At the initiative of the Dur (door) multicultural NGO, February has been declared the month of support for Turkish writer, publicist, publisher and human rights advocate Ragıp Zarakolu. The publicist remains in prison for pro-Armenian statements and textbooks.
Today Armenian writers and intellectuals collected another stack of books in the Armenian National Library that will be sent to the Turkish prison in the short run. As Hasmik Poghosyan, the head of the Dur multicultural NGO, stated, their aim is to support Zarakolu and contribute to his activities, “We do it through culture, which is the shortest way to the peoples living in Turkey. We will contribute to diminishing interethnic hatred by that.”
Movie director Sargis Hatspanyan, a friend of Zarakolu’s family, stated that the Turkish writer and his late wife “had broken” some stereotypes existing in Turkey by publishing books on forbidden subjects through Belge publishing house operating since 1976. “Zarakolu is the fairest and most innocent man I have ever known and who has never used any other arm, except for a pen. He is an intellectual from top to toe,” said S. Hatspanyan. At the end of the event, Fridtjof Nansen Foundation of Armenia granted an Order of Devotion to Kind-Heartedness to Ragıp Zarakolu for humane principles and contribution to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Let us remind that a group of MPs from the Swedish parliament have applied to the Nobel Committee proposing to grant the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the Turkish writer.
Louisa SUKIASYAN
