Month: October 2006

Duke University, NC
Oct 14 2006

French Bill Harms Understanding of Armenian Massacre, Says Duke
Scholar Arrested for His Research on Killings

Note to Editors: Yektan Turkyilmaz can be reached for additional
comment at [email protected].

Durham, NC — A bill passed Thursday by the French National Assembly
that labels the World War I massacre of Armenians as `genocide’ hurts
the cause of those trying to educate Turkish citizens about the
tragedy, says a Duke University graduate student.

The Strange Case of Yektan Turkyilmaz: An International Incident

International
The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, was detained in an Armenian KGB
detention center for several weeks without charges being filed in
2005 while studying the conflict’s history. Turkyilmaz was released
after several American leaders, including former U.S. Senate Majority
Leader Bob Dole and Senator Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Duke President Richard
Brodhead, urged Armenian officials to intervene in the matter.

`I would like to see the entire world community, including Turkey,
recognize what happened to the people in Armenia,’ said Turkyilmaz, a
graduate student in cultural anthropology at Duke. `But decisions
like this [by the French parliament] only fuel reactionaries in
Turkey, who use this as an example of Western animosity. It doesn’t
encourage discussion at all.’

Turkyilmaz, a Turkish citizen of Kurdish decent, said some Turkish
scholars are already seeking to shed light on the Ottoman killing of
Armenians, as evidenced by a conference last September on the topic.

`"People do this despite this infamous code in Turkey that penalizes
`insulting Turkishness,” he said. `We can call what happened to the
Armenians `genocide,’ `tragedy’ or `massacre;’ the point is we need
to learn what happened and educate people about it.’

The French bill `jeopardizes the position of progressive people in
Turkey,’ he said.

`I would totally understand it if it were a principled decision about
genocide everywhere, but this is more about disturbing Turkey than
learning about the Armenian tragedy,’ he said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Sabah, Turkey
Oct 14 2006

Armenian flag at Aðrý

Armenian students are turned out to erect an Armenian flag to the
peak of Aðrý Mountain at the end of their climbing activity in
August.

Armenian flag erected in Aðrý Mountain

Armenian students who climbed to Aðrý Mountain on August 27 erected
an Armenian flag to the peak and took a photo.

Armenian students who climbed to Aðrý Mountain on August 27 erected
an Armenian flag to the peak. Armenian Diaspora announced the event
with the title of: "our flag is on the Peak of Aðrý Mountain." The
students named Haroutune Armenian, Sona Armenian, Arsen Grigoryan,
Arthur Melkonyan, Varduhi Petrosian and Ara Tekian came to
Doðubeyazýt in Aðrý for the 15. anniversary of Amenia’s independence.

Sabah, Turkey
Oct 14 2006

Pamuk postpones Armenian conference

After learning he won a Nobel Prize, Pamuk’s first act was to
postpone his conference about the so-called Armenian genocide.

Pamuk postpones Armenian genocide conference after winning a Nobel
Prize

The conference which was supposed to be held on October 16 by Orhan
Pamuk at Minnesota University has been postponed to an uncertain
date. It was claimed that it was Pamuk who postponed the conference
after learning he won a Nobel Prize.

Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s conference on Armenain genocide has
been postponed to an uncertain date. The conference which was
supposed to be held on Monday, October 16 at Minnesota University was
about Armenian genocide claims. Minnesota University has announced
the postponement from its official website and said the conference
was postponed due to bad reputation around Pamuk’s winning
announcement. However, according to some sources it was Pamuk himself
who wanted to postpone the conference.

Journal of Turkish Weekly
Oct 14 2006

EU: The French Armenian Bill Would Prohibit Dialogue

Saturday , 14 October 2006

* The EU says the French Armenian bill would damage the relations
between Turkey and Armenia and Turkey and EU

The European Union said French parliament approval on Thursday of a
bill making it a crime to reject the Armenian accusations against the
Turkish people about the 1915 communal clashes could harm efforts to
end decades of dispute over the killings. Armenians name the 1915
Events `genocide’ while the Turks accuse the Armenians of massacring
520,000 Turkish civilian people.

