Nobel author puts Turkish oppression on front page

Provocative Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk took over editorship of a Turkish newspaper for one day, devoting it tostoriesabout the oppression of artists.

Pamukhad beenput on trial by the government for "insulting Turkishness," before the author's case was dropped on a technicality last January after months of condemnation from other writers, artists and heads of state.

Sunday's Radikal newspaper featured a cover story that criticized the Turkish press and government for stifling free expression.

Pamuk resurrected a headline from 1951 that encouraged Turks to spit on acclaimed poet Nazim Hikmet, who spent years in prison for his leftist affiliations.

"This expression, which was used beside Nazim Hikmet's picture, summarizes the unchanging position of writers and artists in the eyes of the state and press," said the story.

While Radikal has a circulation of only about 30,000, it is a highly regarded political paper.Its editor-in-chief, Ismet Berkan, faced similar chargesto Pamuk's in 2006.

Pamuk, 54, has a journalism degree, but never practised the craft. His books include Snow, My Name is Red and the memoir Istanbul.

Other articles on Radikal's front page examined the low percentage of women in Turkish politics and the reaction to the videoof Saddam Hussein's execution in Iraq.

Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature last year, had faced charges after a Swiss paper quoted him as saying that "30,000 Kurds and one million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it."

The writer cited the killing of Armenians by forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1917 and the deaths of the Kurds as a genocide — something Turkish governments have denied.

Pamuk was charged under a section of the Turkish penal code that says a "person who explicitly insults being a Turk, the Republic or Turkish Grand National Assembly, shall be imposed to a penalty of imprisonment for a term of six months to three years."

Human rights organizations and artists' groups have called on the government to do away with the code.