Brussels, 30/12/2005 (Agence Europe) - The trial of Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk in Turkey is starting to move in a direction that meets the demands expressed by the European Union. (EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has commented that the trial of the novelist was a freedom of speech case that put Turkey on trial. MEPs travelled to Istanbul to attend the opening of the trial, see EUROPE 9090).
In the case against Orhan Pamuk, accused of deliberately insulting the Turkish identity by telling a Swiss magazine that a million of Armenians and Kurds had been killed in Turkey but nobody else dared say it openly, the Turkish justice ministry will decide on whether the trial should continue. In theory, it should resume on 7 February. Orhan Pamuk was awarded the German booksellers' peace prize in 2005 (see EUROPE 9099).
A complaint was lodged against Orhan Pamuk at the end of October by a nationalist Turkish lawyers' association for damaging the image of the army, but the case was dropped. The novelist told German newspaper Die Welt that he didn't see the ruling AKP party as a threat to Turkish democracy, but the main threat was the army, which sometimes damages the development of democracy in Turkey.
Turkish foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, has criticised the launch of judicial proceedings against MEP Joost Lagendijk (Dutch Green MEP, chair of the delegation to the joint EU-Turkey parliamentary committee) for statements he made about the Turkish justice system and army. Gul said in an interview with private TV channel NTV that this type of thing did nothing to help Turkey and the systematic lodging of appeals in this type of case demonstrated a very deliberate will to cause chaos. Gul warned that Article 301 of the Turkish penal code (invoked in the case against Lagendijk) and other penal code measures were not untouchable and, if necessary, laws would be changed.