Turkey drops charges against novelist
A Turkish court on Monday dropped charges against the country’s best-known novelist for insulting ‘Turkishness,’ ending a high-profile trial that outraged Western observers and cast doubt on Turkey’s commitment to free speech. Orhan Pamuk went on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that Turkey is unwilling to deal with two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I, which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide, and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey’s overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast. Olli Rehn, the EU commissioner in charge of expansion, said the decision to drop the case against Pamuk was ‘good news for freedom of expression in Turkey,’ but said that ‘Pamuk is not the only case of a person prosecuted for having expressed a non-violent opinion in Turkey’, noting that ’several journalists, editors, writers and academics still face similar charges today.’ (AP, ABC News,January 24, 2006)
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An Orhan Pamuk Entry…
Slate: The Novelist Walks: Why did Turkey drop the charges against Orhan Pamuk? By Hugh Eakin Newspaperindex: Turkey drops charges against novelist IFEX: Proceedings against Orhan Pamuk dropped; PEN calls for end to all trials of writers Newropeans: T…
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