Highlights from Turkish Islamist Press 20 Sep 06
BBC Monitoring
Sept 20 2006
Bugun
In a 1.600-word article entitled “Are There Any Threats to Turkey
Within Lebanon?” on page 10, Bugun columnist Cengiz Candar asserts
that Sunni, Druze, and Christian groups have no objections to Turkish
troops coming to Lebanon as part of the UN peacekeeping force. He
also claims that any attacks on Turkish soldiers by Armenian groups in
Lebanon could not take place independently of the “political position
of the Iranian-Syrian axis,” and that no assaults are likely in the
foreseeable future.

Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
September 20, 2006 Wednesday
UN-IZATION OF POST-SOVIET CONFLICTS
by: Arkady Dubnov
THE UN WILL DISCUSS SUSPENDED CONFLICTS IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION;
The UN will discuss latent conflicts of the post-Soviet zone.
Moldova with its GUAM allies (Georgia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan)
scored a major diplomatic victory on the eve of the referendum in the
Trans-Dniester region. General Committee of the UN General Assembly
supported the bloc’s idea to put the matter of suspended conflicts on
the CIS territory on the agenda. Moscow had killed this discussion at
the UN level in 2005.
The UN did try – more or less – to tackle the Karabakh conflict. As
for the Trans-Dniester region, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia, this is
the first time they are about to be in the focus of attention of the
international community. Internationalization of interest in the
post-Soviet zone which Russia views as its own sphere of influence
will have little effect on conflict resolution. Solutions of the UN
General Assembly are recommendations at best. A UN resolution adopted
on a GUAM initiative will put a powerful propagandistic weapon in the
hands of Kishinev, Baku, and Tbilisi.
Armenia was the first to react to the forthcoming involvement of the
UN. Official Yerevan said there would be no talks with Baku for the
time being. That was how Armenia kept its word to suspend
negotiations with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian Foreign
Minister Vardan Oskanjan said at his meeting with his Azerbaijani
opposite number Elmar Mamedjarov that the meeting initiated by OSCE
Minsk Group chairmen would never take place in New York on September
24 as scheduled. Oskanjan believes in the meantime that discussion of
the Karabakh conflict by the UN may “slow down” the Minsk process
where “prospects of positive progress are already undeniable.”
Since “the process of resolution is shifting to the UN that comprises
191 countries some of which do not even know what the conflict is
about, Nagorno-Karabakh itself must be involved in the process,”
Oskanjan said. “If it is the UN rules that we will play by, then
Azerbaijan should begin negotiations with Nagorno-Karabakh.”
Source: Vremya Novosti, September 18, 2006, p. 5

PLANS OF WITHDRAWAL OF RUSSIAN BASES IN 2006 IMPLEMENTED 100%
Agency WPS
DEFENSE and SECURITY (Russia)
September 20, 2006 Wednesday
According to Major General Andrei Popov, Commander of the Russian
Army Group in the Caucasus, the plans of withdrawal of Russian
military bases from Georgia were fully implemented.
“The plan of withdrawal from Georgia is implemented 100% this year.
Everything was sent back home by the schedule. All military hardware
and whatever withdrawn from Georgia is already in Russia and Armenia.
The last echelon is leaving the station of Tsalka for Russia on
September 19. All military hardware from Georgia will be distributed
among units in Russia by September 25,” Popov said. “After September
19, the 62nd Base in Akhalkalaki will only contain the vehicles that
are needed to maintain everyday activity of the base until 2007 when
it will be closed for good.”
“Phase one of the withdrawal is over. The bases will continue
functioning in the withdrawal mode until the end of 2008,” Popov
added.
All in all, 727 vehicles and 2,626.6 tons of materiel were withdrawn
from the 12th and 62nd bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki. Six railroad
echelons went to Armenia from the 12th Base and 19 to Russia from the
62nd. Sixteen convoys with munitions were dispatched to the military
base in Gyumri (Armenia), not to mention 12 convoys of military
hardware (25 railroad echelons and 28 vehicles). Along with that, 358
vehicles and 1,671.2 tons of materiel including 1,178.7 tons of
munitions were sent to Russia via Azerbaijan.
According to Popov, “transfer to the Georgian army of the objects the
Russian Army Group in the Caucasus is not using is also planned for
2006.”
