"insulting Turkish identity"

[Reincarnated Am]

UN Votes to Make Turkey an Imaginary Country until Armenian Genocide

UN Votes to Make Turkey an Imaginary Country until Armenian Genocide
is Recognized

Saturday, December 17, 2005

As the Turkish government continues its prosecution of famed novelist
Orhan Pamuk on charges he "denigrated the Turkish national identity"
by saying that the Armenian genocide of World War I did indeed
happen, the UN has decided to investigate Turkish History and
determine if, in fact, there is truly a country named Turkey.

"Until we get some real evidence, the so-called country named Turkey
will receive imaginary country status within the UN," said Kofi
Annan, UN Secretary General. "As an imaginary country, they are
welcome to attend our UN sessions, but no one really needs to listen
to them."

The new status for Turkey took effect quickly. During an afternoon
general assembly on the topic of peace in the Mideast, the Turkish
ambassador took the floor and offered Turkey's perspective on the
situation. Many of the UN representatives began gobbling, preening,
and scuffling around their desk. Once the bewildered ambassador
finished and took his seat, the Israeli representative took the
microphone.

"I'm sorry, did someone say something?" he asked.

Muttering filled the room over the protests of the Turkish
representative.

"I heard a lot of wind," responded the Lebanese
representative. "There must be a storm outside."

"Perhaps," responded the Israeli. "But to me, it sounded more like a
gobbling sound. Like a large, flightless, feathered bird."

"Yes!" said the Russian ambassador. "That's it! I heard it. But it
was indecipherable."

"I guess we should move on."

Later in the day, at a reception for some Asian dignitaries visiting
the UN, many representatives arrived adorned with fake wattles—the
fleshy piece that dangles from a turkey's neck. There was a moment of
embarrassment as the Turkish ambassador frantically scurried around
the room, trying to remove the wattles and demanding that his
colleagues listen to him.

An investigatory committee has been formed to produce evidence of
Turkey's history and existence.

"It's really quite simple," said Kofi Annan. "If the Armenian
Genocide did not happen, then there's a strong likelihood that Turkey
never happened. We're going to use the same level of investigatory
diligence and scholarship that Turkey has used in investigating the
Armenian genocide, and find out if we've had an imposter in the UN
all these years. If what we suspect is true, we believe that there's
a huge land mass in the middle east that's for sale. Israel is
apparently very interested."

[Gavur]

Turkish press decries Pamuk trial, calls for heads to roll

Agence France Presse -- English
December 17, 2005 Saturday 11:31 AM GMT



ISTANBUL Dec 17


The Turkish press denounced Saturday the chaotic scenes at the trial
of internationally renowned writer Orhan Pamuk, accusing the
authorities of damaging Turkey's image by failing both to stop the
trial and to ensure security at the courthouse.

The case, in which Pamuk stands accused of insulting the Turkish
nation, got off to a turbulent start Friday as militant nationalists
heaped abuse on the writer and European Parliament members who came
to observe the trial, seen as a test for freedom of speech in the
country, which seeks to join the European Union.

"There was no trace of common sense and civilisation at the
courthouse. Which is the real insult to the Turkish nation?" the
liberal newspaper Radikal asked in a front-page headline.

"We shot ourselves in the foot," the mass-selling Milliyet wrote.

Pamuk, the winner of many literary awards, risks up to three years in
jail on charges of "denigrating Turkish national identity" for
telling a Swiss magazine in February that "one million Armenians and
30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk
about it."

Abusive slogans accusing the novelist of being "a traitor to the
nation" followed him to the courtroom, and along the way a woman hit
him on the head with a file. His car was pelted with eggs as he left.

British parliamentarian Denis MacShane, a former Europe minister,
said he had been punched in the face by a hostile lawyer inside the
courthouse.

"Orhan Pamuk's trial and the scenes at the courthouse leave me with
the impression that some people within the state favour such
incidents in order to undermine (Turkey's) EU membership bid,"
columnist Mehmet Altan wrote in the Sabah newspaper.

A columnist in the biggest-selling Hurriyet called for heads to roll.

"Either those responsible for security in Istanbul are incompetent or
they prepared the ground or turned a blind eye to these incidents to
bully Orhan Pamuk and those who think like him," Mehmet Yilmaz wrote.
"Isn't it necessary in either case that some people resign or be
sacked?"

