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URGENT CALL TO DEFEND REGHTEOUS AZERIS
Ragip Zarakolu
Society - Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 10:47
Conscience is a distinctive moral quality of mankind. The
conscientious, the honest, the righteous or whatever you may choose
to call them represent the true pride and honour of a country, but
criminals wielding an axe never can! A writer in Azerbaijan who
should have been the pride of his country is presently in mortal
danger, and the threat emanates from the President of the country,
who is a post-Soviet autocrat. The title of "People's Writer" of
the Republic of Azerbaijan and the associated state award have been
rescinded, his author's pension has been cancelled, and his wife and
son have been fired from their jobs. This writer is Ekrem Eylisli, an
author, scriptwriter and dramatist who adopted the great Soviet writer
Maxim Gorky's philosophy of the fraternity of peoples at Maxim Gorky
Literature Institute in Moscow, dedicated to that great man. He is
presently 75 years old, a prolific writer published in many magazines
and newspapers. He was elected to the parliament in 2005. His literary
life had begun in 1959 with poetry, and continued with stories, plays,
scripts and novels. He has also translated many works by humanist
writers such as Gabriel G. Marquez, Turgenev and Chinghiz Aitmatov
into the Azeri language. His plays have been performed in many former
Soviet cities including Yerevan. Lynch mobs are now mobilized in front
of his house, very much like we had once witnessed in Maras and Sivas.
An outstanding slogan is >, calling on
the Azeri officer Ramil Sahiboglu Seferov who decapitated an Armenian
officer called Gurgen Margaryan with an axe in his sleep in 2004,
twenty days before they were to return home (*). They were co-trainees
in the NATO-sponsored > program in Budapest.
Melahet Ibrahimqizi -an Azeri parliamentarian who had been a part of
the delegation flown in to Ankara to talk with parliamentary chairman
Koksal Toptan (**), CHP leader Deniz Baykal, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli,
as well as various AKP functionaries, and eventually to block the
move altogether when a protocol was signed in 2009 between Armenia
and Turkey to normalize relations and open the border- now tries to
extend the lynch campaign to Turkey as well, saying in an aggressive
speech delivered in the Azeri parliament that Eylisli insults not only
Azerbaijanis, but the Turkish nation as a whole. Demands were even
made in that parliamentary session that the writer be subjected to a
DNA test and that he should be deprived of citizenship. The reason
for all this is the publication of Eylisli's latest novella "Stone
Dreams" in the Russian literary magazine Druzhba Narodov (Fraternity
of Peoples). The novella has not even been published in Azeri yet. An
enraged mob gathered in front of Eynisli's home in the capital Baku,
shouting "Shame on you, traitor!", and burning his books, and his
portraits with a cross printed on his forehead. The novella tells the
story of two Azeri men who tried to protect their Armenian neighbours
from ethnic violence. It also mentions pogroms against Armenians in
Sumguit and Baku cities in a vein of conscientious criticism. The
novella was actually finished in 2007, but could only be published
5 years later in Russian. It is interesting to note that an Armenian
writer also dealt with the Armenian-Azeri conflict in a conscientious
tone -at about the same time-- and was awarded a prize in the Republic
of Azerbaijan. The Writers Union where he was a member reacted to
his acceptance of an Azerbaijani award (though not to his writing of
the story itself), whereupon the writer resigned from the Union in
protest. However, he never became the target of a hate campaign as
is the case in Baku now. Researcher Sarkis Hatspanian says that the
Armenian writer Levon Cavakhyan wrote the story "Kirve" (Godfather)
in 2008, saying "Azeris are not my enemy" (***). Azeri writer Ekrem
Eynisli -who had said "Armenians are not my enemy" at about the same
time--now faces a lynch campaign 5 years later for having uttered the
same sentence. Though invited by Western countries and Russia, Ekrem
Eynisli takes a proud stance, saying "This is my homeland and I will
not leave it". I call upon international public opinion as well as the
democratic public in Turkey and Azerbaijan to to solidarize actively
with Ekrem Eynisli in order to avert a new murder similar to that
committed against Hrant Dink. Ragip Zarakolu (****) (*) Seferov was
condemned to life imprisonment in Hungary, but Azerbaijan's president
Aliev had him immediately released by presidential pardon on August
31, 2012, when he was extradited to Azerbaijan. (**) Koksal Toptan
was to exercise his powers as Chairman of the Turkish Parliament in
2009 in impounding and returning -at the behest of CHP's MP Sukru
Elekdag--books sent to members of parliament by the Gomidas Institute,
thereby violating the parliamentarians' freedom to communicate. (***)
facebook.com/notes/sarkis-hatspanian/kirve/489684637733351 (****)
Founding Member of Human Rights Association and of Social History
Foundation; member of PEN Turkey and of the Writers Union of Turkey;
member of Turkish Publishers Association and of the International
Committee for the Freedom to Publish; nobel Peace Prize Nominee by
Swedish Parliament members and by the French Section of GIT [the
International Work Group (GIT) 'Academic Liberty and Freedom of
Research [in Turkey]' (www.gitfrance.fr and www.gitinitiative . com)."
