This week’s Carnival of Revolutions is now online over at Am I A Pundit Now? Meanwhile, via Blogrel, Marianna posts another Azerbaijani election update.

Yektan Turkyilmaz Trial, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian

RFE/RL covers the third day of the Turkyilmaz trial and says that despite an international outcry, prosecutors in Yerevan appear unwilling to drop the charges against the young Turkish scholar of Kurdish descent. Turkyilmaz stands accused of attempting to take books over 50 years old out of the country. Present was Orin Starn, a professor from Duke University in the United States where Turkyilmaz is completing his PhD.

“I’m here to let it be known that Duke University fully supports Yektan,” he said. “I am the supervisor of his dissertation and I can not believe that he would knowingly break the law in any way. So I hope for his speedy release.”

The president of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, wrote to President Robert Kocharian on August 1, calling for the scholar’s release. “As the leader of a great country, you have the ability to intervene in this matter and to determine the appropriateness of the actions of your government and the Armenian prosecutors and police,” he said. Kocharian has not yet responded to the letter, according to Starn.

Also present was Hrant Dink, a journalist and editor of Armenian descent currently facing prosecution in Turkey. Dink is one of hundreds of Armenian, Turkish and foreign academics, journalists and figures in the public eye who have rallied to the 33-year old’s defense.

“It must be admitted that Yektan certainly did something wrong with regard to the laws of the Republic of Armenia,” he told RFE/RL. “But Yektan is not a criminal. He is a serious intellectual. He committed a serious offence unintentionally and you just can’t use books for criminal prosecution. Such things are not accepted in the world.”

Dink, who himself is facing a possible jail sentence in Turkey for publicly emphasizing his Armenian heritage, also pointed out that Turkyilmaz is among few Turkish academics who openly question Ankara’s decades-long denial of the Armenian genocide. “We [Istanbul’s Armenian community] have a handful of Turkish intellectuals standing by our side and Yektan is one of them,” he said.

As the trial continues, RFE/RL’s account of the day’s proceedings can be found online here. All of the posts relating to this case on this site can be found here. A site in support of the academic is also online at http://www.yektan.org. Other sites such as Blogrel have also been following the case.

Hrant Dink speaking at the trial of Yektan Turkyilmaz, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian

Recently, a comment was made on this site that the legal action against the Turkish scholar Yektan Turkyilmaz might have been in response to action against a journalist of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink, in Turkey. Well, two wrongs don’t make a right but more significantly, while Turkyilmaz is still kept under tight security in Armenia, Hrant Dink is free to travel.

In fact, he was at Turkyilmaz’s trial today along with another journalist of Armenian descent from Turkey. Both had come along to lend their support to Turkyilmaz and in particular, Dink had some harsh words to say about proceedings. Last week, Raffi Hovannisian also attended the trial and was not impressed. I’ll leave it to Emil and Rouzanna at RFE/RL to write more on that later in the day.

Meanwhile, I’ll try and sort out more pics of today’s trial in Yerevan to post. Incidentally, while it’s worth pointing out that the two main pro-government TV stations, Public TV and Armenia TV, appear to be ignoring the trial and weren’t present on Friday or today, the Chicago Tribune has an article on the controversy over Turkyilmaz’s detention.

In nearly two weeks of interrogation, the academic said through friends, he was never questioned about his books but instead about his research and a compact disc of archival information that was to be the basis for his writing. The disc has been confiscated.

“This should not be a political issue; this should be for the historians to look into and decide,” said an official at the Turkish Foreign Ministry who spoke on condition of anonymity. “From what we had heard, this young scholar seemed to support the Armenian side of the so-called genocide debate. It is such a strange turn of events, to arrest him.”

For the last two years, Turkyilmaz has conducted research in Turkish and Armenian libraries and the Turkish national archives. This year, he was the first Turkish citizen allowed access to the Armenian national archives, according to an Armenian government press release.

The Chicago Tribune article can be read online here.

Edmond Terakopian, a good friend of mine from London, has just sent me a link to his account of what it’s like working as a photographer for Associated Press when there’s been a terrorist attack and it just happens to be in your own city. The account was written for The Digital Journalist’s August 2005 edition.

July 7, 2005. I was looking forward to today. Yesterday had ended on a high. London had been nominated as the Olympic City for 2012. I had two excellent assignments today; the first was an 8.30a.m. photo-call at the Natural History Museum to photograph a new diamond exhibition. The second was an exclusive look at how the police were monitoring the security for the G8 summit from their secret control center.

There must have been around 20 photographers waiting to photograph the world’s largest uncut diamond. I was waiting patiently, macro lens and lights in hand, for my turn. As I contemplated getting a coffee, my phone rang; it was the Press Association office, for whom I was working. “There’s been an explosion at Aldgate East tube station. Get there. They’re saying it’s a power surge.” I caught everyone’s attention as I started to pack away my gear. Slowly, the others began to get calls.

I got in my car with a friend from AP and we started making our way as quickly as traffic allowed. The phone rang, “There’s been a second explosion at Edgware Road tube. Go there instead as you’re closer.” My heart sank. This was no longer an accident as originally thought. How can there be two explosions on the tube in the same morning? I knew it must be terrorism. I began to think of 9/11. The first plane could have been an accident …

Anyway, I first met Edmond at a 24 April event outside the Turkish Embassy in 1994. Obviously, as you can tell by his surname, he’s a British Armenian and was extremely active in the London-Armenian community and more than that, has always been passionate about photography and a source of encouragement for others like myself.

Emil Danielyan from RFE/RL tells me that he also saw Edmond interviewed on CNN about the terrorist attacks although of course, like many others, we wish there had been nothing to photograph at all on that fateful day. Incidentally, Edmond has a web site which apart from the front splash screen, I put together. It’s at http://www.pix.org.uk.