A European Commission spokeswoman noted the bill still needed upper
house approval and said EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn had
repeatedly warned in recent days it would damage efforts in Turkey
and Armenia to resolve the dispute. Turkish prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan had called Armenia to set up a joint commission to
solve the historical disputes. Yet Yerevan Government rejected the
offer claiming there was nothing to be discussed.

"Should this law enter into force … it would prohibit dialogue
which is necessary for reconciliation on the issue," spokeswoman
Krisztina Nagy told a regular news conference.

Asked whether the bill could add a stumbling block to difficult
accession talks with Ankara opened just over a year ago, she noted
recognition of the 1915 killings as a `genocide’ was not a
precondition for accession.

"It is not up to law to write history. Historians need to have
debate," she said.

Xinhua , China
Oct 14 2006

Turkish consumers union starts to boycott French goods

The Turkish Consumers Union announced Friday that it has started to
boycott goods and services of French origin in protest against a bill
passed by French lawmakers, the semi-official Anatolia news agency
reported.

"As of today, we are going to boycott one French product every week
and show our reaction" against a bill criminalizing any denial of the
alleged massacres of Armenians during World War I, Bulent Deniz,
chairman of the union, was quoted as saying.

"We will not purchase fuel oil, lube oil, and LPG (Liquefied
Petroleum Gas) from the Total Company. France will be the party that
loses unless this unfortunate process ends," Deniz said.

"The Turkish Consumers Union considered boycott as the last
alternative," said Deniz, adding that the boycott will continue
increasingly until the French bill gets annulled.

French lawmakers on Thursday voted 106-19 for a draft bill, which
calls for up to a year in prison and fines of up to 56,000 U. S.
dollars for anyone who denies the alleged Armenian genocide during
World War I. The bill must be passed by the Senate and signed by
French President Jacques Chirac.

Turkey, a secular Muslim country which is seeking EU membership, has
vowed to impose economic sanctions on France if the bill is passed in
the French parliament.

Turkey has always denied that up to 1.5 million Armenians were
subject to genocide in the period between 1915 and 1923.

However, it does acknowledge that up to 300,000 Armenians died during
fighting and efforts to relocate populations away from the war zone
in eastern Turkey.

According to the Zaman daily, Turkey is the fifth largest customer of
French goods outside the EU. France’s export to Turkey values at 5.9
billion dollars while its import from Turkey remains at 3.8 billion
dollars.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Oct 14 2006

Next Meeting of BSEC Assembly General to Take Place in Baku on
November 22

Source: Trend
Author: J.Shahverdiyev

13.10.2006

The next meeting of the Assembly General of the Black Sea Economic
Co-operation (BSEC) will take place in Baku on November 22, the
member of Azerbaijani delegation in the BSEC Parliamentary Assembly,
MP Asef Hajiyev told, Trend reports.

Hajiyev stressed that the last meeting of the organization was held
in Yerevan. After six month the meeting will be held in Bulgaria.
`This meeting will focus on election of the Vice President of the
Organization and other questions,’ he stressed. In addition, Hajiyev
emphasized that initiated by the ex-Turkish President Suleyman
Demrel, BSEC PA was created 15 years ago. `The International
Secretariat of the Organization is located in Turkey,’ Hajiyev
stressed.

Touching on the participation of Armenians at the meeting of the
Assembly General in Baku, he said `I cannot say anything about this.
But as a rule, invitations are forwarded to all members of the
organization. The meeting held 6 years ago in Baku was attended by
Armenians. But now I cannot say anything about their participation’.

TREND Information, Azerbaijan
Oct 14 2006

`Our Azerbaijan’ Political Block to Hold Picket in Front of French
Embassy in Azerbaijan

Source: Trend
Author: J.Shahverdiyev

13.10.2006

On October 19, `Our Azerbaijan’ Political Block will hold a picket in
front of the French Embassy in Azerbaijan, the Secretary of the Block
Yusif Muganli told Trend.

