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?
09/01/2007. (The present article is based on a translation of the
Radikal piece, produced by the Armenian Reporter.)
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