Turkish judge halts 'free speech' trial of novelist

A judge halted the trial of Turkey’s best-known novelist today, saying the Justice Ministry must first approve the explosive legal case that raises questions about Turkey’s commitment to free speech.

Judge Metin Aydin’s insistence that the ministry first approve the trial against Orhan Pamuk for insulting national honour is forcing Turkey’s politicians to grapple with whether they are willing to press forward with a high-profile trial despite opposition from the European Union.

The head of the European Parliament delegation monitoring the trial in Istanbul, which opened and was closed after a half hour, warned that the hearings were “very bad for Turkey’s image in Europe.”

Turkey began accession talks with the EU on October 3 and Dutch conservative Camiel Eurlings cautioned that the impact of the Pamuk trial on those talks “could be huge, and it could be negative.”

In a brief statement to the press, Pamuk said “it is not good for Turkey, for our democracy, for such freedom of expression cases to be prolonged.”

The deep emotions that the case has stirred up were obvious at the trial.

As Pamuk left the courthouse, a group of several dozen nationalists shouted: “Traitor,” “Turkey is ashamed of you!” “Shame on you!” and pelted his car with eggs. Pamuk was escorted by police in riot gear who used shields to push the crowd back.

Inside the courthouse, Denis MacShane, Britain’s former minister for Europe and a member of the British parliament, said that “the accusation of insulting the state is something you associate with dictatorial regimes, not with a modern European state. This has come as a real blow to Turkey’s supporters in the European Union.”

“You can’t put one of the world’s best living novelists on trial and say this is just growing pains,” MacShane added.

Pamuk, who has often been mentioned as a Nobel Literature Prize candidate, is being tried for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it.”

Prosecutors have charged him with insulting the Turkish Republic and “Turkishness,” a charge that requires Justice Ministry approval.

The court applied for Justice Ministry approval on December 2 and rather than drop the case, Aydin said he would wait for the government’s answer.

Justice Minister Cemil Cicek indicated that he was in no rush to give approval. The court is scheduled to meet again on February 7.

“This is how it should be done, you asked a question, of course you will wait for the answer,” Cicek told reporters.

Turkey has for years come under severe EU criticism for laws which stifle freedom of speech and the Pamuk case is being seen by many as a test of Turkey’s willingness to adopt a more European standard of press freedoms.