Turkish journalists on trial over Armenian conference row
A Turkish court Tuesday began hearing a case against five prominent journalists who criticised a court ruling last year that blocked a conference on the Armenian massacres of World War I.
AFP, Istanbul, 7/2/2006
The trial of the five men accused of insulting the judiciary and
attempting to influence the course of justice in their newspaper
columns opened at the Bagcilar courthouse here under heavy police
guard.
Ismet Berkan, Erol Katircioglu, Haluk Sahin and Murat Belge of
Radikal and Hasan Cemal of Milliyet, both liberal newspapers, risk six
months to 10 years in jail if found guilty.
Joost Lagendijk, co-chair of the Turkey-EU joint parliamentary
committee, attended the trial seen as a further test of freedom of
expression in Turkey, which is seeking to join the European Union.
The conference at the heart of the trial was a landmark gathering
of academics and intellectuals who dispute Ankara's official version on
the mass killings that occurred in the dying years of the Ottoman
Empire, the predecessor of modern Turkey.
Petitioned by a group of nationalist lawyers, an Istanbul court
ordered the suspension of the September 2005 event to widespread
criticism.
But the gathering got under way just a day late and at a different
venue than planned after the government -- which favored open
discussion of the issue, though it categorically rejects the term
genocide and disputes the death toll claimed by Armenians – pointed out
a loophole in the court ruling to the organizers.
Armenians claim that up to 1.5 million of their kin were
slaughtered in orchestrated killings that they and many Western
countries consider a genocide.
Links:
groong.usc.edu/news/msg136866.html
news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/4688992.stm
