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Turkey Launches `Genocide' Investigation Against Taner Akcam

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  • Turkey Launches `Genocide' Investigation Against Taner Akcam

    The Armenian Reporter
    P.O. Box 129
    Paramus, NJ 07652
    Tel: (201) 226-1995
    Fax: (201) 226-1660
    E-mail: [email protected]
    Web: www.armenianreporteronline.com
    _______________

    BR EAKING NEWS

    Turkey Launches `Genocide' Investigation Against Taner Akçam

    PARAMUS, NJ - Tanar Akçam, the first Turkish intellectual to
    recognize the Armenian Genocide as such, has become the latest to be
    investigated for `insulting Turkishness.'
    The Istanbul newspaper Radikal has reported that an official
    investigation has been opened against University of Minnesota Akçam, who
    claims that the Armenian deportations of 1915 and following constituted a
    genocide. Radikal broke the story on January 9, 2007.
    In an October 6, 2006, newspaper column in the Turkish Armenian
    journal Agos, Akçam criticized the prosecution of Agos managing editor
    Hrant Dink for using the term `genocide,' thereby `insulting Turkishness'
    under the notorious Article 301 of Turkey's penal code. Highlighting the
    term `genocide,' Akçam declared himself an accessory to the charges
    against Dink, and urged readers to join in Dink's support.
    In response, Recep Akkus, an associate of ultra-nationalist
    attorney Kemal Kerinçsiz, filed a criminal complaint against Akçam based
    on penal code articles 301 (the `insulting Turkishness' provision), 214
    (`instigation to commit a crime'), 215 (`praise of a crime and a
    criminal'), and 216 (`instigating public animosity and hatred').
    Akçam replied in a deposition at the public prosecutor's office
    in Sisli on January 5.
    Akçam is the author of A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and
    the Question of Turkish Responsibility (New York: Metropolitan
    Books/Henry Holt, 2006), which has been widely and positively reviewed in
    the United States, and has brought a great deal of public attention
    lately to the author and the subject of the Armenian Genocide.
    Radikal's newsbrief on the investigation launched against Akçam
    can be read online at www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?
    haberno9558&tari h=09/01/2007. (The present article is based on a
    translation of the Radikal piece, produced by the Armenian Reporter.)
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