Kemal Kerincsiz, the lawyer who tried to prosecute Orhan Pamuk, Hrant Dink, Elif Shafak, and several other writers for “insulting Turkishness,” has been arrested with 32 others following an investigation into a weapons cache discovered in Istanbul last year. That investigation uncovered evidence of active plots to assassinate Pamuk, three politicians, and a prominent journalist and to stage a series of bombings in the coming year, according to reports appearing in the Turkish Press.Kerincsiz is an ultranationalist who has pushed in the past for harsh sentences for Pamuk, Dink, and others under Article 301, the law against "insulting Turkishness." That law is finally being amended, but "it is just one of many laws that limit freedom of expression for intellectuals in Turkey."
Read more at PEN.org, where you can also listen to Pamuk's Freedom to Write lecture from the PEN World Voices festival.
No comments:
Post a Comment