Mother Pleads For Turkish Scholar’s Release From Armenian Jail
09 August 2005
Baku Today
Radio Free Europe 09/08/2005 09:08
Gulsin Turkyilmaz spoke to RFE/RL after visiting her 33-year-old son Yektan in a maximum security prison in Yerevan where he has been kept since his arrest on June 17. “I hope that they won’t imprison him,” she said. “If he knew that [he is violating Armenian laws] he wouldn’t do that.”
“Yektan would never do any harm to this country,” she added.
Turkyilmaz was allowed to see his mother the day before the start of his trial which is expected to be attended by representatives of Duke University in North Carolina where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Ottoman history. The unusually harsh charges leveled against him have drawn protests from U.S. academic circles, prominent Turkish intellectuals and a retired pro-Armenian U.S. senator.
[...]
Turkey’s government has still not officially commented on the prosecution of the Turkish national. Turkyilmaz is among few Turks who have publicly challenged Ankara’s vehement denial of the 1915-1923 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
[...]
Adding his voice to the outcry on August 2 was Bob Dole, a former U.S. Senate majority leader and Republican presidential candidate known for his staunch advocacy of Armenian issues. In a strongly-worded letter to Kocharian posted on Groong.com, he demanded that Turkyilmaz be released “at once,” saying that the Criminal Code article used against him is “unique in the community of free nations.”
Dole warned that failure to release Turkyilmaz would further tarnish Yerevan’s already negative image in the West. “Your detention of Yektan for seven weeks on any grounds would draw attention to failings in Armenia's democratic evolution,” he said. “To detain him on grounds as dubious as these calls into question Armenia's commitment to democracy in the first place.”
“Your treatment of Yektan makes Armenia look bad -- with good reason,” he added. “Armenia has many friends in the United States, but we cannot and will not defend the indefensible.”
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
Baku Today
Radio Free Europe 09/08/2005 09:08
Gulsin Turkyilmaz spoke to RFE/RL after visiting her 33-year-old son Yektan in a maximum security prison in Yerevan where he has been kept since his arrest on June 17. “I hope that they won’t imprison him,” she said. “If he knew that [he is violating Armenian laws] he wouldn’t do that.”
“Yektan would never do any harm to this country,” she added.
Turkyilmaz was allowed to see his mother the day before the start of his trial which is expected to be attended by representatives of Duke University in North Carolina where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Ottoman history. The unusually harsh charges leveled against him have drawn protests from U.S. academic circles, prominent Turkish intellectuals and a retired pro-Armenian U.S. senator.
[...]
Turkey’s government has still not officially commented on the prosecution of the Turkish national. Turkyilmaz is among few Turks who have publicly challenged Ankara’s vehement denial of the 1915-1923 genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.
[...]
Adding his voice to the outcry on August 2 was Bob Dole, a former U.S. Senate majority leader and Republican presidential candidate known for his staunch advocacy of Armenian issues. In a strongly-worded letter to Kocharian posted on Groong.com, he demanded that Turkyilmaz be released “at once,” saying that the Criminal Code article used against him is “unique in the community of free nations.”
Dole warned that failure to release Turkyilmaz would further tarnish Yerevan’s already negative image in the West. “Your detention of Yektan for seven weeks on any grounds would draw attention to failings in Armenia's democratic evolution,” he said. “To detain him on grounds as dubious as these calls into question Armenia's commitment to democracy in the first place.”
“Your treatment of Yektan makes Armenia look bad -- with good reason,” he added. “Armenia has many friends in the United States, but we cannot and will not defend the indefensible.”
Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.
posted by Vahe Balabanian at 12:37 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home