Source: RIA-Novosti news agency, September 18, 2006,
Translated by A. Ignatkin

Fictional characters in dock
The Australian (Australia)
September 20, 2006 Wednesday
All-round Country Edition
TURKEY: Uncle Dikran, Grandma Shushan and Auntie Zeliha may be
figments of the novelist Elif Shafak’s imagination but they will be
in the dock this week in a bizarre trial that has become a test for
Turkey’s European ambitions and commitment to freedom of speech.
Shafak, 34, has been charged under Article 301 of the penal code
with “insulting Turkishness” through the fictional dialogue in
her bestselling novel The Bastard of Istanbul, which is about the
intertwined history of a Turkish and an Armenian-American family.
The European Union, with which Turkey began accession talks last year,
has been a strong critic of the law and is expected to condemn curbs
on freedom ofexpression in a report on October 24.
Turkey’s parliament is holding an emergency meeting this week on
further EU-related legal reform, but the Government has failed to
act on Article 301 — which was also used to put Orhan Pamuk, the
country’s most famous novelist, on trial — pointing out that cases
end in acquittal anyway. That is not the point, Shafak says.
“I think the biggest worry regarding Article 301 is not that it puts
people in prison but it silences them,” she said.
Even the briefest of Article 301 court cases has proved a platform for
harassment of top writers but for Shafak it is even worse. She gave
birth to a baby girl last Saturday and, since the court refused her
request for the hearing to be postponed, she must now excuse herself
through a medical report or leave a five-day-old baby to go to court
on Thursday.
Charging fictional characters is a new step, Shafak said.
“It means they are now trying to control art, and this is very alarming
because in Turkey — a country that witnessed three military takeovers
— art and literature had always been autonomous.”
The crime committed by her characters is to refer to the taboo subject
of mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915. The Armenians
call it genocide, Turks say large-scale wartime deaths. The fictional
Uncle Dikran speaks of “Turkish butchers”, others talk about being
“slaughtered like sheep” and claim all Turks are either nationalist
or ignorant. More absurdly, some Turkish characters are charged over
routine gripes about the country.
The accusations demonstrate a wilful misreading of the book, in
which the families are so mixed up it is hard to take sides. Shafak,
describing how many contemporary Turks are descended from minorities
in a multicultural Ottoman Empire, is critical both of Turks’ amnesia
about events before the country became a republic in 1923 and of the
Armenian diaspora’s apparent obsession with history.
This trial is not just about her book, she says. The case is part
of a political effort by extreme nationalists to hamper Turkey’s EU
aspiration by demonstrating how un-European it is.
“We are seeing a clash between those who wholeheartedly support the EU
process, and others who want to turn this society into a xenophobic,
isolationist country,” she said.
Kemal Kerincsiz, the lawyer who brought the case against Shafak,
is behind several other such cases. He insists EU membership would
be a disaster for Turkey, and that it was not Shafak but some shady
imperialists who penned her novel as part of a plot to destroy Turkey.

LIBERALS AND NATIONALISTS IN TURKEY FACE OFF AGAIN OVER FREEDOM OF SPEECH
by: Nicolas Birch
Eurasianet
September 19, 2006
A prize-winning Turkish novelist is scheduled to stand trial September
21 on charges of belittling Turkishness. The case is the latest in a
string of prosecutions pitting liberals against nationalists in this
European Union candidate country.
Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul has topped Turkish
bestseller lists since it was published in March, winning critical
praise for its portrait of the friendship between two girls, an
Armenian-American and a Turk. But the work’s direct treatment of
the mass murder of Ottoman Armenians in 1915 has also attracted the
attention of Kemal Kerincsiz, the nationalist lawyer whose rise to
prominence as an opponent of free speech has paralleled Turkey’s EU
accession process. Kerincsiz has figured prominently in a number
of high-profile free speech cases, including the prosecution last
December of Orhan Pamuk, Turkey’s best-known author. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In Shafak’s case, Kerincsiz’s gripe is not with something she said, but
with comments made by characters in her book. Sitting in his cramped
central Istanbul law office, the soft-spoken Kerincsiz doesn’t take
long to find one of the passages that offended him.
“I am the grandchild of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives
at the hands of Turkish butchers in 1915,” he reads, quoting Dikran
Stamboulian, a minor Armenian character. “There’s plenty more where
this came from,” he adds. Turkey and Armenia have long disputed the
tragic events of 1915, when over one million Armenians perished amid
the upheaval of World War I. Armenians insist that the actions of
Ottoman Turkish forces constituted genocide.
