Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkish General Staff Censors Taner Akcam
by Armenian Genocide Resource Center of Northern California (AGRC) - October 26, 2000
Posted: Tuesday, October 31, 2000 07:49 pm CST

PRESS RELEASE

ANKARA. Fri, 26 Oct 2000. - According to a highly reliable source, an official of the Turkish General Staff today issued an order to the editors of Yeni Bin Yil, a leftist newspaper, to stop publishing articles authored by maverick Turkish historian Dr. Taner Akcam who presently resides in Hamburg, Germany. In recent weeks Akcam with singular courage has been publicly challenging the deniers of the Armenian Genocide to get serious and study the available historical evidence.

Inveighing especially against a number of xenophobic columnists who "suddenly have become experts on the subject," he has been advising the latter to study a host of official Ottoman documents demonstrating the genocidal character of the Armenian deportations and massacres.

His frequent references to Ataturk in the role of denouncing the mass murder of the Armenians is unnerving the Turkish nationalists, and the radical right elements in particular. As a result of this challenge Akcam is again being publicly denounced as a traitor (vatan haini) by some columnists.

In order to create a legal basis to prosecute people like Akcam, the Turkish legislature is presently considering a draft bill. Crafted under the pressure of the Turkish General Staff, under the terms of Article 359 of this new Turkish Penal Code, the use of the word "genocide" (soykirim) in connection with the World War I fate of Ottoman Armenians will henceforth be treated as a criminal offense.

Though the ultimate approval of such a bill is in question, its coming into being in itself is indicative of the obstinacy with which the ruling Turkish military authorities, together with radical nationalists, are pursuing their goal of suppressing any serious debate on this topic.

It is in this sense obvious that the main obstacle against recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is the bullying posture of the Turkish General Staff which for some time now has become the omnipotent dominant institution in the Turkish Republic.

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