Yektan Turkyilmaz Trial, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian
RFE/RL covers the third day of the Turkyilmaz trial and says that despite an international outcry, prosecutors in Yerevan appear unwilling to drop the charges against the young Turkish scholar of Kurdish descent. Turkyilmaz stands accused of attempting to take books over 50 years old out of the country. Present was Orin Starn, a professor from Duke University in the United States where Turkyilmaz is completing his PhD.
“I’m here to let it be known that Duke University fully supports Yektan,” he said. “I am the supervisor of his dissertation and I can not believe that he would knowingly break the law in any way. So I hope for his speedy release.”
The president of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, wrote to President Robert Kocharian on August 1, calling for the scholar’s release. “As the leader of a great country, you have the ability to intervene in this matter and to determine the appropriateness of the actions of your government and the Armenian prosecutors and police,” he said. Kocharian has not yet responded to the letter, according to Starn.
Also present was Hrant Dink, a journalist and editor of Armenian descent currently facing prosecution in Turkey. Dink is one of hundreds of Armenian, Turkish and foreign academics, journalists and figures in the public eye who have rallied to the 33-year old’s defense.
“It must be admitted that Yektan certainly did something wrong with regard to the laws of the Republic of Armenia,” he told RFE/RL. “But Yektan is not a criminal. He is a serious intellectual. He committed a serious offence unintentionally and you just can’t use books for criminal prosecution. Such things are not accepted in the world.”
Dink, who himself is facing a possible jail sentence in Turkey for publicly emphasizing his Armenian heritage, also pointed out that Turkyilmaz is among few Turkish academics who openly question Ankara’s decades-long denial of the Armenian genocide. “We [Istanbul’s Armenian community] have a handful of Turkish intellectuals standing by our side and Yektan is one of them,” he said.
As the trial continues, RFE/RL’s account of the day’s proceedings can be found online here. All of the posts relating to this case on this site can be found here. A site in support of the academic is also online at http://www.yektan.org. Other sites such as Blogrel have also been following the case.
Filed under: Armenia, Education, Turkey, Genocide, Books, History, Turkyilmaz
Hrant Dink at Turkyilmaz Trial
Hrant Dink speaking at the trial of Yektan Turkyilmaz, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian
Recently, a comment was made on this site that the legal action against the Turkish scholar Yektan Turkyilmaz might have been in response to action against a journalist of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink, in Turkey. Well, two wrongs don’t make a right but more significantly, while Turkyilmaz is still kept under tight security in Armenia, Hrant Dink is free to travel.
In fact, he was at Turkyilmaz’s trial today along with another journalist of Armenian descent from Turkey. Both had come along to lend their support to Turkyilmaz and in particular, Dink had some harsh words to say about proceedings. Last week, Raffi Hovannisian also attended the trial and was not impressed. I’ll leave it to Emil and Rouzanna at RFE/RL to write more on that later in the day.
Meanwhile, I’ll try and sort out more pics of today’s trial in Yerevan to post. Incidentally, while it’s worth pointing out that the two main pro-government TV stations, Public TV and Armenia TV, appear to be ignoring the trial and weren’t present on Friday or today, the Chicago Tribune has an article on the controversy over Turkyilmaz’s detention.
In nearly two weeks of interrogation, the academic said through friends, he was never questioned about his books but instead about his research and a compact disc of archival information that was to be the basis for his writing. The disc has been confiscated.
“This should not be a political issue; this should be for the historians to look into and decide,” said an official at the Turkish Foreign Ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity. “From what we had heard, this young scholar seemed to support the Armenian side of the so-called genocide debate. It is such a strange turn of events, to arrest him.”
For the last two years, Turkyilmaz has conducted research in Turkish and Armenian libraries and the Turkish national archives. This year, he was the first Turkish citizen allowed access to the Armenian national archives, according to an Armenian government press release.
http://oneworld.blogsome.com/category/turkyilmaz/
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