Outrage over detention of Ahmet and Mehmet Altan grows

Nobel literature laureate Herta Müller has lent her name to a letter that the best selling novelist and journalist Ahmet Altan set free from what is described as a “vendetta” against Turkey’s best minds. Altan, along with equally illustrious economist brother Mehmet Altan were taken into custody on 10 September. Within hours, a who’s who from the world of literature and academia signed onto the protest, including Nobel prize winner JM Coetzee and Orhan Pamuk.

Some 72 hours passed without the brothers’ lawyers being able to learn the charges against them. Pro-government news sources report they are accused of fomenting the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey by giving “subliminal signals” on a television panel programme the night before.

The original 54 signatories were joined by 118 new names. These include novelists Michael Ondaatje, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Philip Pullman, Nick Hornby, Ali Smith, Monica Ali, Mario Giordano, Hanif Kureishi; philosophers Etienne Balibar ve Philip N. Pettit; professor of linguistics Noam Chomsky; musician Nick Cave; director Stephen Frears; actresses Gillian Anderson ve Thandie Newton; Chief Librarian of the New York Public Library Anthony Marx, founder of Berlin’s Literaturwerkstatt, Thomas Wohlfahr, principal of Oxford’s Lady Margaret Hall and former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger; Editor of The Paris Review Lorin Stein; historical sociologist Immanual Wallerstein.

The letter also calls for the immediate release of all writers falsely imprisoned including journalists Şahin Alpay and Nazlı Ilıcak, and novelist Aslı Erdoğan. The full text and list of new signatories is as follows:

We the undersigned call upon democrats throughout the world as well as those who care about the future of Turkey and the region in which it exerts a leading role, to protest the vendetta, which the government is waging against its brightest thinkers and writers who may not share their point of view.

The background to this letter is the coup attempt on July 15, 2016, which mercifully failed and was quickly subdued. Had the Turkish people themselves not resisted this assault on their institutions, the result would have been years of misery. 

In the aftermath of that coup, it is understandable that the government would have imposed a temporary state of emergency.  However, the failed coup should not be a pretext for a McCarthy style witch hunt nor should that state of emergency be conducted with scant regard for basic rights, rules of evidence or even common sense.

We as writers, academics and defenders of freedom of expression are particularly disturbed to see colleagues we know and respect to being imprisoned under emergency regulations. Journalists like Şahin Alpay, Nazlı Ilıcak or the novelist Aslı Erdoğan have been outspoken defenders of democracy and opponents of militarism or tyranny of any sort. 

We are particularly disturbed to see the prominent novelist Ahmet Altan, and his brother, Mehmet Altan, a writer and distinguished professor of economics, being detained in a dawn raid on September 10, 2016.  The pair stands accused of somehow giving subliminal messages to rally coup supporters on a television panel show broadcast July 14th, the night before the coup-attempt.

Ahmet Altan is one of Turkey’s most important writers whose novels appear in translation and sell in the millions. He was also editor in chief for five years of the liberal daily newspaper Taraf. The paper championed the public’s right to know. He has been prosecuted many times over his career –in the 1990s for trying to get a Turkish readership to empathize with the country’s Kurds or more recently for trying to force an apology from the prime minister for the 2011 Roboski massacre in which 34 villagers were bombed. He appeared in court as recently as September 2, charged with handling state secrets based on an indictment that was in large part copy pasted from two entirely different cases. 

Mehmet Altan is a professor at Istanbul University, a columnist whose numerous books campaigned to rebuild Turkey’s identity not on race or religion but respect for human rights. Like his brother and others now in jail his crime is not for supporting a coup but for the effectiveness of his criticism of the current government whose initial progress in broadening democracy is now jammed in reverse gear.

We therefore call upon the Turkish government to cease its persecution of prominent writers and to speed the release of Ahmet and Mehmet Altan as well as so many of their colleagues wrongly accused.

