The Chronicle of Higher Education
August 12, 2005, page 42
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i49/49a04202.htm

Scholars Ask Armenia to Free Jailed Student

By Aisha Labi

More than 200 academics from the United States, Armenia, Turkey, and elsewhere have signed an open letter to Armenia's president expressing their concern over the arrest and detention of a Ph.D. candidate from Duke University.

The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, a Turkish citizen, was arrested in June as he was leaving Armenia for Turkey with about 100 secondhand books he had legally purchased. Mr. Turkyilmaz, who has been in jail in Armenia since then, was charged in July with customs violations for attempting to take books more than 50 years old out of the country without permission. The prohibition against doing so falls under an article of the Armenian criminal code that mentions narcotics and nuclear weapons, among other dangerous items, as well as the removal of "cultural values for the transportation of which special rules are established."

No trial date has been set in the case. Duke officials have contacted members of Congress and have sought the help of prominent Armenian-Americans. Orin Starn, Mr. Turkyilmaz's dissertation supervisor, said the student had made a mistake and would willingly pay a fine and return whatever books were requested in order to avoid a long jail term. It is common for scholars to acquire or collect books from the period they study, he said.

Ayse Gul Altinay, an assistant professor at Sabanci University, in Istanbul, who is coordinating efforts on Mr. Turkyilmaz's behalf, said many of the scholars she has contacted, including Armenians and Armenian-Americans, were "shocked" to find out that Armenian law treats customs violations relating to books in the same way it does violations involving nuclear weapons. If convicted, Mr. Turkyilmaz faces a jail sentence of four to eight years.

Mr. Turkyilmaz is a candidate for a degree in cultural anthropology. His dissertation topic, eastern Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey) from 1908 to 1938, is at the heart of the matter. Relations between Turkey and Armenia have long been strained. In 1915 Ottoman Turkish forces killed as many as 1.5 million Armenians in eastern Anatolia. Armenians characterize the killings as genocide, but Turkey attributes the deaths to civil war and other factors, and emphasizes that many Turks also perished.

Ms. Altinay said Mr. Turkyilmaz's work is highly original. "This is the formation period of Turkish nationalism, of Kurdish nationalism, and of Armenian nationalism," she said.

Armenia's president, Robert Kocharian, has not responded to the letter, which Ms. Altinay said had itself become a peace project. "There are prominent genocide researchers who have signed this document who have dedicated their whole lives to criticizing Turkey and Turks," she said.