PEN Protests Charges Against Turkish Author Orhan Pamuk

Press release

By: PEN American Center

Date: September 2, 2005

Source: PEN American Center. "PEN Protests Charges Against Turkish Author Orhan Pamuk." Press Release, September 2, 2005.

About the Author: PEN American Center, the largest chapter of the human rights organization International PEN, began in 1922 to advance literature, defend free speech, and foster international literary fellowship. It has a membership of 2,900 writers, editors, and translators.

INTRODUCTION

Orhan Pamuk, the best-selling novelist in Turkish history and a major international literary figure, remarked to a Swiss interviewer in February 2005 that a million Armenians had been killed and he was the only Turk who dared to talk about it. By doing so, Pamuk highlighted Turkey's repression of free speech. He faced trial in 2006 for publicly denigrating Turkish identity.

For centuries, the Turks ruled over Armenia. When nationalistic Armenians began to press for greater rights in the 1870s, the leaders of the Ottoman Empire repressed them in various violent ways. During World War I, the Russian government recruited thousands of Armenians to join the army and fight against the Ottoman Empire. In 1915, leaders in Constantinople decided that the two million Armenians living within Turkey were a threat that needed to be eliminated. The Turkish rulers found a pretext for the massacre in the claim that the Armenians were openly supporting the Russians.

The Turkish government planned to proceed in stages. First, they would kill the chief Armenian leaders. The Turks would then disarm Armenian soldiers in the Ottoman army and place them in battalions on the railroads, where they might be killed off in small groups. The Turks would then move against outlying Armenian villages, killing every adult and teenaged male inhabitant in sight. The women and children who remained would be sent on forced marches to the eastern desert areas. Worn down by exhaustion and starvation, only a minority were expected to survive.

On the night of April 23, 1915, a coordinated Turkish government operation led to the arrest of hundreds of Armenian leaders. Many were executed or soon died in confinement. Next, the government ordered local authorities to forcibly relocate Armenians in Anatolia to Alleppo and then to remote mountainous or desert locations in the Mesopotamian desert. These relocations were actually extermination marches during which most of the Armenians were murdered, beaten, and raped by Kurds or vengeful Turks. Estimates of the number of Armenians who died from violence, starvation, or disease as a result of Turkish actions ranges from 600,000 to 1.5 million people. As of 2006, the Turkish government denies that any wartime massacre of Armenians ever occurred.

PRIMARY SOURCE

New York, New York, September 2, 2005—PEN American Center expressed shock today that world-famous Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk will be brought before an Istanbul court on December 16 and that he faces up to three years in prison for a comment published in a Swiss newspaper earlier this year.

The charges stem from an interview given by Orhan Pamuk to the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger on February 6, 2005, in which he is quoted as saying that "thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it."

Pamuk was referring to the killings by Ottoman Empire forces of thousands of Armenians in 1915–1917. Turkey does not contest the deaths, but denies that it could be called "genocide." The "30,00" Kurdish deaths refers to those killed since 1984 in the conflict between Turkish forces and Kurdish separatists. Debate on these issues has been stifled by stringent laws, which often result in lengthy lawsuits, fines, and prison terms.

Orhan Pamuk will be tried under Article 301/1 of the Turkish Penal Code, which states, "A person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years." To compound matters, Article 301/3 states, "Where insulting being a Turk is committed by a Turkish citizen in a foreign country, the penalty to be imposed shall be increased by one third." Thus, if Pamuk is found guilty, he faces an additional penalty for having made the statement abroad.

PEN finds it extraordinary that a state that has ratified both the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights, both of which see freedom of expression as central, should have a Penal Code that includes a clause that is so clearly contrary to these very same principles….

The trial against Orhan Pamuk is likely to follow the pattern of those against other writers, journalists and publishers similarly prosecuted in Turkey.

Karin Clark, Chair of PEN's Writers in Prison Committee, noted that "PEN has for years been campaigning for an end to Turkish courts trying and imprisoning writers, journalists and publishers under laws that clearly breach international standards to the Turkish government itself has pledged commitment."

Although the numbers of convictions and prison sentences under laws that penalize free speech in Turkey has declined in the past decade, PEN currently has on its records over fifty writers, journalists and publishers before the courts. This is despite a series of amendments to the Penal Code in recent years aimed at meeting demands for human rights improvements as a condition for opening talks into Turkey's application for membership of the European Union….

Orhan Pamuk is one of Turkey's most well known authors, whose works have been published world wide in over twenty languages. In 2003 he won the International IMPAC award for My Name is Red. His 2004 novel Snow has met with similar acclaim. His most recent book, Istanbul, is a personal history of his native city.

In early 2005, news of the interview for which Pamuk will stand trial led to protests in Turkey that included reports that copies of his books were burned. He also suffered death threats from extremists. PEN members world-wide then called on the Turkish government to condemn these attacks.

SIGNIFICANCE

Pamuk's statement about the Armenian genocide is accepted by most historians as an accurate summary of Ottoman treatment of the Armenians. It is not accepted as truthful by the Turks. In Turkey, newspapers launched hate campaigns against Pamuk with some columnists even suggesting that he should be silenced. Pamuk also received specific death threats. His books and his posters were burned at rallies. Fearful for his life, he went into hiding. In late 2005, the Turkish government made all insults to the state punishable by three years imprisonment. Pamuk then emerged into the open to join sixty other writers and journalists in awaiting trial for state defamation. He joked that friends had told him that he was, at last, a real Turkish writer.

Pamuk's trial in December 2005 was adjourned within minutes when the judge passed the matter to the justice minister. In January 2006, the justice minister passed the case back to the judge, who decided that there was no case to answer. The Turkish government, concerned about derailing its decade-long effort to join the European Union (EU), did not want to further inflame the international condemnation triggered by Pamuk's prosecution. The Pamuk charges appeared in international headlines just weeks before Turkey planned to seek approval to enter the EU. Turkey's pro-European Islamist government had been implementing reforms at a rapid rate in order to qualify for EU membership. It did not want to allow conservatives in Europe to portray Turkey as undeserving of EU membership or conservatives at home to invent a humiliation to serve ultra-rightwing, nationalistic causes. Within Turkey, conservative forces were already angry about perceived EU interference in Turkish affairs.

While Pamuk's case ended on a technicality, dozens of other writers went to jail for insulting Turkish identity or the country's state institutions. The Turkish government, despite the embarrassment caused by Pamuk's prosecution, remains unwilling to remove the law that bars freedom of expression. The EU has been watching these cases and the episodes have badly damaged Turkey's chances of joining the union.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Tamer Akcam. A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.

Donald Bloxham. The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Orhan Pamuk. Istanbul: Memories and the City. New York: Knopf, 2005.

Web sites

PEN American Center. "News at PEN." 〈http://www.pen.org/〉 (accessed May 6, 2006).