Last minute shocker: Vote of 2 to 1 cancels Armenian conference again
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Last minute pressure from a group of lawyers has led to yet another cancellation of a controversial conference on Armenians in Turkey. The conference, entitled "Ottoman Armenians During the Collapse of the Empire: Intellectual Responsibility and Problems of Democracy," was originally scheduled to occur in late May at Bosphorus University, but was postponed at that time due to pressure from many different directions, with the most noteable and public protest coming from Justice Minister Cemil Cicek.
The rescheduled conference was to have started today, and lasted for three days, again at Bosphorus University, but a last minute 2 to 1 vote in favor of the lawyers' request from Istanbul's 4th Chamber Court means that once again, the conference will have to be delayed. The decision, which came down definitively yesterday in the late afternoon, has shocked participants and planners alike. The lawyers who applied to the court to have the conference stopped are a group from the Istanbul Lawyers Union, led by the head of the Lawyers Union, Mustafa Ozkurt, and five others. Their application to have the conference stopped was based on claims that the universities involved in the conference had not chosen participants who reflected an equal view on the issues surrounding the Armenian genocide question. The universities, Bosphorus and Sabanci, who were sponsoring the conference, were ordered by the court to supply documents and forms showing exactly who was involved and at what level, and the final decision by the court was based on their claim that in fact the universities did not in fact supply the requested documents. Whether or not the conference will now be once again rescheduled or postponed indefinitely remains to be seen.
Maltepe's law faculty response: Court's decision a