Turkish leaders steadfastly deny this. [For additional information
see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Shafak is being prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal
Code. Facing a possible sentence of three years if convicted, she
is fully aware of the seriousness of her situation. “Until recently,
I took comfort in the fact that nobody had ever been convicted under
[Article] 301,” she said. “Then, in June, a higher court confirmed
[the Turkish-Armenian journalist] Hrant Dink’s six-month suspended
sentence. That’s terrible news for him, and it could constitute a
precedent for me.”
Shafak gave birth to her first child on September 16 and has yet to
decide whether to attend her trial. “She wants to be there to defend
herself against these ridiculous charges,” her husband, Eyup Can, said
on the phone from the Istanbul hospital where his wife is recovering
from a caesarean section. “The doctors are opposed, and so am I,
to be honest.”
He hasn’t forgotten the scenes outside the Istanbul courthouse
where Orhan Pamuk was tried last December. Nationalists smashed the
novelist’s car windshield and attacked his supporters as the police
looked on.
A similar welcome could be in store for Shafak. For weeks, a website
belonging to Kerincsiz’s nationalist group has called on “patriots” to
turn out in opposition to the “newly-chosen princess of capitulationist
intellectuals.”
“I oppose all violence,” Kerincsiz said, “but if you call somebody’s
grandfather a butcher, there is no telling what reactions will be.”
“It’s an invitation to a lynching,” ripostes newspaper editor Ismet
Berkan, another victim of the nationalist lawyer’s attention. “Let’s
hope the police are prepared.”
If the language in the debate over Shafak’s novel is violent, it’s
ultimately because this trial is symbolic of a much deeper struggle
going on in Turkey. For nationalists like Kemal Kerincsiz, the clash
of civilizations is real, and Turkey, a Muslim country, belongs with
the East. What the European Union is trying to do, he claims, is
“strip away our Muslim and Turkish identity.”
Those like Shafak who support Turkey’s integration into Western
economic and security structures, Kerincsiz says derisively, are
“world citizens, half-Turks.”
Though intended as an insult, Kerincsiz’s comment doesn’t seem to
offend the Strasbourg-born Shafak, who has spent much of her life
outside Turkey. Both in her life and her work, she is an enemy of
easy categorizations. “My ideal is cosmopolitanism, refusing to
belong to either side in this polarized world,” she says in her
perfect English. This attitude helped prompt her to agree to serve
as a columnist for a religious newspaper, a move that generated
considerable criticism.
“Too many people see the world in black and white, us and them.
That’s wrong. Ambiguity, synthesis: these are the things that
compose Turkish society, and that is not something to be ashamed of,”
Shafak said.
It remains to be seen which side will win the debate. Few take
Kerincsiz’s claim as the voice of the Turkish people seriously –
even the country’s ultra-nationalist political party has been put
off by the violent actions of his supporters.
But nationalism has traditionally proven a powerful force in Turkish
politics. And a growing sense among Turks that Brussels is just
playing with Ankara over the accession issue has played into the
hands of people like Kerincsiz.
“Turkey has been changing rapidly over the past five years, but it
hasn’t yet reached the point of no return,” says political analyst
Umut Ozkirimli. “These are critical times.”
NOTES: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East.

Turkish parliament fails to pass resolution to reopen Orthodox seminary
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Worldstream
September 20, 2006 Wednesday 9:48 PM GMT
ANKARA Turkey — Turkey’s parliament on Wednesday failed to pass a
resolution to move forward with a European Union-requested reform
that could have allowed a Greek Orthodox theology school closed 35
years ago to reopen.
The parliament first voted in favor the resolution, but then stopped
short of giving final approval amid strong opposition. The ruling
Justice and Development Party was expected to step back and withdraw
the change on Thursday, in a sign of internal opposition to the highly
unpopular move.
Lawmakers from the ruling party voted by a show of hands to allow
foreign students to attend minority schools in Turkey upon a last
minute request from the Foreign Ministry.
But legislators from the opposition Republican People’s Party opposed
the reform, arguing that it would reopen the Halki Theological School,
on an island near Istanbul, which was closed in 1971 under a law that
put religious education under state control.
The opposition party said the school was shut down because of lack of
students and that the motion would allow it to reopen. The opposition
party forced the parliament to give a one-hour break during which
some members of the ruling party reportedly complained about the
measure as well.
