Turkey Muzzles Speech

[Aratta-Kingdom]

Turkey muzzles speech

 

 

The Globe and Mail, Canada

 

 

Sept 26 2005

 

 

Editorial

 

 

It is still a crime to speak freely about the past in Turkey. Earlier

this month a Turkish prosecutor charged leading novelist Orhan Pamuk

with denigrating the Turkish identity, for having said, in an

interview with a Swiss newspaper, that the genocidal killing of

Armenians in 1915 is a historical fact. Then on Thursday, a Turkish

court tried to ban an academic conference on the events of 90 years

ago. It also made an outrageous demand to review the credentials of

each participant at the conference.

 

 

The freedom to think loses meaning if a person can't speak his

thoughts and share them with others. Mr. Pamuk is sometimes mentioned

as a possible Nobel laureate. His most recent novel, Snow, was lauded

by Margaret Atwood in a front-page New York Times Book Review last

year. Speaking up, as he has done, may shape the thoughts of others.

Those others may in turn have something to say. The freedom to

inquire into a nation's past is closely linked to the freedom to

think.

 

 

The genocide is, as Mr. Pamuk says, a historical fact,

well-established in diplomatic reports and news dispatches at the

time (Canadians were so distressed they made an exception to their

discriminatory immigration rules and took in 100 Armenian orphans in

the 1920s) and affirmed since then by independent historians.

 

 

Mr. Pamuk's willingness to challenge the official truth is one

encouraging sign of change. Another is that the academics that the

court wished to silence said they would go ahead anyway at a

different venue. As Turkey presses on with its bid to join the

European Union, it will find that the country is increasingly

buffeted by currents of thought it cannot control.

[vava]

Interesting article - Thank you Armen,

Could you provide us with a URL? Thank you in advance.

 

 

Nevermind - I found the article Here.

But unfortunately it's for paid subscribers only.

Edited October 10, 2005 by vava

[Takoush]

Armo:

 

It's a good article for our knowledge.

 

Thanks.

Edited October 11, 2005 by Anahid Takouhi

[vava]

From the same paper:

 

I find it strange that this is in the 'entertainment' section - and disappointing that the genocide in hardly even discussed, only mentioned in passing.

 

source: HERE

----GLOBEANDMAIL.COM

A writer fights the war of words

Turkey's Orhan Pamuk was charged with 'denigrating' his beloved country

 

By CONSTANCE ROOKE

 

Saturday, October 8, 2005 Posted at 12:29 PM EDT

 

Last February, Turkey's most celebrated writer, Orhan Pamuk, told a Swiss newspaper that "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and almost no one dares talk about it. Therefore, I do." This caused a furor within Turkey, with liberals defending Pamuk's right to free speech and/or the critical importance of speaking out about this particular matter, and reactionaries branding Pamuk a traitor, burning his books, and issuing the anonymous death threats that have forced the writer to flee his country.

 

In general, the liberal camp passionately supports Turkey's bid for admission to the European Union, while reactionary nationalist forces fiercely oppose it -- and the terrible story of what has happened to Pamuk is strongly linked to this struggle within Turkey.

 

In July, the prosecutor's office in Istanbul determined that Pamuk's words were indeed protected by free speech. However, in late August, a district prosecutor laid charges against Pamuk -- a world-famous writer whose deep love of Turkey is palpable in all he writes -- and the furor became international. External opponents and supporters of Turkey's admission to the EU were appalled, and the European Parliament launched an initiative to monitor the legal process against Pamuk. His trial on charges of "denigrating Turkey" is scheduled to begin on Dec. 16. Turkey's penal code cites a penalty of up to three years in jail for this offence, and one-third more if, as in Pamuk's case, the supposed insult was voiced outside Turkey.

 

The charge against Pamuk is in direct opposition to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights. Turkey is a signatory to both. Liberals in Turkey are rightly concerned that worldwide attention to this outrageous charge, and suppression of debate on the darkest chapters of their country's history, may lead to rejection by the EU. A powerful minority of Turks on the far right, however, have welcomed -- indeed, probably engineered -- the charges against Pamuk largely for that reason. The timing is certainly suspicious: Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan began his talks with the EU on Oct. 3, just over a month after charges were brought against Pamuk.

 

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Writers around the world have been quick to defend Pamuk and to express their outrage. Michael Ondaatje, for example, has issued this statement through PEN Canada: "Orhan Pamuk is one of the great writers of our time and is also one of the most generous chroniclers of the glories of Turkey and its culture. From The White Castle to Snow to his recent memoir Istanbul, it is clear that this is a writer who loves his country. That he should be accused of 'denigrating' Turkey and threatened with a prison term is shocking. It is an appalling example of censorship in a country seeking admission to the EU and clearly signals a lack of freedom of expression in Turkey."

 

Within Turkey, the battle for and against free speech continues. Last spring a group of Turkish academics tried to hold an international conference in Istanbul on the Armenian massacres of 1915. They hoped by 'owning' this issue to signal to the European community that Turkey is a maturing democracy, intent on protecting freedom of expression. But Turkey's Justice Minister called the conference "a dagger in the back of the Turkish people," and the conference was postponed. Then the Prime Minister voiced his support for the conference, which was rescheduled for September so as to precede his talks with the EU. To the Prime Minister's great embarrassment, a last-minute court order again prevented the conference from starting. Organizers circumvented this by moving it to another venue, and the conference opened the next day with stormy demonstrations for, and against it.

 

Turkey's Foreign Minister has "announce[d] to the world that there is free speech in Turkey," and pointed out that no verdict has been reached on the charges against Pamuk. But the charges were brought, and they have not been dropped. Moreover, as International PEN reports, despite a recent decline in convictions and prison sentences under laws penalizing free speech, there are currently over fifty writers and publishers before the Turkish courts. In several senses, Orhan Pamuk is not alone.

 

Writer and academic Constance Rooke is the president of PEN Canada.

 

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