TURKEY: 'Editor' Pamuk pens for freedom

Newspaper gives Nobel Prize in literature winner editorship for the day

Times of India
Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Istanbul --- Novelist and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk devoted the front page of a major Turkish newspaper on Sunday to the oppression of artists in his native country, fulfilling an old dream of becoming a professional journalist, if only for a day.

Pamuk, whose trial last year for the crime of "insulting Turkishness" received international condemnation, has a degree in journalism but had never practised the profession.

He was given editorial privileges for the Sunday edition of the newspaper Radikal. Pamuk's cover story criticised the Turkish press and the state for the suppression of free expression in Turkey.

His banner headline quoted a 1951 article about the Turkish intellectual Nazim Hikmet, an acclaimed poet and denounced communist who spent many years in prison in Turkey for his leftist affiliations and later died in exile in Moscow.

The 1951 article had featured Hikmet's photograph along with an encouragement for the Turkish public to recognise him and "spit in his face."

"This expression, which was used beside Nazim Hikmet's picture, summarises the unchanging position of writers and artists in the eyes of the state and the press," Pamuk's cover story said.

Pamuk was one of dozens of authors, journalists, publishers and scholars who have been charged with insulting Turkey, its officials or "Turkishness" under an infamous article of the penal code.

In the corner of the front page, Pamuk addressed writers directly in a friendly, self-effacing column under the headline, "I was a journalist for Radikal yesterday!"

He said the editorship for a day was a way to realise years of unfulfilled professional dreams, but that he lost all confidence on the way to work at the newspaper's offices.

Pamuk's front page also featured an article about a ceremony for Orthodox Christmas in Istanbul.Other articles on his front page dealt with reactions to the publication of video footage of the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Date Posted: 1/9/2007