Turkish Writer Facing Charges Over Genocide Armenians And Kurds [Turkey with no Democracy]

Associated Press via Kurdistan Observer ^ | 2005 Sep 1

[Wiz]

ISTANBUL,1.SEP (AP) Turkey - A Turkish novelist has been charged with insulting his country's national character and could face prison, his publisher said Wednesday.

Orhan Pamuk is scheduled to go on trial on Dec. 16 and could face up to three years in prison for comments on Turkey's killing of Armenians and Kurds, publisher Tugrul Pasaoglu said.

Turkish court officials were not immediately available to comment.

Thirty-thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it," Pamuk was quoted as saying in an interview with a Swiss newspaper magazine in February.

Armenians claim the the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I was the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey vehemently denies an Armenian genocide took place, saying the death toll is inflated and Armenians were killed in a civil war as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, eventually giving way to the Turkish Republic in 1923.

The "thirty thousand Kurds" mentioned by Pamuk refers to those killed since 1984 as Turkey fought a war against armed Kurdish separatists. The fighting ended in 1999 after a cease-fire was called by the rebels, but has resumed since then.

Turkey, along with the United States and the European Union, considers members of the main rebel group — the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK — terrorists.

Turkey, which has been trying to improve its human rights record as it vies for membership in the European Union, is extremely sensitive about both the Armenian and Kurdish issues, and the new Turkish penal code makes it a crime to denigrate Turkey's national identity.

[Xargoth]

Which country was it that was arresting Turks who dare to say there was no Armenian Genocide?

Let me see it was a member of the EU..

[The_Reader_David]

Good for Mr. Pamuk, but I notice he has omitted the causalties (Greeks) from the Rape of Smyrna in which America, Britain and France are also complicit in that their ships in the harbor complied with Turkish demands that Greeks fleeing the burning of the city be left to drown.

The Japanese also has ships in the harbor and refused to obey, rescuing many fleeing Greeks--in gratitude for this, the Greek declaration of war in WW II (before they were overrun by the Axis) only included Germany and Italy, not Imperial Japan as was customary for Allied powers.

[SunkenCiv]

France calls on Turkey to recognise Armenia killings
EU Observer | Dec 14 2004 | Honor Mahony
Posted on 12/14/2004 10:06:36 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1301675/posts