Scholars Petition President of Armenia on Behalf of Jailed Ph.D. Candidate
Monday, August 1, 2005
By AISHA LABI
More than 200 academics from the United States, Armenia, Turkey, and elsewhere have signed an open letter to the president of Armenia expressing their "grave concern" at the arrest and detention of a Ph.D. candidate from Duke University.
[...]
Mr. Turkyilmaz has been charged under a provision relating to the removal of "cultural values for the transportation of which special rules are established."
Ayse Gul Altinay, an assistant professor at Sabanci University in Istanbul who is coordinating efforts on Mr. Turkyilmaz's behalf, said that many of the scholars she has contacted, including Armenians and Armenian-Americans, were "shocked" to find out that Armenian law treats customs violations relating to books in the same way it does violations to do with nuclear weapons. If convicted, Mr. Turkyilmaz faces a jail sentence of four to eight years.
[...]
Orin Starn, Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation supervisor at Duke, described him as a "humane and lovely person, as well as the model of a top-notch researcher and scholar" who has won many awards and grants, including a Social Science Research Council fellowship that is supporting his work in Armenia. [...].
Ms. Altinay, who also completed her Ph.D. under Mr. Starn's supervision at Duke, said that the research Mr. Turkyilmaz is doing is highly original. "This was a very violent moment in the history of this region, and it's also a very complicated moment, when different nationalisms clashed with one another, ideologically and physically. This is the formation period of Turkish nationalism, of Kurdish nationalism, and of Armenian nationalism," she said.
[...]
Mr. Turkyilmaz is fluent in modern and Ottoman Turkish and different dialects of Armenian, as well as French and English.
"Yektan loves Armenia. He learned the language and is fascinated by all things Armenian," said Mr. Starn. "He made a lot of friends there, and part of the reason he's there and has been collecting books is that he's fascinated and engaged by Armenian culture." This was Mr. Turkyilmaz's fourth trip to Armenia and he had become the first Turkish scholar to be allowed to conduct research in the Armenian National Archive.
[...]
Last week Ms. Altinay visited Mr. Turkyilmaz in prison. She was the first person to be allowed to do so other than his lawyers. They spoke in what she described as an interrogation room, in the presence of a National Security Service agent, and neither was allowed to take notes. "I tried to explain that there are a number of people doing all they can to address his situation," she said. "He explained to me what he thought was happening. He had no idea that he had to have permission to take these books out of the country."
Mr. Turkyilmaz told Ms. Altinay that he had been very excited by the "wonderful material" the archives had yielded, but that all his research, including CD's with his work from the national archives, had been confiscated. A backup set of CD's he had left with a friend was also confiscated. "This was one of the signs that this is not a customs investigation," Ms. Altinay said. "He didn't even have these with him."
[...]
Mr. Starn plans to travel to Armenia on August 12, unless Mr. Turkyilmaz is released before then. No trial date has been set, but the judge who will hear the case has said that it would take place around August 15.
[...]
As of this morning, President Kocharian had not responded to the letter, which was sent to him on Friday with about 100 signatures. An updated version with an additional 100 signatures was sent today.
"This letter in and of itself has become a peace project," said Ms. Altinay. "The kind of people who have come together on this have never come together before on any other issues. There are prominent genocide researchers who have signed this document who have dedicated their whole lives to criticizing Turkey and Turks. That they are coming and signing this document, written by Turks, in support of Yektan, criticizing the actions of the Armenian government, is very crucial."
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.
By AISHA LABI
More than 200 academics from the United States, Armenia, Turkey, and elsewhere have signed an open letter to the president of Armenia expressing their "grave concern" at the arrest and detention of a Ph.D. candidate from Duke University.
[...]
Mr. Turkyilmaz has been charged under a provision relating to the removal of "cultural values for the transportation of which special rules are established."
Ayse Gul Altinay, an assistant professor at Sabanci University in Istanbul who is coordinating efforts on Mr. Turkyilmaz's behalf, said that many of the scholars she has contacted, including Armenians and Armenian-Americans, were "shocked" to find out that Armenian law treats customs violations relating to books in the same way it does violations to do with nuclear weapons. If convicted, Mr. Turkyilmaz faces a jail sentence of four to eight years.
[...]
Orin Starn, Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation supervisor at Duke, described him as a "humane and lovely person, as well as the model of a top-notch researcher and scholar" who has won many awards and grants, including a Social Science Research Council fellowship that is supporting his work in Armenia. [...].
Ms. Altinay, who also completed her Ph.D. under Mr. Starn's supervision at Duke, said that the research Mr. Turkyilmaz is doing is highly original. "This was a very violent moment in the history of this region, and it's also a very complicated moment, when different nationalisms clashed with one another, ideologically and physically. This is the formation period of Turkish nationalism, of Kurdish nationalism, and of Armenian nationalism," she said.
[...]
Mr. Turkyilmaz is fluent in modern and Ottoman Turkish and different dialects of Armenian, as well as French and English.
"Yektan loves Armenia. He learned the language and is fascinated by all things Armenian," said Mr. Starn. "He made a lot of friends there, and part of the reason he's there and has been collecting books is that he's fascinated and engaged by Armenian culture." This was Mr. Turkyilmaz's fourth trip to Armenia and he had become the first Turkish scholar to be allowed to conduct research in the Armenian National Archive.
[...]
Last week Ms. Altinay visited Mr. Turkyilmaz in prison. She was the first person to be allowed to do so other than his lawyers. They spoke in what she described as an interrogation room, in the presence of a National Security Service agent, and neither was allowed to take notes. "I tried to explain that there are a number of people doing all they can to address his situation," she said. "He explained to me what he thought was happening. He had no idea that he had to have permission to take these books out of the country."
Mr. Turkyilmaz told Ms. Altinay that he had been very excited by the "wonderful material" the archives had yielded, but that all his research, including CD's with his work from the national archives, had been confiscated. A backup set of CD's he had left with a friend was also confiscated. "This was one of the signs that this is not a customs investigation," Ms. Altinay said. "He didn't even have these with him."
[...]
Mr. Starn plans to travel to Armenia on August 12, unless Mr. Turkyilmaz is released before then. No trial date has been set, but the judge who will hear the case has said that it would take place around August 15.
[...]
As of this morning, President Kocharian had not responded to the letter, which was sent to him on Friday with about 100 signatures. An updated version with an additional 100 signatures was sent today.
"This letter in and of itself has become a peace project," said Ms. Altinay. "The kind of people who have come together on this have never come together before on any other issues. There are prominent genocide researchers who have signed this document who have dedicated their whole lives to criticizing Turkey and Turks. That they are coming and signing this document, written by Turks, in support of Yektan, criticizing the actions of the Armenian government, is very crucial."
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 10:43 AM
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