]
http://www.lragir.am/index.php/eng/0/society/view/28892
Ragip Zarakolu
Society - Tuesday, 12 February 2013, 10:47
Conscience is a distinctive moral quality of mankind. The
conscientious, the honest, the righteous or whatever you may choose
to call them represent the true pride and honour of a country, but
criminals wielding an axe never can! A writer in Azerbaijan who
should have been the pride of his country is presently in mortal
danger, and the threat emanates from the President of the country,
who is a post-Soviet autocrat. The title of "People's Writer" of
the Republic of Azerbaijan and the associated state award have been
rescinded, his author's pension has been cancelled, and his wife and
son have been fired from their jobs. This writer is Ekrem Eylisli, an
author, scriptwriter and dramatist who adopted the great Soviet writer
Maxim Gorky's philosophy of the fraternity of peoples at Maxim Gorky
Literature Institute in Moscow, dedicated to that great man. He is
presently 75 years old, a prolific writer published in many magazines
and newspapers. He was elected to the parliament in 2005. His literary
life had begun in 1959 with poetry, and continued with stories, plays,
scripts and novels. He has also translated many works by humanist
writers such as Gabriel G. Marquez, Turgenev and Chinghiz Aitmatov
into the Azeri language. His plays have been performed in many former
Soviet cities including Yerevan. Lynch mobs are now mobilized in front
of his house, very much like we had once witnessed in Maras and Sivas.
An outstanding slogan is >, calling on
the Azeri officer Ramil Sahiboglu Seferov who decapitated an Armenian
officer called Gurgen Margaryan with an axe in his sleep in 2004,
twenty days before they were to return home (*). They were co-trainees
in the NATO-sponsored > program in Budapest.
Melahet Ibrahimqizi -an Azeri parliamentarian who had been a part of
the delegation flown in to Ankara to talk with parliamentary chairman
Koksal Toptan (**), CHP leader Deniz Baykal, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli,
as well as various AKP functionaries, and eventually to block the
move altogether when a protocol was signed in 2009 between Armenia
and Turkey to normalize relations and open the border- now tries to
extend the lynch campaign to Turkey as well, saying in an aggressive
speech delivered in the Azeri parliament that Eylisli insults not only
Azerbaijanis, but the Turkish nation as a whole. Demands were even
made in that parliamentary session that the writer be subjected to a
DNA test and that he should be deprived of citizenship. The reason
for all this is the publication of Eylisli's latest novella "Stone
Dreams" in the Russian literary magazine Druzhba Narodov (Fraternity
of Peoples). The novella has not even been published in Azeri yet. An
enraged mob gathered in front of Eynisli's home in the capital Baku,
shouting "Shame on you, traitor!", and burning his books, and his
portraits with a cross printed on his forehead. The novella tells the
story of two Azeri men who tried to protect their Armenian neighbours
from ethnic violence. It also mentions pogroms against Armenians in
Sumguit and Baku cities in a vein of conscientious criticism. The
novella was actually finished in 2007, but could only be published
5 years later in Russian. It is interesting to note that an Armenian
writer also dealt with the Armenian-Azeri conflict in a conscientious
tone -at about the same time-- and was awarded a prize in the Republic
of Azerbaijan. The Writers Union where he was a member reacted to
his acceptance of an Azerbaijani award (though not to his writing of
the story itself), whereupon the writer resigned from the Union in
protest. However, he never became the target of a hate campaign as
is the case in Baku now. Researcher Sarkis Hatspanian says that the
Armenian writer Levon Cavakhyan wrote the story "Kirve" (Godfather)
in 2008, saying "Azeris are not my enemy" (***). Azeri writer Ekrem
Eynisli -who had said "Armenians are not my enemy" at about the same
time--now faces a lynch campaign 5 years later for having uttered the
same sentence. Though invited by Western countries and Russia, Ekrem
Eynisli takes a proud stance, saying "This is my homeland and I will
not leave it". I call upon international public opinion as well as the
democratic public in Turkey and Azerbaijan to to solidarize actively
with Ekrem Eynisli in order to avert a new murder similar to that
committed against Hrant Dink. Ragip Zarakolu (****) (*) Seferov was
condemned to life imprisonment in Hungary, but Azerbaijan's president
Aliev had him immediately released by presidential pardon on August
31, 2012, when he was extradited to Azerbaijan. (**) Koksal Toptan
was to exercise his powers as Chairman of the Turkish Parliament in
2009 in impounding and returning -at the behest of CHP's MP Sukru
Elekdag--books sent to members of parliament by the Gomidas Institute,
thereby violating the parliamentarians' freedom to communicate. (***)
facebook.com/notes/sarkis-hatspanian/kirve/489684637733351 (****)
Founding Member of Human Rights Association and of Social History
Foundation; member of PEN Turkey and of the Writers Union of Turkey;
member of Turkish Publishers Association and of the International
Committee for the Freedom to Publish; nobel Peace Prize Nominee by
Swedish Parliament members and by the French Section of GIT [the
International Work Group (GIT) 'Academic Liberty and Freedom of
Research [in Turkey]' (www.gitfrance.fr and www.gitinitiative . com)."
]
http://www.lragir.am/index.php/eng/0/society/view/28892