TURKISH GOVERNMENT CAN’T INTERVENE IN PAMUK CASE: PM
Reuters
Indian Express, India
Oct 13 2005
PARIS, OCTOBER12: The Turkish government cannot intervene to help
a writer of world repute who could face prison for his views on the
massacres of Armenians 90 years ago, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan
said in comments published on Wednesday.
Orhan Pamuk has been charged with insulting Turkish identity for
supporting claims that Armenians suffered a genocide under Ottoman
Turks in 1915. He faces three years in jail if convicted.
Pamuk further upset the establishment and nationalists by saying
that Turkish forces shared responsibility for the death of more than
30,000 Kurds in southeast Turkey during separatist fighting there in
the 1980s and 1990s.
Erdogan told the French Le Monde newspaper that ” the law is
independent from the executive or the legislative authorities … the
executive authorities cannot interfere with the judiciary”.
Pamuk, best known for historical novels such as My Name is Red and The
White Castle, goes on trial on December 16. His prosecution provided
the European Union a focus for its concerns over whether Turkey’s
human rights record is compatible with the EU membership Ankara seeks.