He stressed that the decision to hold picket was made on 13 October
in the meeting of the Executive Board.

The picket is linked with French Parliament’s adopting the law
penalizing the denial of so-called `Armenian genocide’.

The Block considers that taking such steps, France demonstrates
disrespect towards its democratic values. The Block decided to appeal
to the Head of Azerbaijan and other international organizations to
debar France from the co-chairmanship in OSCE Minsk Group. It was
state that if France demonstrates such disrespect towards Turkic
world, it will demonstrate the same position with regard to
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Initiated by the Chairman of `Musavat’ Party Isa Gambar, `Our
Azerbaijan’ Block was created in 2003 and presently brings together
nearly 10 political parties.

Houston Chronicle, TX
Oct 14 2006

Legislating truth
French lawmakers strangle their own principles by forbidding anyone
to deny Armenian genocide

One of the first weapons against human rights catastrophes is the
simple act of speaking out. It’s simple, but not always safe. Turkish
novelist Orhan Pamuk found that out last year, when he was prosecuted
in his homeland for "insulting Turkishness."

The government of Turkey charged Pamuk in 2005 after Pamuk dared to
tell a Swiss reporter that Turks were in denial about their country’s
massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. Pamuk’s insistence
on speaking out clearly and persuasively in novels has earned him
this year’s Nobel Prize for literature.

As works of conscience do, Pamuk’s words reverberated far beyond the
culture he described. His novels, the Nobel Academy’s chief said,
"enlarged the roots of the contemporary novel" by blending Western
literary tradition with that of the East.

During the same week, French lawmakers embarrassed themselves by
seeking to make it a crime to speak freely. The culture whose
ancestors refined the novel and defined free speech is debating a law
that would ban denial that Turks committed genocide against the
Armenians.

Turkey, unsurprisingly, voiced official outrage at the law. But a
government that prosecutes its citizens for far less offensive speech
is in a poor position to complain.

Turkey’s indignation is even more suspect because its officials
insist on qualifying and rationalizing the Armenian atrocities not as
a genocide, but as a side effect of war. The harping on semantics,
rather than on the crime, confirms Pamuk’s portrayal of a nation in
denial.

In a better world, semantics would be enormously important. The term
genocide actually was coined after World War I by Raphael Lemkin, a
lawyer of Polish-Jewish descent, who spent his life trying to
convince the world that exterminating an ethnic group should be a
punishable crime. Yet even now, calling such killings genocide does
little to mobilize the world community.

Precisely because Turks’ resistance to facing their past continues,
though, the discussion must take place in full detail. Muzzling
anyone who wants to argue over the definition of genocide also gags
anyone able to make the opposite case.

France’s new bill emerges in several larger contexts: widespread
reluctance to let Turkey join the European Union, and an election at
home in which France’s half-million citizens of Armenian descent play
a big role. Neither situation merits stifling free speech.

By trying to legislate history, France’s parliament might silence
"genocide doubters." That’s different from persuading them. By
smothering debate, France also silences its best advocates for truth
– voices, perhaps, like those of Orhan Pamuk.

The Calgary Herald (Alberta)
October 13, 2006 Friday
Early Edition

French genocide bill angers Turks

by: David Rennie, The Telegraph

The French parliament has triggered a new crisis in Turkey’s
relations with Europe by approving a bill that would make it a crime
to deny that Armenians suffered a genocide at the hands of Ottoman
Turks.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said Thursday’s vote in the French
national assembly had dealt "a heavy blow" to bilateral relations.

Turkey denies that massacres of Armenians between 1915 and 1923
amounted to genocide, saying large numbers of Turks and Armenians
died in civil war.

Ali Babacan, Turkey’s economics minister, said it was too soon to
know whether the Turkish public would heed calls from nationalist
groups to boycott French goods.

"As the government, we are not encouraging that, but this is the
people’s decision," he said.

The Socialist-backed law was widely criticized in Turkey as another
attempt by European politicians to place obstacles in the path of
Ankara’s painful progress toward membership in the European Union.
Polls have shown that 60 per cent of the French public is opposed to
Turkish entry into the EU.

