Turkish Thought Crime Trial Delayed

nytimes:Turks Defer Trial of Novelist Who Cited Armenian Deaths

A Turkish court put off the trial of a prominent novelist on Friday after a brief hearing, giving the government until Feb. 7 to decide whether to go ahead with criminal proceedings against him. The charge involves his mentioning the killing of a million Armenians by the Turks in 1915 when he gave a magazine interview, in which he also said 30,000 Kurds had been killed since the late 1980's.

Angry nationalists booed the bestselling writer, Orhan Pamuk, and jostled the police as they escorted him into the packed courthouse, where the proceedings were monitored by observers from the European Union, which Turkey hopes to join in coming years.

"I am sorry that I could not testify," Mr. Pamuk said in a statement issued by his publisher, after the court decided that the Justice Ministry in Ankara had to give authorization for the trial to proceed.

"Dragging out cases of thought crimes which shouldn't be begun in the first place and starting new ones are not good for Turkey, for our democracy," he said. He remains free but could face a jail term of six months to three years if convicted. Read more