051130 - Forse uomini come Zarakoglu permetteranno un giorno a risolvere e sanare la memoria del popolo turco con il suo passato!

BALAKIAN SHARES PRIZE WITH TURKISH PUBLISHER ZARAKOGLU
(New York - Doris Cross 20 November 2005) On November 11th the Institute for the Study of Genocide in New York City awarded Peter Balakian the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize for his book The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response.
The prize is awarded for the best scholarly book in the English language in the preceding two years “on the subject of genocide, mass killing, gross human rights violations, and the prev ention of such crimes.”
Present at the ceremony, held at the City University of New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was Ragip Zarakolu, director of Belge International Publishers, in Istanbul, which has just published in Turkish Balakian’s critically-acclaimed 1997 memoir, Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past.
At the podium to accept the Lemkin Prize from Helen Fein, Director of the Institute for the Study of Genocide, Balakian welcomed Mr. Zarakolu, who, he said, “for almost 30 years has exhibited extraordinary courage by publishing books in Turkey that are about taboo subjects--many of them on the histories of the minority peoples of Turkey--the Armenians, Kurds, Greeks.”
Balakian then surprised the audience by asking Mr. Zarakolu to “come to the podium to share this prize with me. I can ’t imagine anyone more deserving of a prize named after Raphael Lemkin.” Mr. Zarakolu responded, “I thank you and am most honoured to be here with you at this joyous occasion. You honor me greatly.”
“It was a spontaneous gesture” Balakian said, after the ceremony. “When I saw Zarakolu here, all these miles from Istanbul, and after all he’s done, nothing could make more sense than to share it with him. I hope it created another small bridge between Armenian and Turkish culture.”
Ragip Zarakolu, is charged with "insulting and undermining the State" under Article 301 of the new Penal Code. These charges stem from the publication of a book by Dora Sakayan entitled: "Garabet Hacheryan's Izmir Journal: An Armenian Doctor's Expe riences" and George Jerjian's Book entitled: "History Will Free Us All - Turkish-Armenian Conciliation".

V.V