The ruling party has a majority in the 550-member parliament and was
expected to take back the change Thursday before finalizing other
amendments regarding minority schools such as providing electricity
and water at discount rates as well.
If it had been approved, the reopening of Halki would have appeased
the European Union and the United States.
EU officials and Washington have repeatedly called on Turkey to open up
the religious seminary that has trained generations of Orthodox leaders
and restore property to minority Christian groups that were seized
by the state due to a decline in the size of their congregations.
The parliament is expected to address the property issue in the
coming days too. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said reforms would
address the problems of minority religious groups such as Greeks and
Armenians but was not clear if they would allow the groups to reclaim
property that has since been sold to other people.
The Halki school trained generations of church leaders, including
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, and Orthodox officials say the
school’s reopening is important for educating future leaders.
The patriarchate in Istanbul dates from the 1,100-year-old Orthodox
Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when the Muslim Ottoman Turks
conquered Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, in 1453.
Istanbul-based Bartholomew I is the leader of the world’s Orthodox
Christians, although only a few thousand Greeks now live in Turkey.
He also directly controls several Greek Orthodox churches around the
world, including the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.
But Turkey has long refused to accept any international role for the
patriarch, a Turkish citizen and ethnic Greek, and rejects his use
of the title “ecumenical,” or universal. It argues the patriarch is
merely the spiritual leader of Istanbul’s dwindling Orthodox community.
Turkey’s desire to contain Bartholomew’s influence to Istanbul stems
from a deep mistrust many Turks feel toward the patriarchate because of
its traditional ties with Greece, Turkey’s historical regional rival.
Bartholomew has been actively lobbying for the reopening of Halki.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

Senior EU lawmaker says Turkey must look at freedom of speech provisions
By JAN SLIVA, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press Worldstream
September 20, 2006 Wednesday 10:26 AM GMT
BRUSSELS Belgium — A senior European Union lawmaker said Wednesday
progress could be made soon over freedom of speech provisions in
Turkey’s penal code, a controversial issue hampering the country’s
negotiations with the EU.
Dutch EU deputy Joost Lagendijk, chairman of the parliament’s group
dealing with Turkey, spoke a day after the European Commission said
it was delaying by two weeks a progress report on Turkey’s bid to
join the EU due to what it said were scheduling reasons.
Lagendijk said the delay may have to do with increased efforts to make
progress over article 301 of the penal code, which sets out penalties
for insulting the Turkish Republic, its officials, or “Turkishness,”
and has been used to bring charges against dozens of journalists,
publishers and scholars. The article is strongly criticized by the EU.
“If one listens carefully to Turkish officials … there probably is
a chance to reach progress over article 301,” Lagendijk said, adding
that Turkey “may also have come to the conclusion that article 301
is counterproductive.”
“Something could happen in the next two months,” said Lagendijk,
who will be an observer at the Sept. 21 trial of best-selling Turkish
author Elif Shafak, charged with “insulting Turkishness” in a novel
that deals with the waning years of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey’s parliament convened on Tuesday to begin voting on reforms,
including the strengthening of minority rights, as the government
tries to deflect EU criticism that the pace of change has slowed.
But Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said changing the
law most often used to try authors was not on parliament’s immediate
agenda.
Lagendijk and German deputy Cem Ozdemir called for toning down a
separate report on Turkey by the European Parliament’s foreign affairs
committee, which they said stepped up demands on Turkey to join the EU,
going beyond the conditions originally laid down by the 25-nation bloc.
While Lagendijk and Ozdemir backed the key points of the report,
notably that Turkey must open its sea and air ports to Cypriot ships
and planes, they said a number of amendments to the report go too
far, making it biased against Turkey and damaging the parliament’s
credibility.
The report was approved by the foreign affairs committee earlier this
month and will be debated by the full 732-member assembly during a
plenary session next week in Strasbourg, France.
The report is critical of Turkey’s refusal to recognize the killing of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I as genocide,
and the recommends making such recognition a prerequisite for Turkey
joining the EU.
Lagendijk and Ozdemir argued the EU had not originally set any such
condition. They also said the report unfairly puts pressure on Turkey
over its treatment of other ethnic minorities, such as Assyrians
and Greeks.
