Orhan Pamuk: I Did Not Use Term “genocide”

[MosJan]

Orhan Pamuk: I Did Not Use Term “Genocide”

17.10.2005 23:30 GMT+04:00 Print version Send to mail

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk abandoned his statements characterizing the carnages of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as Genocide. Pamuk said his words were wrongly interpreted. “I did not use term “genocide” and I announced the number of victims spontaneously,” he stated. To note, the court session on Orhan Pamuk’s case is to be held late this year. To remind, February 2005 during an interview with a Swiss newspaper Pamuk stated that “1 million Armenians and 30 thousand Kurds were slaughtered in Turkey.” Then he was threatened with persecution and even savage punishment. It should be also noted that the Istanbul court recently sentenced editor-in-Chief of Akos newspaper Hrant Dink to 6 months of conditional imprisonment for “outraging national identity of Turks.” Last year Dink called upon Armenians not to poison their blood with hatred towards Turks. In Dink’s opinion, the court interpreted his words as “poisonous blood of Turks”. Dink is going to appeal the verdict and in case of failure to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, reported IA Regnum.

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[phantom22]

If you read the whole interview, you will see that he stated that he not retracting his previous statement. It is true that he never used the word "genocide" in the Swiss interview. This shows how "nuts" the Turkish judiciary is, as they are prosecuting him for saying that 1 million Armenians were killed there. Pamuk never said who killed them or how. Unfortunately, the Armenian press is proliferating the rattle of the spin doctors in Turkey and elsewhere.

[Dave]

We all know what he really meant by saying ''1 million Armenians and 30 000 Kurds were killed in these lands''...

 

He's just trying to defend himself.

[MosJan]

Pamuk Awarded German Peace Premium 2005

25.10.2005 20:33 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Famous Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk is awardedPeace Premium 2005 of the German Printing House. European Press connects any mentioning of the German premium and its owner with the trial of Orhan Pamuk to be held in December. Before receiving the premium in Frankfurt the Turkish writer broke the more than 6-month silence. «The latest political event that has happened to me was the interview with a Swiss newspaper, during which I said one million Armenians and 30 thousand Kurds were killed in Turkey,» Pamuk told journalists. «I also insisted that those were topics one could not normally speak about in Turkey today. I believe anyone, who arrives in Turkey, should be able to openly discuss what had happened to Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.” Pamuk qualified indictment that he has damaged Turkey's image as an obstacle for Turkey's accession to the EU.» «I confirm what I have stated. Moreover, I confirm the right to express my opinion aloud,» he said. In spite of the Turkish Government, especially Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has assured the famous writer will not be imprisoned, the situation around the issue remains a nervous one. Pamuk repeats the fate of his famous hero in of his works called Snow, «who perforce becomes a victim of the big game of politicians.» Orhan Pamuk has been one of the most likely winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2005. The Prize was finally awarded to English prose writer and film director Harold Pinter.

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[MosJan]

Lawyers' Union Seeks to Open Another Court Case against Orhan Pamuk

ISTANBUL (MSNBC)--A senior executive of the Turkish Lawyers' Union has applied to prosecutors to open a court case against prominent author Orhan Pamuk alleging he insulted the Turkish military. Pamuk already faces a court case on charges of insulting Turks, stemming from comments in an interview where he said that Turks had killed one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds.

 

Kemal Kerincsiz, a member of the executive board of the Lawyers' Union, said that comments made by Pamuk in a recent interview with the German newspaper Die Welt were insulting to Turks, the Turkish republic, state institutions, and organizations. Pamuk's statements were in breach of article 301 of the new Turkish Penal Code, Kerincsiz said.

 

In the Die Welt interview, given last week, Pamuk said he considered Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) a threat to democracy. He then went on to say that the country's armed forces also blocked advances in democracy.

 

"Unfortunately the threat sometimes is the army that prevents the democratic development," Pamuk was quoted as saying by Die Welt. In his application to the prosecution service, Kerincsiz said that the crime was committed in Germany but the statement was printed in the Turkish papers on October 21 and 22 and charges should be based on that.

 

A Turkish journalist, Altemur Kilic, has also applied to the prosecution to open a case against Pamuk, alleging that his statement about 30,000 Kurds killed in Turkey during more than two decades of unrest amounted to the author supporting terrorism.

[phantom22]

 

The Turkish state's striving to enter the EU is a sick joke.

 

They are prosecuting their most illustrious national author. This is a "European" nation?

 

 

PAMUK WINS FRENCH LITERARY PRIZE

 

NTV MSNBC, Turkey

Nov 7 2005

 

Controversial Turkish author Orhan Pamuk has added another award

to his growing collection, having won this year's Medicis Prize for foreign literature.

 

PARIS - The writer of such novels as "Istanbul", the "White Castle" and "Snow" was on the short list for this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.

 

The award, announced on Monday, was presented for his novel "Snow"

which tells of a Turkish writer who returns to Turkey after 12 years

of political exile.

 

Pamuk is currently facing charges of insulting Turkish identity

for comments he made in an interview with a Swiss magazine in which

he said the Ottoman state killed up to one million of its Armenian

citizens during and after the First World War.

 

If found guilty, Pamuk, who this year was considered as a candidate for

the Nobel Prize for Literature, could be gaoled for up to three years.

Edited November 10, 2005 by phantom22