Ministry launches probe into controversial book

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

The book defines Armenians as “dishonorable and treacherous” and vilifies novelists such as Nobel Prize Laureate Orhan Pamuk.

Education Minister Ömer Dinçer has said the Ministry has launched a probe against a controversial book distributed by the education directorate among high schools in Istanbul’s Kartal district, which include slurs and insults against Armenians, as well as some Turkish writers and journalists.

“Yes, the book obviously contains racist [slurs]. I have issued instructions to halt the distribution [of the book] and to investigate those people responsible for their distribution,” Minister Dinçer said on March 9.
Dinçer added that he also felt annoyed after reading the book and agreed that it contained racist comments.

Penned by Yunus Zeyrek, the book entitled “Bu dosyayı kaldırıyorum: Ermeni Meselesi” (“Closing this file: the Armenian Issue”) defines Armenians as “dishonorable and treacherous” and vilifies novelists such as Nobel Prize Laureate Orhan Pamuk and writer Elif Şafak. History and literature teachers distributed the books to students of their own volition after receiving them, according to reports.

In a separate development, an appeal by Mustafa Aksu, a Turkish citizen of Roma origin, will be decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on March 15.

Aksu first applied to the ECHR in 2004, complaining of anti-Roma statements in two government-supported publications. The complaint was related to two books that described Romans as “narrow-foreheaded,large-hipped and chubby.”