Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey's Penal Appellate Supreme Court Claims Armenians Massacred the Turks
by Hurriyet - November 20,2000
Posted: Sunday, November 26, 2000 07:48 pm CST

Ankara, November 20,2000.  - Today's Hurriyet, one of Turkey's largest newspapers, carries a story from its Ankara correspondent Oya Armutcu with the headline "The Armenians Did Commit The Massacre."

At issue is a book which the publishers of Belge Publishing House in Istanbul had published in 1995 which was a Turkish translation of a monograph by Prof.  Vahakn Dadrian.  The editors of Yale Journal of International Law, after careful scrutiny, published that monograph in the Summer 1989 issue under the title, "Genocide as Problem of National and International Law:  The World War I Armenian Case and its Contemporary Legal Ramifications."

Citing the provisions of the notorious Clause 2 of Article 312 of the Turkish Penal Code, which prohibits the fomenting among the peoples of Turkey racial, religious animosities, the Prosecutor of the Fifth State Security Court in Istanbul took the publisher Mrs. Ayse Zarakolu and the translator Yavuz Alogan to court but lost the case in December 1995.  The case was appealed and after ten months of deliberations the Appellate Court, by a 3 to 2 majority vote upheld the lower court's decision of acquittal on May 6, 1996.

However, as a result of recent worldwide publicity surrounding the Armenian genocide and the negative fallout of that publicity in Turkey, some circles in Turkey began to agitate against the Appellate Court, especially against the three judges who voted in favor of that acquittal, including Naci Unver, the presiding judge. These men were portrayed as props who supported the Armenian assertions of genocide thereby burdening Turkey with a host of problems.  Foremost among those agitating is Akit, an Islamist newspaper.

In its October 5, 2000 issue, the editors directly attacked the three judges for endorsing accusations of mass murder made in the book.  They maintained that the three judges in contrast to their two other colleagues, in their deliberations used "ideological criteria" instead of relying on "legal standards."  Echoing these sentiments Dr.  Fahri Oner, one of the leaders of the Turkish lobby in the USA told the editors of Hurriyet on October 5 that he was disappointed that "the organs of the High Court in Turkey were not mindful of the damage they were causing to national interests when rendering such judgements."  He expressed the hope that the Armenians will not exploit this development and use it "against us."

In a previous article Akit bemoaned the fact that the Islamist boss Erbakan, whose term as duly elected Prime Minister of Turkey was cut short by the military authorities two years ago, is facing a prison term for saying much milder things about Turkey whereas the henceforth legally authorized book in question describes the Turks as "murderers."

According to today's Hurriyet, the presiding judge of the Appellate Supreme Court finally decided to confront this agitation.  In an official letter sent to the Office of the Prime Minister of Turkey Naci Unver strongly denied the accusations leveled against him and his colleagues, denouncing them as being "deliberately untrue."  He enclosed a copy of the text of the judgement, and to dispel all doubt about the correctness of the judgement, he offered these additional comments.  The book in question "distorts" history. "The real massacre was perpetrated against the Turks by the Armenians."  Moreover, "through this verdict we demolished the Armenian claims one by one.  Dadrian deviated from the truth by one-sided arguments.  We clearly stated with respect to allegations of an Armenian genocide that no such thing happened."

To explain why in spite of all this the majority of the judges acquitted both the Turkish publisher and the Turkish translator, Unver said this:  "The components of the book do not come within the meaning of penal code 312/2 on the basis of which the prosecutor took them to court in the first place."  In other words, there was no law prohibiting the publication of a book with such contents.  Therefore, there can be no punishment.

What is missing in this communication to the Prime Minister, and in the ensuing interview with Hurriyet, is a key sentence from the verdict which subtly but forcefully admits the fact of the Armenian genocide thus undermining the whole gamut of denialist arguments embedded in the verdict.  That sentence in so many words states that the size of the Armenian population in Turkey today is so negligible that there can be no danger whatever of inciting them racially or religiously.

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