September 2, 2005 - 09:09 AMT
TURKISH WRITER THREATENED WITH IMPRISONMENT FOR STATEMENTS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
Well-known writer Orhan Pamuk can be sentenced to three years of imprisonment for the statements on the Armenian Genocide. The Turkish authorities initiated the investigation against Pamuk in February 2005 when during an interview with Tas Magazin Swiss edition he said, "30 thousand of Kurds and a million of Armenians were killed in Ottoman Turkey and no one except me dares to say that." Pamuk's statements aroused stormy negative reaction among the Turkish nationalists. Orhan Pamuk's trial is scheduled for December 16. The writer's words can be rated as "offence of the Turkish national self-consciousness". Neither the writer nor the representatives of the Turkish Office of Prosecutor General have commented on the accusations yet, Reuters agency reports.