They also pressed for return to a blueprint plan to reunite Cyprus
drafted by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, which was approved
by Turkish Cypriots, but rejected by Greek Cypriots in separate
referendums in April 2004.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkish troops invaded in 1974 after a
coup attempt by supporters of union with Greece. The Greek Cypriot
south has an internationally recognized government. Only Turkey
recognizes the Turkish Cypriot north.
EU officials hinted in July that entry talks with Turkey begun in
October may crash because of Ankara’s continuing failure to recognize
Cyprus or allow in its ships and airplanes.
But Lagendijk said he does not believe a stalling of talks is imminent.
“A train crash is unlikely. We may have a minicrash, putting aside
some of the negotiating chapters” that have to do with Cyprus or
freedom of speech provisions, he said.
Turkey must complete 35 so-called “negotiating chapters,” each dealing
with a different policy field, before it can join the EU, a process
expected to take at least a decade.

ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTER, RUSSIAN ARMENIANS UNION CHAIRMAN DISCUSS COOPERATION PROSPECTS
ARKA News Agency, Armenia
Sept 20 2006
YEREVAN, September 20. /ARKA/. Armenian Defense Minister Serge Sargsyan
and Russian Armenians Union Chairman Ara Abramyan discussed cooperation
prospects at their meeting held Wednesday in Yerevan.
Armenian Public Television reports that Abramyan expressed willingness
to widen its organization’s cooperation with Armenian army.
In particular, he said he intended to organize Russian intellectuals’
and musicians’ meetings to Armenian army units. M.V. -0—

Manifestation a Nevers contre l’expulsion d’une famille armenienne
Agence France Presse
20 septembre 2006 mercredi 2:36 PM GMT
LYON 20 sept 2006 — Plusieurs centaines de personnes ont manifeste
mercredi a Nevers afin de protester contre l’interpellation d’une
jeune fille armenienne sans papiers de 21 ans, scolarisee dans un
lycee de la ville, et de membres de sa famille, a-t-on appris auprès
de la police et des manifestants.
Les manifestants – 200 selon la police, 300 selon les organisateurs
-, dont de nombreux elèves du lycee Raoul Follereau où la jeune fille
suivait des cours de terminale jusqu’a son interpellation mardi matin,
ont organise un sit-in tout l’après-midi devant la prefecture de
la Nièvre.
Majeure et arrivee en France il y a quatre ans, la jeune fille ne
rentre pas dans le cadre de la circulaire Sarkozy.
“Nous demandons une autorisation derogatoire de sejourner sur le
territoire, le temps qu’elle finisse sa terminale, et que ses parents,
un couple mixte azeri-armenien, s’organisent pour demander l’asile
politique”, a indique a l’AFP Catherine Terret, professeur et membre
du collectif nivernais de soutien aux elèves sans papiers.
D’après le Reseau Education sans frontières (RESF), la jeune fille,
ses deux frères majeurs, ses parents ainsi que deux cousins, ont ete
transferes vers differents centres de retention administrative de la
region parisienne.
Mardi, des manifestants s’etaient deja rassembles devant le
commissariat de Nevers.
–Boundary_(ID_B2wNCm7g9u0wQK5hHmvLRA)–

USA Today
Sept 19 2006
Author could face prison if convicted of ‘insulting Turkishness’
Updated 9/19/2006 10:43 PM
Elif Shafak
By Michael Kuser, Special for USA TODAY
ISTANBUL – Turkish novelist Elif Shafak faces trial here Thursday on
charges of “insulting Turkishness” through comments made by a
fictional character in her latest novel, The Bastard of Istanbul.
Shafak, 34, who teaches Middle Eastern studies at the University of
Arizona, splits her time between Tucson and Istanbul, where she is
helping set up a master’s program in American culture and literature
at Bahcesehir University.
The charges against Shafak – the latest of at least 60 cases
involving authors and journalists here – raise questions about
Turkey’s readiness to become a full member of the European Union, a
move the United States supports as a way to bolster a secular,
democratic Muslim state in a pivotal geographic and political
position.
She could face up to three years in jail on charges she violated
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code by having an Armenian character
in the book say that “Turkish butchers” killed her family and that
the deaths were “genocide.”
Shafak – who delivered her first child, a girl, on Saturday – wants
to appear in court when the trial starts, her husband, Eyup Can, said
Tuesday.
Can, who is editor of a Turkish business daily, said, “Most probably
she won’t be able to go, due to her condition.” He said Shafak’s
lawyer will ask for a one-month postponement.
