Chronicle of Higher Education

July 31 2007

A scholar at the University of Minnesota's Center for Holocaust &

Genocide Studies has filed a case with the European Court of Human

Rights that he says is the first attempt to overturn through that

legal channel a controversial provision of Turkey's penal code that

criminalizes "denigrating Turkishness."

Taner Akcam, a Turkish sociologist and historian, has faced retribution

in his home country for his academic work about the killing of as

many as 1.5 million Armenians during the waning days of the Ottoman

Empire, which modern Turkish governments have refused to characterize

as genocide. Mr. Akcam has been outspoken in his willingness to do

so, in for example his most recent book, A Shameful Act, which was

published last year, and he has come under attack as a result.

He was charged under Article 301 of Turkey's penal code, which has

been used frequently against journalists, academics, and writers,

and which Amnesty International says "poses a direct threat to the

fundamental right to freedom of expression."

Hrant Dink, a journalist of Armenian origin who was also charged

under Article 301, was killed earlier this year. Elif Shafak, an

assistant professor of Turkish and women's studies at the University

of Arizona, was acquitted last year of Article 301 charges stemming

from her latest novel.

Mr. Akcam was charged with Article 301 violations when he wrote

an article in support of Mr. Dink, a friend, before his death, and

he says that he has also received many death threats and has been

subjected to online harassment, for example through false entries in

his online Wikipedia biography.