Human Rights Watch call for acquittal of Orhan Pamuk
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Director of Europe and Central Asia for Human Rights Watch, Holly Cartner, said on Thursday that the trial of Orhan Pamuk will show the world which direction Turkish justice is heading. "The right signal would be prompt acquittal and a strong statement from the bench affirming that Turkish law protects freedom of expression,” added Cartner. Human Rights Watch is sending observers to the trial of Orhan Pamuk, which is due to start on Friday, December 16.
Orhan Pamuk, one of Turkey's most prominent writers is being charged with "insulting Turkishness" under article 301 of the criminal code at Şişli Primary Court No. 2 in Istanbul. Pamuk was indicted for telling the Swiss magazine Das Bild in February that, “Thirty thousand Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands.” If convicted, he could be imprisoned for up to four years.
Human Rights Watch are calling for an acquittal and that the indictment against him be sharply dismissed to allay serious doubts about its commitment to free expression in Turkey.
From Human Rights watch: The European Union enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, has expressed “serious concern” about the Pamuk case. He even suggested that it may have been staged as a deliberate challenge to recent reform trends.
“From the world-renowned poet Nazım Hikmet in the 1930s to Orhan Pamuk today, Turkish judges have prosecuted and imprisoned the country’s greatest writers,” said Cartner. “A Turkish judge needs to make a really strong declaration to prove that those days are finally over.”