France would impose a one-year prison term and a fine of more than
$200,000 Cdn for anyone denying the Armenian genocide, following the
lead of an earlier law on denying the Nazi Holocaust.

The vote came months ahead of French presidential and parliamentary
elections, in which the 400,000-member Armenian community in France
will form a formidable voter bloc.

The bill doesn’t have government support and seems likely to fall in
the Senate.

Both President Jacques Chirac, and Segolene Royal, the Socialist
presidential front-runner, say that Turkey must acknowledge the
genocide of the Armenians before joining the EU. Nicolas Sarkozy, the
conservative front-runner, is opposed to Turkey’s EU entry under any
conditions.

Meanwhile, the Turkish parliament scrapped plans for a tit-for-tat
law that would have made it illegal to deny that French colonialists
committed genocide against the Algerians in their war for
independence.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told MPs: "You don’t clean up
dirt with more dirt."

He repeated calls to Armenia jointly to research the killings by
opening the historical archives of both countries to historians.

Los Angeles Times
Oct 14 2006

Pamuk’s Politicized Prize
The Nobel Committee may honor lefty politics as much as it honors
literature, but it’s France, Turkey and the U.S. that really play
politics with language.
October 14, 2006

‘THERE IS NO SUCH THING," George Orwell once said, "as a genuinely
nonpolitical literature." That probably comes as news to millions of
Danielle Steel fans. Still, if Orwell had only tacked on the word
"award" to his aphorism, that 1946 statement would have been as
eerily prescient as his novel "1984."

Take Thursday’s awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Turkish
writer Orhan Pamuk. Though the secular storyteller has been a rumored
Nobel candidate since his lyrical 2002 novel, "Snow," he is perhaps
best known for being charged in his native country last year for
"denigrating" the Turkish identity. His crime consisted of pointing
out, in an interview with a journalist, that the Ottoman Empire
killed 1.2 million Armenians nine decades ago and that its successor
has killed 30,000 Kurds over the last two.

Although charges against him were eventually dropped,
Pamuk becomes the third consecutive literature laureate with heavy
political baggage. Last year’s winner, British playwright Harold
Pinter, is equally well known for his strident leftist politics. The
2004 honoree, Elfriede Jelinek, is a fierce critic of Austria’s
conservative establishment.

As tempting as it is to poke fun at political moralizing from the
Nobel committee, the ones truly deserving of criticism are the
governments – not just of Turkey but also of France and the United
States – that twist language into politics by criminalizing speech
and denying the truth.

Turkey continues to demonstrate its unreadiness to join the ranks of
mature democracies with its many attacks on free expression, most of
them springing from laws against insulting the state or its
institutions. And the list of jokes that insecure Ankarites can’t
take is long: suggesting that troops be withdrawn from Cyprus;
criticizing Kemal Ataturk, the long-dead father of modern Turkey;
even having a fictional character in a novel speak of the Armenian
genocide. The country is consistently ranked about 100th in the world
by global nonprofit groups that measure press freedom, and the
European Union has insisted on easing these restrictions as a
precondition to Turkey’s membership.

During that process, France has taken the lead in pushing Turkey to
join the 21st century instead of squabbling over the 20th. But as is
too often the case in Europe, the state’s zeal to promote the truth
has manifested itself in a prohibition against the individual’s right
to state falsehoods. On Thursday, as Pamuk was winning his prize, the
French National Assembly passed a bill making it an imprisonable
offense to deny that the Armenian genocide took place. This matches
similar laws across the EU criminalizing Holocaust denial. Both
notions exhibit an unseemly lack of confidence in the free
competition of ideas and leave European governments open to charges
of hypocrisy.

France has a partly questionable motivation – anti-Turkish animus –
for coming down on the side of truth. The U.S., which is motivated by
a desire to please its most important Muslim ally, has come out on
the other side – refusing to call the Armenian genocide by its proper
name. Proving again that nothing corrupts language more than
politics. "Political speech and writing," to quote Orwell again, "are
largely the defense of the indefensible."