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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Duke U. Student Is Free From Jail in Armenia After Conviction on
Book-Exportation Charges
By AISHA LABI
HEADLINES
A Duke University graduate student who was jailed for two months in
Armenia was released on Tuesday and given a two-year suspended
sentence for attempting to export old books from the country
illegally.
The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, is a Turkish citizen who is a
Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology. After a weeklong trial, he
was convicted of violating an Armenian law that prohibits the export
of books older than 50 years without permission. He could have been
sentenced to four to eight years in prison, but the court opted not to
imprison Mr. Turkyilmaz after a last-minute request by prosecutors,
who said Mr. Turkyilmaz had cooperated and had partially acknowledged
his guilt.
Mr. Turkyilmaz was arrested on June 17 as he tried to leave Armenia
for Turkey with about 90 second-hand books he had purchased legally at
bookstalls in the open-air market in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. He
was held for more than a month before he was charged. Scholars from
around the world, including many Armenians, reacted with outrage at
his detention and more than 200 signed an open letter of protest to
Armenia's president, Robert Kocharian (The Chronicle, August 1).
Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke who is
Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation adviser, traveled to Armenia for the
trial. In an e-mail message from Yerevan on Wednesday, he said that
"all of the books that Yektan had were related to his research on
Armenian history, culture, and politics."
Mr. Starn said Mr. Turkyilmaz "was completely unaware of the law
prohibiting the export of books older than 50 years from Armenia; all
of the booksellers who testified at the trial related that they, in
fact, were either unaware of the law themselves or had not told Yektan
about it."
Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation is to be titled "Imagining 'Turkey,'
Creating a Nation: The Politics of Geography and State Formation in
Eastern Anatolia, 1908-1938." The period that Mr. Turkyilmaz's
dissertation research focuses on and its role in fostering modern
Turkish and Armenian nationalism is at the heart of continued tensions
between Turkey and Armenia. An especially inflammatory subject is the
deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in 1915: Armenians
characterize the killings as genocide, while Turkey officially rejects
this view.
Mr. Turkyilmaz is fluent in Armenian, as well as modern and Ottoman
Turkish, different dialects of Kurdish, French, and English. His
fluency allowed him to address the court in his own defense.
"I regret what happened and accept that as a result of my
inconsistency and indifference, I did not know legal requirements
existing in the Republic of Armenia and failed to obtain permission
for the books in a manner defined by the law," Mr. Turkyilmaz said in
his final statement at the trial. "As I said earlier, I never sought
to violate the laws of the Republic of Armenia or to cause any damage
to the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people."
Mr. Turkyilmaz is free from jail but is not permitted to leave Armenia
until the sentence becomes official, which is expected to take place
in two weeks.
When Mr. Turkyilmaz was arrested, the books he was carrying were
confiscated, as were his laptop computer, his camera, and computer
disks containing his research materials. In announcing the verdict,
the trial judge said that the government would return all of the
research material, according to Mr. Starn.
"We hope, and expect," Mr. Starn wrote, "that the Armenian authorities
will allow Yektan to leave the country at the end of this 15-day
period with the return of all these materials, which are a crucial
part of Yektan's dissertation research."
Despite his incarceration, Mr. Turkyilmaz said after his release that
he was looking forward to doing more research at the Armenian National
Archives and was hoping to visit them as soon as possible, perhaps
even before his departure, according to a Radio Free Europe report. "I
have not yet finished my work there and am glad that I will stay in
Yerevan for 15 more days," he said. "I love this city."
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Duke U. Student Is Free From Jail in Armenia After Conviction on
Book-Exportation Charges
By AISHA LABI
HEADLINES
A Duke University graduate student who was jailed for two months in
Armenia was released on Tuesday and given a two-year suspended
sentence for attempting to export old books from the country
illegally.
The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, is a Turkish citizen who is a
Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology. After a weeklong trial, he
was convicted of violating an Armenian law that prohibits the export
of books older than 50 years without permission. He could have been
sentenced to four to eight years in prison, but the court opted not to
imprison Mr. Turkyilmaz after a last-minute request by prosecutors,
who said Mr. Turkyilmaz had cooperated and had partially acknowledged
his guilt.
Mr. Turkyilmaz was arrested on June 17 as he tried to leave Armenia
for Turkey with about 90 second-hand books he had purchased legally at
bookstalls in the open-air market in Yerevan, the Armenian capital. He
was held for more than a month before he was charged. Scholars from
around the world, including many Armenians, reacted with outrage at
his detention and more than 200 signed an open letter of protest to
Armenia's president, Robert Kocharian (The Chronicle, August 1).
Orin Starn, a professor of cultural anthropology at Duke who is
Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation adviser, traveled to Armenia for the
trial. In an e-mail message from Yerevan on Wednesday, he said that
"all of the books that Yektan had were related to his research on
Armenian history, culture, and politics."
Mr. Starn said Mr. Turkyilmaz "was completely unaware of the law
prohibiting the export of books older than 50 years from Armenia; all
of the booksellers who testified at the trial related that they, in
fact, were either unaware of the law themselves or had not told Yektan
about it."
Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation is to be titled "Imagining 'Turkey,'
Creating a Nation: The Politics of Geography and State Formation in
Eastern Anatolia, 1908-1938." The period that Mr. Turkyilmaz's
dissertation research focuses on and its role in fostering modern
Turkish and Armenian nationalism is at the heart of continued tensions
between Turkey and Armenia. An especially inflammatory subject is the
deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in 1915: Armenians
characterize the killings as genocide, while Turkey officially rejects
this view.
Mr. Turkyilmaz is fluent in Armenian, as well as modern and Ottoman
Turkish, different dialects of Kurdish, French, and English. His
fluency allowed him to address the court in his own defense.
"I regret what happened and accept that as a result of my
inconsistency and indifference, I did not know legal requirements
existing in the Republic of Armenia and failed to obtain permission
for the books in a manner defined by the law," Mr. Turkyilmaz said in
his final statement at the trial. "As I said earlier, I never sought
to violate the laws of the Republic of Armenia or to cause any damage
to the Republic of Armenia and the Armenian people."
Mr. Turkyilmaz is free from jail but is not permitted to leave Armenia
until the sentence becomes official, which is expected to take place
in two weeks.
When Mr. Turkyilmaz was arrested, the books he was carrying were
confiscated, as were his laptop computer, his camera, and computer
disks containing his research materials. In announcing the verdict,
the trial judge said that the government would return all of the
research material, according to Mr. Starn.
"We hope, and expect," Mr. Starn wrote, "that the Armenian authorities
will allow Yektan to leave the country at the end of this 15-day
period with the return of all these materials, which are a crucial
part of Yektan's dissertation research."
Despite his incarceration, Mr. Turkyilmaz said after his release that
he was looking forward to doing more research at the Armenian National
Archives and was hoping to visit them as soon as possible, perhaps
even before his departure, according to a Radio Free Europe report. "I
have not yet finished my work there and am glad that I will stay in
Yerevan for 15 more days," he said. "I love this city."