“When has any publisher ever tried to avoid publicity for his book?”
That is the tagline of Robert Fisk’s article that recently appeared in the Independent.
It seems that the Turkish publisher for his book “The Great War for Civilization” has decided to “undertake the publication quietly, which means there will be no press campaign for Mr Fisk’s book. Thus, our request from [for] Mr Fisk is to show his support to us if any trial [is] … held against his book. We hope that Mr Fisk and HarperCollins can understand our reservations.”
Why?
The book includes a chapter entitled “The First Holocaust”, dealing with the genocide of one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.
Turkey, a country trying to gain admission into the EU (European Union) still has a law on their books called Law or Article 301. It is a law used to punish writers for being “unTurkish”. Although Turkey has instituted a sweeping series of reforms to expand freedom of expression to help their chances to get into the EU there are still plenty of old school prosecutors and judges.
Since Fiske is not Turkish the law does not apply to him but his Turkish publishers believe the law can be used against them and have asked Fiske if he would face the court with them if need be. His reply “I would be honoured to stand in a Turkish court and talk about the genocide.”
The Turkish publisher wants to release the book “like illicit pornography”, under a veil of silence, and they also want Fiske to fight for them in court if they get charged under the Law 301.
Keep in mind that in January the journalist Hrant Dink, editor in chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian weekly Agos, was murdered outside his Istanbul office. Dink was previously convicted under Law 301 in 2005.
Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk has also faced the wrath of Law 301 though the Turkish government had to crack under enormous international pressure and eventually dropped the charges but after Dink’s murder there are new concerns for his safety.
Where does our country stand on this issue:
World Politics Watch had an article yesterday mentioning that “U.S. lawmakers have recently introduced non-binding resolutions that would declare up to 1.5 million Armenians victims of genocide at the hands of Turkish forces almost a century ago.”
Washington Times op/ed “Turks then, now and tomorrow” by Tulin Daloglu, Washington correspondent for Turkey’s Star TV
Image via World Politics Watch: Early-20th Century poster of the American Committee for Relief in the Near East, which raised money for refugees of the conflict during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire