The Armenian Reporter
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BR EAKING NEWS
Turkey Launches `Genocide’ Investigation Against Taner Akçam
PARAMUS, NJ – Tanar Akçam, the first Turkish intellectual to
recognize the Armenian Genocide as such, has become the latest to be
investigated for `insulting Turkishness.’
The Istanbul newspaper Radikal has reported that an official
investigation has been opened against University of Minnesota Akçam, who
claims that the Armenian deportations of 1915 and following constituted a
genocide. Radikal broke the story on January 9, 2007.
In an October 6, 2006, newspaper column in the Turkish Armenian
journal Agos, Akçam criticized the prosecution of Agos managing editor
Hrant Dink for using the term `genocide,’ thereby `insulting Turkishness’
under the notorious Article 301 of Turkey’s penal code. Highlighting the
term `genocide,’ Akçam declared himself an accessory to the charges
against Dink, and urged readers to join in Dink’s support.
In response, Recep Akkus, an associate of ultra-nationalist
attorney Kemal Kerinçsiz, filed a criminal complaint against Akçam based
on penal code articles 301 (the `insulting Turkishness’ provision), 214
(`instigation to commit a crime’), 215 (`praise of a crime and a
criminal’), and 216 (`instigating public animosity and hatred’).
Akçam replied in a deposition at the public prosecutor’s office
in Sisli on January 5.
Akçam is the author of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and
the Question of Turkish Responsibility (New York: Metropolitan
Books/Henry Holt, 2006), which has been widely and positively reviewed in
the United States, and has brought a great deal of public attention
lately to the author and the subject of the Armenian Genocide.
Radikal’s newsbrief on the investigation launched against Akçam
can be read online at
haberno9558&tari h=09/01/2007. (The present article is based on a
translation of the Radikal piece, produced by the Armenian Reporter.)