedoms have limits," Mr. Erdogan said. "What is sacred should be respected."

"It's clear to me that Tayyip Erdogan's understanding of freedom of speech is heavily partial," said Ibrahim Kaboglu, a professor of constitutional law who faces jail under the same article of Turkey's criminal code as Mr. Pamuk.

Like EU observers, Mr. Kaboglu said the government can no longer hide behind its insistence on the independence of the courts.

"The new criminal code is the work of this government. It must now get rid of those articles that contradict the European Human Rights Convention Turkey has signed."

To do so will not only fly in the face of a long tradition of jailing dissident thinkers: 16 journalists and 37 authors have faced criminal charges in the past 18 months alone.

It will also test Turkey's willingness to address that most sensitive of subjects: its past.

Mr. Pamuk is not the first Turk to call for an open discussion of the events of 1915, when between 600,000 and 1.2 million Armenians died in what most historians call the 20th century's first genocide.

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