Update on Trial of Turkish Writer

This is a quick follow up on my post and Seth’s post, concerning Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer who was shortlisted for the Nobel and also faces criminal charges for insulting the Turkish nation.

Pamuk is a great Turkish writer, however he is also a controversial figure, having criticized Turkey for ignoring Armenian and Kurdish massacres. This controversy is something Turkey (and Europe) would like to downplay as Europe is trying to smooth-out Turkey’s accession to the EU. (The winner of the Nobel, Harold Pinter has made his name most recently for his vocal criticism of U.S. policies–if not of America istself–which I gues is not a politically controversial topic for the Nobel Committee.)

So Pamuk didn’t get the Nobel. And, moreover, his problems in Turkey were only beginning.
Pamuk had said in a magazine interview that “One million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares talk about it.” The government of Turkey claims that this violated Turkey’s Article 301, which, according to the BBC, “makes it illegal to insult the republic, parliament or any organs of state. A guilty verdict can carry a prison sentence of up to three years.” And so he is being tried for insulting “Turkishness” and also the Turkish armed forces.

Today Pamuk finally gets a little good news, such as it is: the prosecutors have decided to drop the “insulting the armed forces” charge, although the trial is going forward concerning his alleged insult to the Turkish state.

The EU, though, gets some bad news. The BBC reports:

The same nationalist lawyers behind Mr Pamuk’s indictment have succeeded in opening an investigation into comments made by a Euro MP, who was part of an EU delegation attending the writer’s hearing.
Joost Lagendijk, who chairs the EU parliament committee on Turkey, is accused of insulting Turkey’s armed forces after allegedly saying troops were provoking clashes with Kurdish separatists.

I’ll close with a couple of choice quotes (as reported by CNN) from Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Pamuk concerning the wisdom of trying people ofr offending “Turkishness”:

“We should not hurry. This is a new law, let’s see how it works, what the outcomes are,” Erdogan said in reference to the law used to put Pamuk on trial for insulting “Turkishness.” “If there are serious problems, then of course the legislature will sit down, make a new assessment and take a new decision.”

In an interview published on Thursday, Pamuk told daily Aksam newspaper that the government should carry out real — not cosmetic — reforms to expand freedom of expression if it really wants to carry the country into the EU.

“For a country to enter the EU, there has to be full respect of minority rights, freedom of thought and expression,” Pamuk said. “If you drag your feet and make cosmetic changes … then this won’t do. To believe that, you would need to be a child.”

Nice to see that this law doesn’t seem to have much effect in quieting down Pamuk.