Dogan Akhanli, Writer, PEN Germany.
Monica Ali, Writer.  
Gillian Anderson, Film, television, theatre actress.  
Ingeborg Arlt, Writer, PEN Germany.             
Michael Augustin, Poet, translator, Germany.             
Thomas Bachmann, Author.               
Çiğdem Balım, Senior lecturer, Indiana University.            
Etienne Balibar, Philosopher ; Professor Emeritus, University of Paris-Ouest ; Anniversary Chair in Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University, London.
Julian Barnes, Writer.               
Robert Barnett, Senior Research Fellow and Director, Modern Tibetan Studies, Columbia University.      
Jürgen Baurmann, Professor Emeritus, University of Wuppertal, Germany.          
Sara Bershtel, Publisher, Metropolitan Books / Henry Holt.          
Clifford Bob, Raymond J. Kelley Endowed Chair in International Relations, Duquesne University.      
Mirko Bonné, Writer.               
Vera Botterbusch, Filmmaker, photographer, writer.             
Patrick Boucheron, Professor, History, Collège de France.           
Olivier Bouquet, Professor, History, University of Paris VII.          
Lisette Buchholz, Publisher, persona verlag.             
Simon Callow, Actor, musician, writer and theatre director.          
Nick Cave, Musician, author, screenwriter.             
Baltasar Cevc, Lawyer, Erlangen, Germany.             
Roger Chartier, Professor, History, Collège de France.           
Noam Chomsky, Linguist, Institute Professor of Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.      
Claus Clausen, Publisher, Tiderne Skifter, Denmark.            
Jonathan Coe, Novelist.               
Costas Douzinas, Professor of Law, University of London.          
Horst Eckert, Writer.   
Jean Louis Fabiani, Professor, Humanities, EHESS.            
Sascha Feuchert, Vice-President and Writers-in-Prison-Commissioner of PEN Germany; Professor of Literature, University of Giessen.   
Stephen Frears, Film director.              
Uwe Friesel, Writer and translator ; Member of International PEN / First President of the German Union VS.
Neil Gaiman, Writer.               
Rebeca García Nieto, Writer, Spain.             
Mario Giordano, Writer.               
Maurice Godelier, Professor of Anthropology, EHESS, Paris.           
Jordan Goodman, Honorary Research Fellow in the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at College, London
Roland Greene, Mark Pigott KBE Professor in the School of Humanties and Sciences, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Stanford University.
Ulla Hahn, Writer.               
Matt Haig, Novelist and journalist.             
Anton Harber, Caxton Professor of Journalism at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and chair of the Freedom of Expression Institute
David Hare, Playwright.               
Josef Haslinger, President, PEN-Centers, Germany.             
Wolfgang Hermann, Author, Austria.              
Uwe-Karsten Heye, Writer.               
Kathy High, Interdisciplinary artist, curator, scholar.            
James Hollings, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, Massey University Wellington, New Zealand.        
Nick Hornby, Writer.               
Gabriela Jaskulla, Writer and journalist.             
Joachim Kalka, Writer and translator.             
Tanja Kinkel, Writer.               
Hubert Klöpfer, Publisher and member of PEN Germany.          
Barbara Krohn, Writer.               
Hari Kunzru, Novelist and journalist.             
Hanif Kureishi, Writer.               
Olivia Laing, Writer and critic.             
Jean-Manuel Larralde, Professor of Public Law, University of Caen, Normandy.       Camille Laurens, Writer.               
Marie Lecomte-Tilouine, Director of research at CNRS, France.          
Jo Lendle, Publisher, Carl Hanser Verlage.            
Antoine Lilti, Professor, History, EHESS.             
Gert Loschütz, Writer.               
Gila Lustiger, Writer, Germany / France.            
Lindsay Mackie, Board member of English PEN and chair of its Readers and Writers Programme.   
Anthony Marx, President and CEO of The New York Public Library ; former president of Amherst College. 
Frédérique Longuet Marx, Maître de conférences en sociologie à l'Université de Caen. Ian McEwan, Novelist and screenwriter.             
Maureen N. McLane, Professor of English, Director of Honors, New York University.     Maria Meinel, Translator.               
Luiza Franco Moreira, Poet ; Professor and Chair, Department of Comparative Literaure  at Binghampton University.   
Madhusree Mukerjee, Writer.               
Herta Müller, Nobel Laureate in Literature.            
Sten Nadolny, Novelist.               
Ralf Nestmeyer, Author, historian.              
Mary Ann Newman, Translator.              
Steve Newman, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of English, Temple University.     
Thandie Newton, Actress. 
Dr. Wulf Noll, Writer.                            
Olivier Nora, Publisher, Editions Grasset.             
Andrew O’Hagan, Novelist.               
Hans-Christian Oeser, Literary Translator, Member of PEN.           
Michael Ondaatje, Novelist and poet.             
Erol Önderoğlu, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Turkey.           
Christian Parenti, Author, investigative journalist.            
Philip N. Pettit, Historian, Philosopher, Princeton University; Australian National University.        
DBC Pierre, Writer.               
Angela Pimenta, Columnist and president of Projor (The Institute for Development of Journalism), São Paulo.         
Philip Pullman, Writer.               
Justin Quinn, Writer, translator ; Associate Professor, University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic.     
Eduardo Rabasa, Writer.               
Marie-Joëlle Redor-Fichot, Professor of Public Law, University of Caen, Normandy.  
Professor Michael Rothberg, 1939 Society Samuel Goetz Chair in Holocaust Studies, UCLA.            
Frederick J. Ruf, Professor, Department of Theology, Georgetown University.         
Alan Rusbridger, Journalist, Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and the former editor-in-chief of The  
Salman Rushdie, Writer.               
P. Sainath, Author, journalist.              
Gisèle Sapiro, Professor of Sociology at the EHESS and Research Director at the CNRS, Vice-President of the EHESS for International Relations. 
Aram Saroyan, Poet and novelist.             
Elif Shafak, Writer.               
Jayeeta Sharma, Associate Professor of History, University of Toronto.      
Lynne Sharon Schwartz, Writer.              
Peter Sillem, Editorial Director, S. Fischer Verlag.           
Shelly Silver, Associate Professor, Visual Arts Program, Columbia University.         
Laura M. Slatkin, Professor, Classical Studies, New York University.         
Ali Smith, Writer.
Klaus Stiller, Writer.               
Lorin Stein, Editor of The Paris Review.
Ulrich Straeter, Writer and publisher.             
Uwe Timm, Writer, Germany. 
Johann P. Tammen, Poet and editor, Member of PEN.                      
Ilija Trojanow, Writer, translator, publisher.             
Anja Utler, Writer, Germany. 
Immanuel Wallerstein, Yale University.            
Irvine Welsh, Novelist and playwright.             
Herbert Wiesner, Literary Critic, Member of German PEN Centre, Berlin.        
Michel Wievorka, Sociologist ; President, Foundation of the House of Social Sciences, Paris.
Dr. Thomas Wohlfahr, Director of Literature Workshop, House for Poetry, Berlin.       
Felicia Zeller, Writer.