NOBEL PRIZE WINNER OHRAN PAMUK ATTACKS TURKISH GOVERNMENT
Support A1+!Turkish writer Ohran Pamuk, Nobel Prize holder in Literature, accused Turkey on Tuesday of restricting freedom of expression, at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair, in which the Turkish president Abdullah Gül also participated.
“Turkey’s Government unfortunately continues to punish writers and prohibit books,” he said, adding that "the censure has always been in force in the country on the basis of article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, with which one tries to intimidate writers like me, of the hundreds of authors and journalists trailed in justice and condemned,” noted the Nobel Prize Holder 2006.
“Some were even killed. Me, I am alive here and I am ready to make the opening speech,” he said to journalists.
“The access to Youtube and other Turkish websites are forbidden in Turkey for political reasons,” he still denounced, ensuring however that “the authors and editors did not yield to intimidations.”
To remind, the author of the “Snow” had been worried by Turkish justice and stance in 2005 to denounce the Armenian Genocide.
However, at the end of Pamuk's speech, President Gül diplomatically applauded the writer.
