Turkish prosecutors halt probe into controversial `apology` campaign
The prosecutor-general`s office in Ankara has
decided not to launch a criminal investigation into an online
signature campaign launched by a group of Turkish citizens to
apologize to Armenians for the alleged World War I-era killings of
their countrymen.
Law enforcement agencies put an end to the probe, started by the
Media Crimes Investigation Bureau, charging that such an
investigation was out of place on the grounds that diverse opinions
and free speech must be protected in democratic societies, local
media reported.
The year-long campaign, launched on the www.ozurdiliyoruz.com website in
December by some 20 Turkish scholars, journalists, members of the
art community and NGO representatives, seeks to extend an apology
for the alleged mass killings in the Ottoman Empire that Armenians
term as genocide, a claim strenuously denied by Turkey. Afterwards,
a group of Ankara residents, angered by the campaign, filed a
lawsuit demanding to prosecute the initiators of the campaign on
charges of insulting the Turkish people. They emphasized that
Armenian criminal groups had killed hundreds of thousands of Turks,
while the alleged genocide of Armenians is not true.
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