Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk charged again with ‘insulting Turkishness’

Case based on his new novel Nights of the Plague, initially dismissed in April, has been reopened after an appeal

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk is being investigated by the Turkish state for insulting" the founder of modern Turkey and ridiculing the Turkish flag in his new novel Nights of Plague.

Pamuk, who denies the accusations, published the book in Turkey in March. Set on a fictional Ottoman island during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in the early 1900s, the first complaint against it came in April, when a lawyer accused Pamuk of inciting hatred and animosity" by insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and ridiculing the flag of Turkey in the work. An Istanbul court decided not to take the claim forward due to lack of evidence, but the lawyer who brought the case, Tarcan Uluk, appealed against the decision and the investigation has now been reopened.