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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Jan 31 2007
Pamuk cancels trip to Germany, media say safety concerns play role
Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's internationally acclaimed novelist, who won
last year's Nobel Prize in literature, canceled a trip to Germany on
short notice as the German media reported that he was worried about
his personal security.
Pamuk's publisher confirmed that he had called off the trip, but
declined to confirm reports in a German newspaper that he was
concerned about his safety. `He has cancelled his trip, we do not
have further information,' said a spokeswoman for Hanser publishers
in Munich. Berlin's Free University also said the writer had
cancelled a visit to collect an honorary doctorate on Friday.
Germany's Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper said the trip had been
called off for security reasons because Pamuk believed he could be
the victim of an attack following the murder on Jan.19 of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul.
Dink, like Pamuk, was tried under an article of the Turkish Penal
Code for `insulting Turkishness' for his comments about an alleged
genocide of Armenians at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire in
eastern Anatolia. Dink was sentenced to a six-month suspended
imprisonment, while the case against Pamuk was dropped on a
technicality.
In his last column before his death, Dink complained he had been
loathed because he had been singled out as a person who has insulted
Turkishness. Prosecutors brought charges against Pamuk after he told
a Swiss paper in 2005 that one million Armenians had died in Turkey
during World War I and 30,000 Kurds had perished in recent decades.
Though the court dismissed the charges against Pamuk, other writers
and journalists are still being prosecuted under the Article 301 and
can face a jail sentence of up to three years.
Turkey has been under intense pressure from the EU to change Article
301, while the government says it needs social consensus before
taking any step on the issue. The government has consulted with
non-governmental organizations on possible changes and complains they
have not come up with concrete proposals on how it should be amended.
NGOs, however, said they had already put forward their proposals.
Pamuk was due to have been awarded an honorary doctorate by Berlin's
Free University on Friday before visiting several German cities,
including Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich on a book reading
tour starting at the end of this week. Pamuk's best-known novels
include `My Name is Red' and `Snow,' works that focus on the clash
between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islamism --
problems at the heart of Turkey's struggle to develop.
01.02.2007
Ýstanbul Today's Zaman
Jan 31 2007
Pamuk cancels trip to Germany, media say safety concerns play role
Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's internationally acclaimed novelist, who won
last year's Nobel Prize in literature, canceled a trip to Germany on
short notice as the German media reported that he was worried about
his personal security.
Pamuk's publisher confirmed that he had called off the trip, but
declined to confirm reports in a German newspaper that he was
concerned about his safety. `He has cancelled his trip, we do not
have further information,' said a spokeswoman for Hanser publishers
in Munich. Berlin's Free University also said the writer had
cancelled a visit to collect an honorary doctorate on Friday.
Germany's Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper said the trip had been
called off for security reasons because Pamuk believed he could be
the victim of an attack following the murder on Jan.19 of
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Istanbul.
Dink, like Pamuk, was tried under an article of the Turkish Penal
Code for `insulting Turkishness' for his comments about an alleged
genocide of Armenians at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire in
eastern Anatolia. Dink was sentenced to a six-month suspended
imprisonment, while the case against Pamuk was dropped on a
technicality.
In his last column before his death, Dink complained he had been
loathed because he had been singled out as a person who has insulted
Turkishness. Prosecutors brought charges against Pamuk after he told
a Swiss paper in 2005 that one million Armenians had died in Turkey
during World War I and 30,000 Kurds had perished in recent decades.
Though the court dismissed the charges against Pamuk, other writers
and journalists are still being prosecuted under the Article 301 and
can face a jail sentence of up to three years.
Turkey has been under intense pressure from the EU to change Article
301, while the government says it needs social consensus before
taking any step on the issue. The government has consulted with
non-governmental organizations on possible changes and complains they
have not come up with concrete proposals on how it should be amended.
NGOs, however, said they had already put forward their proposals.
Pamuk was due to have been awarded an honorary doctorate by Berlin's
Free University on Friday before visiting several German cities,
including Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Munich on a book reading
tour starting at the end of this week. Pamuk's best-known novels
include `My Name is Red' and `Snow,' works that focus on the clash
between past and present, East and West, secularism and Islamism --
problems at the heart of Turkey's struggle to develop.
01.02.2007
Ýstanbul Today's Zaman