Turkey has been making efforts to change its criminal and justice
systems to meet European standards to qualify for full EU membership.
That’s the goal of negotiations that started last October and could
take a decade.
The failure to remove restraints on freedom of speech has led to
charges against writers including Shafak. Under the 2005 law, anyone
who criticizes the state or denigrates Turkish identity in any form
can be prosecuted.
Several writers have been convicted, though none has gone to jail.
Instead, the courts have handed down fines. The maximum amount
levied: $4,000.
National history
The charges against Shafak are based on events that, although they
took place nearly a century ago, remain a sore spot for Turks and
Armenians.
Official Turkish history says the mainly Orthodox Christian Armenians
sided with Russia in an attempt to carve out a chunk of territory
from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. History books here say many
Muslims were killed in the fighting and the Armenians paid the price
for their losing bid.
It is a criminal act in Turkey to back the view that forced marches
to the Syrian border that killed up to 1 million Armenians should be
considered genocide.
Other taboo topics include the rights of Turkey’s Kurdish minority
and Turkey’s justification for invading the now-divided island nation
of Cyprus in 1974.
Many Turks support Article 301 because they fear dredging up the past
will hurt Turkey’s aspirations to join the EU. “Talking about Turks
killing people will give people in Europe and America the wrong idea,
for it started with the Armenian attacks,” says Banu Aktac, 43, a
tour guide in Istanbul.
International PEN, a London-based group that promotes free speech,
says Article 301 fails to meet international standards that protect
freedom of expression such as the European Convention on Human
Rights, which Turkey has signed.
“The trial against Elif Shafak is another sign that the situation in
Turkey has become stricter,” says Eugene Schoulgin, a PEN board
member who is in Istanbul to attend the trial. “It’s basically a
crackdown on writers and journalists and is a result of the country’s
paranoiac attitude toward honor.”
Author’s themes
The Bastard of Istanbul tells the story of two women connected by a
family secret. In the novel, a woman whose Armenian grandmother was
raised by a Turkish Muslim family after being orphaned says, “I am
the grandchild of genocide survivors who lost all their relatives in
the hands of Turkish butchers in 1915.”
The themes of The Bastard of Istanbul- how memories differ from
person to person – evolved from the author’s previous work exploring
mysticism, religion and nostalgia, among other subjects.
Born in Strasbourg and raised in France, Spain, Jordan and Turkey by
a single mother who was a Turkish diplomat, Shafak began as a child
to question her nationality and what it means to be a woman. “Only
through my novels can I continue to explore the boundaries of
identity,” she says.
Shafak wrote The Bastard of Istanbul in English. She then wrote a
translated version for the Turkish market. The novel was published
here in March and has sold more than 60,000 copies. The
English-language version will be out early next year.
University of Arizona officials sent letters to Turkey’s foreign
minister and to the Turkish ambassador in Washington to protest
Shafak’s prosecution, says Anne Betteridge, director of the school’s
Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Betteridge was not aware of any
response.
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara has been closely following Shafak’s case
and others that involve free speech. “We have raised concerns about
freedom of expression issues with Turkish authorities,” embassy
spokeswoman Kathryn Schalow says.
Among other writers who have been prosecuted under Article 301 is
Hrant Dink. His six-month suspended sentence for “insulting
Turkishness” in his newspaper, Agos, was upheld last month.
Shafak’s case, dismissed by a lower court, was reinstated by another
court in early July after Kemal Kerincsiz filed a complaint. The
ultranationalist lawyer initiated many of the cases against writers
who brought up the Armenian deportations through the 800-member
Jurists Union, an independent, non-governmental organization he
founded in 2002.
Kerincsiz says his campaign is a way to derail Turkey’s negotiations
to join the EU. He has called membership in the 25-nation bloc a form
of slavery. He also dismisses writers’ concerns about being put on
trial. “What’s the big deal with a trial? Orhan Pamuk became a
prince,” he says, referring to Turkey’s leading writer, who also is
on trial. “And now Elif will be a princess.”
Shafak says hostility to EU membership is a troubling sign for
relations with the West. “Anti-Turkish sentiment in Europe buttresses
Turkish nationalism,” she says, referring to European concerns about
admitting the predominantly Muslim nation of 70 million to the EU. “I
only fear a backlash because it gives foreigners the impression that
Kemal Kerincsiz represents the majority, which I don’t believe he
does.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress