Turkish court delays novelist's trial
By Sebnem Arsu The New York Times
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005
ISTANBUL A Turkish court put off the trial of a prominent novelist after
a brief hearing Friday, giving the government until Feb. 7 to decide whether to
go ahead with criminal proceedings against him for mentioning the Armenian
genocide by the Turks in 1915 in a magazine interview in which he also said
30,000 Kurds had been killed since the late 1980s.
Angry nationalists booed and jostled the heavy police escort that took
the best-selling writer, Orhan Pamuk, into the packed courthouse, where
observers from European Union countries Turkey hopes will admit it to the
25-nation group were present.
"I am sorry that I could not testify,"' Pamuk said in a statement issued
by his publisher after the court decided that the Justice Ministry in Ankara
had to give authorization for the trial to proceed.
"Dragging out cases of thought crimes which shouldn't be begun in the
first place and starting new ones are not good for Turkey, for our democracy,"
he said. He remains free while awaiting trial but could face a jail term of six
months to three years if convicted.
Policemen with plastic shields escorted Pamuk, 53, from the courthouse
into a minivan under a barrage of eggs and invective by angry protesters, and
as shouts of "Traitor Pamuk" echoed in the narrow streets.
Pamuk is accused of "'insulting Turkish identity" by telling Das Magazin,
a Swiss publication, in an interview last February that the mass killing of
Armenians by the Ottoman empire in 1915 and the deaths of Kurds in Turkish
operations against the PKK separatist group in the 1980s were still forbidden
subjects in Turkey.
Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, though revised last summer as part
of Turkey's efforts to meet the legal and economic standards required to join
the European Union, still criminalizes public comments that "denigrate
Turkishness" or the government or the army, and nearly 60 intellectuals have
been charged under it.
At the end of the hourlong hearing, Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch European
Parliament advocate of Turkish membership in the EU, expressed disappointment
that the government had not decided to dismiss the trial.
"Now it is up to the government to take the responsibility," he said.
"They can say that the penal code was reformed not to restrict the freedom of
speech but to allow for more."
The Turkish justice minister, Cemil Cicek, speaking to NTV news
television, accused journalists of stirring up emotions and said that the
court's decision should not be taken as a surprise.
"A question has been asked, so we should wait for the reply," he said.
Denis McShane, a member of the British Parliament observing the
proceedings, said that he had been hit on the face by a nationalist lawyer
during the melee.
"I cannot believe these lawyers represent Turkish democracy," McShane
said.
The editor of the only Armenian newspaper in Turkey, Hirant Dink, was
also showered with insults and had to be escorted from the courthouse by the
security force.
On Thursday, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, said that it was
not Pamuk, whose novels including "Snow," "My Name Is Red" and "The Black Book"
have been translated into 34 languages, but Turkey that would be on trial. He
called on the government to prove that the changes in the penal code were not
simply window dressing to convince Europe that it could start talking with
Turkey about EU membership.
Another European Parliament member at the trial, Camiel Eurlings of The
Netherlands, said, "If Turkey wants to continue toward the EU, and I hope it
will, then really freedom of expression is a fundamental necessity."
Mehmet Altan, a professor at Istanbul University who had been acquitted
of a similar charge, predicted that the charges against the novelist would not
stick.
"This was a provocative plot by those who are trying to block Turkey's
entry into the EU," Altan said. "The case served its purpose, so they've done
with it."
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