By Sebnem Arsu The New York Times
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2005
ISTANBUL A Turkish court put off the trial of a prominent novelist after a brief hearing Friday, giving the government until Feb. 7 to decide whether to go ahead with criminal proceedings against him for mentioning the Armenian genocide by the Turks in 1915 in a magazine interview in which he also said 30,000 Kurds had been killed since the late 1980s.
Angry nationalists booed and jostled the heavy police escort that took the best-selling writer, Orhan Pamuk, into the packed courthouse, where observers from European Union countries Turkey hopes will admit it to the 25-nation group were present.
“I am sorry that I could not testify,”‘ Pamuk said in a statement issued by his publisher after the court decided that the Justice Ministry in Ankara had to give authorization for the trial to proceed.
“Dragging out cases of thought crimes which shouldn’t be begun in the first place and starting new ones are not good for Turkey, for our democracy,” he said. He remains free while awaiting trial but could face a jail term of six months to three years if convicted.
Policemen with plastic shields escorted Pamuk, 53, from the courthouse into a minivan under a barrage of eggs and invective by angry protesters, and as shouts of “Traitor Pamuk” echoed in the narrow streets.
Pamuk is accused of “‘insulting Turkish identity” by telling Das Magazin, a Swiss publication, in an interview last February that the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman empire in 1915 and the deaths of Kurds in Turkish operations against the PKK separatist group in the 1980s were still forbidden subjects in Turkey.
Article 301 of the Turkish penal code, though revised last summer as part of Turkey’s efforts to meet the legal and economic standards required to join the European Union, still criminalizes public comments that “denigrate Turkishness” or the government or the army, and nearly 60 intellectuals have been charged under it.
At the end of the hourlong hearing, Joost Lagendijk, a Dutch European Parliament advocate of Turkish membership in the EU, expressed disappointment that the government had not decided to dismiss the trial.
“Now it is up to the government to take the responsibility,” he said. “They can say that the penal code was reformed not to restrict the freedom of speech but to allow for more.”
The Turkish justice minister, Cemil Cicek, speaking to NTV news television, accused journalists of stirring up emotions and said that the court’s decision should not be taken as a surprise.
“A question has been asked, so we should wait for the reply,” he said.
Denis McShane, a member of the British Parliament observing the proceedings, said that he had been hit on the face by a nationalist lawyer during the melee.
“I cannot believe these lawyers represent Turkish democracy,” McShane said.
The editor of the only Armenian newspaper in Turkey, Hirant Dink, was also showered with insults and had to be escorted from the courthouse by the security force.
On Thursday, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, said that it was not Pamuk, whose novels including “Snow,” “My Name Is Red” and “The Black Book” have been translated into 34 languages, but Turkey that would be on trial. He called on the government to prove that the changes in the penal code were not simply window dressing to convince Europe that it could start talking with Turkey about EU membership.
Another European Parliament member at the trial, Camiel Eurlings of The Netherlands, said, “If Turkey wants to continue toward the EU, and I hope it will, then really freedom of expression is a fundamental necessity.”
Mehmet Altan, a professor at Istanbul University who had been acquitted of a similar charge, predicted that the charges against the novelist would not stick.
“This was a provocative plot by those who are trying to block Turkey’s entry into the EU,” Altan said. “The case served its purpose, so they’ve done with it.”
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