The case was adjourned to February 7 to await a decision by the
justice ministry, whose authorisation is needed to proceed with the
trial.

European parliament members warned that the trial had cast a pall
over Turkey's bid to join the EU, and criticised the government for
having squandered the opportunity to demonstrate its respect for
freedom of speech by halting the trial.

[Gavur]

Why a great writer's trial affects us all

Denis MacShane says Turkey must not be allowed to airbrush its past

Sunday December 18, 2005
_The Observer_ (http://www.observer.co.uk/)

Across the world, a popular present for the reading classes this
Christmas will be a novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. He has the
politics of moneyed liberal-leftism, but all that matters to Pamuk is
writing novels.

Earlier this year, he said Turkey should examine what happened to the
one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds killed in Turkey in the 20th
century. No nation easily examines its past. Serbs and Croatians
remain in denial aboutthe evil of the Balkan wars a decade ago. Japan
cannot handle what it did in China seven decades ago; China cannot
admit Mao's murder of millions.

For Pamuk to go into taboo areas of Turkish history was therefore a
risk.

But writers are there to take on the creeping tide of censorship that
has been fuelled by religious fundamentalists and ultra-nationalists.

Turkey's new ayatollahs claim they are protecting the secular
nationalist state, yet they ape the religious censors of Iran. The
Armenian massacres happened in the decade before Ataturk launched his
bid to modernise Turkey,and Ataturk remains historical enemy No 1 for
Muslim fundamentalists, because he secularised Turkey, allowed Muslim
Turks to drink in bars and encouraged dancing with women.

Turkey's modernisation now means the EU. Ultra-nationalists in Turkey,
like Notting Hill Tories, dislike the EU because it involves sharing
sovereignty.

In the court room where Pamuk's case was heard, the hate word was
'European'.

Nationalists screamed abuse at MEPs and I was punched in the face by a
nationalist lawyer.

The judge buried his head in his papers and never looked Pamuk in the
face.

He allowed a mob of nationalist lawyers to intimidate the court and
refusedto stop the prosecution there and then. Instead, he passed the
case up to the Minister of Justice. Many right-wing Europeans are
opposed to Turkey joining the EU. They have new friends in the
nationalists, who also wish to keep Turkey free of European
contamination. Ankara wishes the issue would go away.

It won't. As in past centuries, state authorities or religious
fundamentalists have put a writer on trial to stop him or her asking
awkward questions, but end up in the dock themselves. After the
hearing, a frightened Pamuk asked me if he should go into exile. I
hope not. Turkey will not join Europe unless Voltaire wins, and the
ayatollahs - secular and religious - lose.

· Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham, is a former Minister for Europe

[Gavur]

Indictment Against Lagendijk

Published: 12/19/2005
Latest wire from AFP






ISTANBUL - The Association of Jurists Executive Board member Kemal Kerincsiz and two other persons indicted Joost Lagendijk, co-president of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Commission, to Beyoglu attorney general's office for ''insulting Turkish army and judicial organs and attempting to influence judiciary''.
Kerincsiz, Ramazan Selcuk and Recep Akkus sent a petition asking the office to launch investigation against Lagendijk and open lawsuit against him on charges of ''insulting Turkish army and judicial organs and attempting to affect the judiciary''. The petition said that Lagendijk held a meeting in Istanbul's Taksim Hill Hotel on December 17th, 2005.

The petition said that laws are for everyone, also for EU officials. The petition added that necessary procedures should be launched to file a lawsuit against Lagendijk.

[Gavur]

Turkish Writers Fined for Insulting State

By SUZAN FRASER
The Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey - An Istanbul court fined an author and a journalist Thursday for insulting the Turkish state, the latest convictions under a law that European officials say limits freedom of expression and must be changed.

Turkey's government has indicated that it has no plans to change the law, under which the country's most famous novelist, Orhan Pamuk, was also charged.

"Freedoms are not limitless, in freedom there's a definite limit," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview broadcast live on CNN-Turk television Wednesday evening.

Zulkuf Kisanak, the author of "Lost Villages," was sentenced to five months in prison, which was immediately converted to a $2,200 fine. Aziz Ozer, editor of the far-left monthly magazine Yeni Dunya Icin Cagri, received a 10-month prison term, which the judge later switched to a $4,400 fine.

