Writers in Prison Committee
If not now, when?
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A Writer before the Courts The writer Ömer Asan is facing charges for his book, The Culture of the Pontus, exploring Turkey's Pontian minority. He could face between 14 months and 4 years in jail if convicted. An Honorary Member of English PEN, he has appeared before the Istanbul State Security Court under Law 3713. He is specifically accused of producing 'writings aimed at breaking state unity'. All copies of the book have been impounded. Ömer Asan was born in 1961 in Of, Trebizond, an area with both a strong Islamic tradition and many Greek-speakers. It also has a significant, though aging, community that speaks a now rare Pontian language related to Greek. His father was a member of the Turkish Communist Party, and was twice imprisoned for his views after the military coups of 1971 and 1980. Asan was himself prosecuted for his political activities during Turkey's repressive 1980s. He moved to Istanbul as a young man and trained as an economist, but in recent years he has worked as a freelance writer. His travel pieces have appeared in magazines and tourist brochures. In 1994, he began some in-depth research into his native village. As he explained in an interview with the International Herald Tribune, I began to search for my identity because of the fact that the language my ancestors spoke was not Turkish … At school they taught us that we were Turks … but at home, in the village, everyone in the family spoke to each other in the language we called 'Romaiika'… By asking 'Who am I?' I plunged into the unknown. I had to find the answer… I began, in amateur fashion, to collect Pontian words. I decided to focus my research on Erekioi, my village of Of, and to study its living culture as an extant trace of Pontian culture. The resulting book was first published in Istanbul in 1996 as Pontos Kültürü (The Culture of the Pontus), and was reprinted in 1999 in Greece as The Civilization of the Pontus. It became highly respected among academics as well as being sought after by the local population. As Peter Mackridge, Professor of Modern Greek at Oxford University, says, the book, although 'written with no formal education or training in the various disciplines involved (including history, linguistics, and anthropology)' is 'a remarkable account of the history and culture of the region', full of 'valuable information' and rich in its use of living sources, especially interviews with elderly members of the village community. Ömer Asan's troubles began in December 2001. The book had been enjoying its second printing in Turkey, when a TV programme, broadcast live on Saturday nights, began a campaign against it. Zekeriya Beyaz, a professor of theology at Istanbul University, accused Asan of being a 'traitor', a 'friend of Greece' and a supporter of those who wanted Orthodox Christianity restored to the chiefly Islamic Pontian area. These accusations snowballed in what may have been an orchestrated assault on the part of the influential, nationalist MHP party (a conservative Islamic group whose ideas run counter to Turkey's increasingly cosmopolitan outlook). Professor Mackridge sees Asan as 'a scapegoat' in the MHP's campaign to 'undermine efforts to foster a civil society in Turkey'. On January 21, 2002, the State Security Court in Istanbul ordered all copies of Asan's book to be withdrawn from sale and issued Asan and his publisher with a summons to a hearing, at which these accusations were discussed. The case was then referred to a civil court. Since then, Asan has been formally indicted and the proceedings are underway. The WiPC thanks Siobhan Dowd and the Literary Review (London) for permission to extract parts of their May 2002 'Silenced Voices'.
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