Turkey Drops Charges Against Novelist Pamuk

[Inland]

http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/feeds/ap/2006/01/23/ap2467989.html

A Turkish court on Monday dropped charges against the country's best-known novelist for insulting "Turkishness," ending a high-profile trial that outraged Western observers and cast doubt on Turkey's commitment to free speech.

Orhan Pamuk went on trial for telling a Swiss newspaper in February that Turkey is unwilling to deal with two of the most painful episodes in recent Turkish history: the massacre of Armenians during World War I, which Turkey insists was not a planned genocide, and recent guerrilla fighting in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast.

"Thirty-thousand Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands, and nobody but me dares to talk about it," he said.

The controversy came at a particularly sensitive time for the overwhelmingly Muslim country. Turkey recently began membership talks with the European Union, which has harshly criticized the trial, questioning Turkey's commitment to freedom of expression.
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