Both men were fined under a law which makes it a crime to insult the Turkish republic, "Turkishness" or state institutions. The law has soured relations with the European Union, which insists that Turkey - which began EU membership negotiations in October - do more to protect freedom of expression.

Pamuk was charged with insulting the country after telling a Swiss newspaper in February that "30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it."

Kisanak's book tells the story of 14 Kurdish villages that were forcibly evacuated by the Turkish military in the early 1990s, during the height of clashes between Turkish troops and autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels. Human rights groups say Turkish security forces burned down thousands of Kurdish villages as part of a strategy to clear the countryside and deny the guerrillas local support.


Kisanak said he would appeal Thursday's ruling.

"I do not believe that I insulted the state," he told The Associated Press. "My book was based on concrete events, backed by documents and photographs."

"My book is about villages that were evacuated and the tragedies that unfolded," he said.

Ozer was sentenced for two articles - "80 Years of the Turkish Republic, 80 Years of Fascism" and "No to a Partnership of Invasion in Iraq" that were published in his magazine.

Ozer said he would appeal Thursday's ruling, saying prosecutors have brought against him some 20 lawsuits related to freedom of expression.

Erdogan, in his remarks late Wednesday, said all countries limit freedom of expression in some way and that the much-criticized Article 301 of the new Turkish penal code did that for Turkey.

He also accused those criticizing the law and calling for such cases to be dropped of putting pressure on the courts and thus violating the Turkish constitution, which mandates independent courts.

"People can express their opinions without putting the courts under pressure, but putting the courts under pressure is very, very ugly," Erdogan said.

Last week, a group of observers from the European Parliament demanded that Turkey change Article 301 or risk putting its EU bid in jeopardy.

The EU parliament members have vowed to attend Pamuk's freedom of expression trial until its conclusion. The next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 7.

Pamuk's remarks highlighted two of the most painful episodes in Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I - which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide - and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.


December 22, 2005 3:08 PM

[Gavur]

Europeanization and its enemies-Elif safak

TDN
Sunday, December 25, 2005



"What's going on in Turkey?" numerous Westerners have been
asking worriedly these past days. "Is the country moving away
from the process of Europeanization?" "Where did all these
court cases against voices of criticism come from all of a
sudden?" "Is there an escalation in nationalist
ideology?" they ask.

There are two answers to these questions: One is quite long and the
other much shorter. While reserving the long answer for another
article, please allow me in this piece to offer the short answer,
namely, "yes and no." Turkey is as pro-European Union as
ever, if not more so. And yet there is in Turkey, just like in many
other countries today, a clash of opinions.

As the country's bid to join the EU gathers pace, Turkey has become
the scene of a silent clash between two deeply-rooted forces:
Nationalism versus cosmopolitanism. The clash is increasingly
crystallized in a series of legal actions springing from the
controversial Article 301 of the new penal code. Latest in this
sequence is the charge against five leading columnists each accused
of insulting the Turkish judiciary. They face between six months and
10 years' imprisonment.

Writing for different newspapers and coming from different
ideological backgrounds, these five columnists are not of the same
opinion in every respect. What unites them, however, is that they had
all openly criticized an attempted court intervention to prevent the
infamous Istanbul Conference on late Ottoman Armenians, which took
place on Sept. 23, 24 and 25. The state prosecutor who filed charges
against the columnists last week maintains that by criticizing the
court's intervention they have tried to "influence" the
judicial process and given offence to Turkey's judicial organs. In a
vexing bureaucratic chain, every intellectual essay criticizing the
Turkish judiciary's nationalist impulse ends up as another
prosecution -- and so might this essay end up in one.

Turkey's knee-jerk nationalistic forces seem to have launched a
counterattack. The first signal of this backlash came during the
Armenian Conference as a mixed mob of ultra-nationalists waited
outside the building with tomatoes and eggs in their hands and
slander on their tongues. In the weeks that followed,
ultranationalist columnists took it upon themselves to pen
belligerent columns directly attacking the participants; a crooked
alliance of diplomats and academics organized "alternative"
conferences to prove that the Armenian allegations regarding the
genocide were nothing but a hoax. Recently, in a conference in the
Anatolian town Mugla, a retired diplomat grabbed the microphone
while someone else was speaking and decreed that the Turks had never
hurt the Armenian minority, and that it was the other way round since
Armenians had collaborated with the Russians to kill innocent Turks
by attacking Muslim villages. The audience cheered and applauded. It
is amidst this nationalist counterblast that the five prominent
columnists are now being prosecuted.

Though the conventional elite act as a stumbling block in front of
the EU process they by no means form a homogenous group. They are
rather a crooked alliance of strange bedfellows: some bureaucrats,
diplomats, journalists, politicians and some state prosecutors... a
miscellaneous cluster of people who have but one thing in common:
they all want to preserve the status quo in one way or another and
see themselves as the owners of the key of the regime. To assure
their power they see every opponent who challenges their authority as
a "threat." Among the adherents of this old alliance are
ultra-nationalist state prosecutors who in the last few months have
been busier than usual filing cases against a number of writers,
journalists and editors. As a result an increasing number of
intellectuals are being brought to court under the now infamous
Article 301 that purports to control the minds of Turkish citizens,
not only in Turkey but also those abroad, in that it outlines "in
cases where denigration of 'Turkishness' is committed by a
Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased
by one third." Article 301 is an impediment to freedom of speech.
It leaves the distinction between "criticism" and
"disparagement of Turkishness" so vague that anyone who
criticizes the state ideology can easily be accused of denigrating
the nation. Such elusiveness makes it possible for arbitrary
interpretation by judges.

Turkey's EU bid needs to be supported now more than ever. Both
Turkey and the EU are in need of each other's progressive forces, and
they are in need of each other. It is important to show support for
this process both domestically and internationally. Along with the EU
process, there are imperative democratic changes underway in Turkey
and it is generally accepted that there is no going back in this
historic process. The problem is this: The bigger the transformation
the deeper the panic becomes to those who have a vested interest in
preserving the status quo, and hence the louder their voices. Some in
my country seem intimidated by the forces of democratization and
Europeanization, and are all similarly against cosmopolitanism. As
the clash increases, it is quite plausible that more and more
intellectuals will be punished for what one of Turkey's greatest
poets, Nazım Hikmet, once defined as "not giving up hope in the
world, in your country, your people..."

[Hovik]

Turkey Suspends Pamuk Trial Amid Demos, EU Warnings

Friday 16, December 2005



Turkey Suspends Pamuk Trial Amid Demos, EU Warnings




By Nicolas Cheviron, AFP

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.)



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[Hovik]

Turkey on Trial, Part 1

December 21, 2005
The New York Times
Editorial
Turkey on Trial, Part 1

The trial of Orhan Pamuk, the best-selling Turkish novelist, had barely gotten under way in Istanbul the other day when the judge postponed the proceedings until Feb. 7. We can only hope that this delay signals that Turkish leaders are looking for a way to drop the charges against Mr. Pamuk, who is being prosecuted for "insulting Turkish identity."

In a newspaper interview last February, Mr. Pamuk referred to the Armenian genocide in 1915 during the Ottoman Empire and to the clashes between Turks and minority Kurds in Turkey since the 1980's. "One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it," Mr. Pamuk was quoted as saying. This was considered a crime punishable by up to three years in prison by some Turks, including some prosecutors.

The case against Mr. Pamuk - a short-list candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature - has called into question Turkey's willingness to embrace European political values and, by extension, its readiness to join the European Union. Over the last few years, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his governing party enacted a series of reforms that qualified Turkey - at last - to open official membership talks in October. Some of the reforms grant more freedom of expression. But the law still prohibits insults against the Turkish identity, the state and Turkey's founding father, Ataturk. The line between illegal insult and legal opinion is unclear.

As a result, dozens of people in Turkey face charges like those against Mr. Pamuk. Last month a Turkish book publisher said he faced prosecution for a book published in 1997 that included allegations of human rights violations by the security forces during fighting with Kurdish rebels in the 1990's.

In delaying the Pamuk trial, the judge has asked the Justice Ministry to rule on whether the case should go forward at all. The answer will say a lot about the current state of a nation that has long prized national unity above civil liberties. Many Turks oppose Mr. Pamuk's prosecution - and that of other less prominent people on similar charges. But obviously, some do not.

Dismissing the case against Mr. Pamuk and clarifying the law under which he has been charged are crucial steps Turkey must take to join the European Union. Even more important will be Turkey's progress in transforming its institutions to embody the country's new laws.



Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
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[Hovik]

There is fierce battle going on in Turkey between democrats
and a coalition of extreme right wing , fascist groups which
the liberal media call the " Red Apple (Kizil Elma) Coalition",
a reference to some Pan-Turkic fantasies.
The latter are doing everything they can to stop the process
of democratization, and the accession negociations with the EU.
Their instruments are the youth organization the fascist MHP
party and certain state apparatuses such as JITEM (the
intelligence service of the Jandarma ( from the French Gendarmerie)
corps which in Turkey is part of the Army. JITEM is responsible for
several provocations/bombings in Anatolia (the latest in the Kurdish
town of Semdinli in the South East , and last summer in Cesme,on the
Aegean coast ) , with the intention of sparking a new war with
the PKK. This would provide leverage to the fascists to stop
democratization. But I think, I hope, the political leadership
of the Kurds in Turkey(Leyl⠚ana and her colleagues, are smart
enough to avoid this trap.
Erdogan is caught in this "strategy of tension". Until the beginning
of 2005, he was acting along a democratic line , away from the
fascist coalition. But the AKP is gradually losing parts of its
electoral base. He is being weakened. Turkey is getting
an A Grade from the IMF,World Bank, FT,The Economist and
the like, but inequalities,poverty and unemployment remain
high, and the electorate is dissapointed.Thus Erdogan is tempted
to resort to a nationalistic discourse , as well as to a religious
discourse, with the hope of keeping the votes of these two electoral
cohorts. He can't make a pro-democratic, anti-fascist alliance
with the main opposition party, CHP, which is supposedly
social democratic, but is now practically part of the "Kizil Elma".
Many promninent social democratic MPs, like Kemal Dervis,
Z?Livaneli and others have resigned from the Party. A tragedy
in Turkey is that the left, completely annihilated by the bloody
military regime in 1980-83, has never recovered.
Erdogan can't use really the success in having strated the negociations
with the EU either, for the public opinion, even the pro-westerners, are
becoming anti-EU, because a majority of Turks felt humilitated
and insulted by the violently hostile, essentialistic,xenophobic
discourse of many European political leaders and media.
In the current context, I am afraid his support to the Istanbul Conference
may prove to be a happy exception. I hope I am not over-pessimistic.
He is a clever politician, not a man of vision. The Republic had only two
leaders with that quality, since 1923 : Mustafa Kemal and Turgut ֺal.
Had the latter lived longer, the Kurdish issue and the relations with the
Armenians, including the recognition of the 1915-16 massacres, perhaps
even of the Genocide, would not be in the deplorable situation they are
nowadays.
After the hopeful period of 2000-2004, Turkey may have once again entered
into a regressive cycle. I see only one hopeful development: a healthy public
debate, through which many taboos, starting with the Armenian one, are
being questioned , lies about history are being denounced. Article 301 is
being used to stop this. I want to believe that it cannot be stopped.

Dr. Ali Kazancigil
Secretary General
International Social Science Council
1, rue Miollis, UNESCO House
75732 Paris Cedex 15

[Gavur]

Turkish court probes author's military comments

Monday December 26, 6:28 PM

ANKARA (Reuters) - Best-selling Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk may face another court case for allegedly insulting the Turkish military in an interview with a German newspaper, his publishers said on Monday.
Pamuk is already on trial under Article 301 of the revised penal code for telling a Swiss newspaper that no one dared discuss the alleged massacre of a million Armenians 90 years ago and the deaths of 30,000 Kurds in the past two decades.

The issue of freedom of speech has dogged every stage of Turkey's efforts to join the European Union. While the EU agreed to start entry talks with Turkey in October, such court cases are likely to hinder Ankara's progress towards full membership.

Nihat Tuna of publishers Iletisim Yayinlari said the prosecutor of an Istanbul court which charged Pamuk for denigrating Turkish identity had begun an investigation under the same article.

"This is a preliminary investigation. It does not mean that another case against Pamuk will be launched," Tuna told Reuters.

Daily Vatan said the nationalist Lawyers Unity Association called on prosecutors to charge Pamuk under Article 301, which punishes insulting Turkish identity, the army and parliament with up to three years in jail, in an interview with the daily Die Welt.