"Can you sue characters in a novel?
Nazlan Ertan - The New Anatolian/ Ankara
The case faced by Turkey's bright new writer Elif Safak will demonstrate not only a judicial but a philosophical question: "Can you sue characters in a novel?"
According to Kemal Kerincsiz, an Istanbul-based lawyer and a member of the Jurists Union Association who had his 15 minutes of fame when he sued the organizers of the Armenian Conference in Istanbul and European Parliament Deputy Joost Lagendijk for "insulting Turkishness," yes. If a fictional character cannot be sued, then the author who created it certainly can be.
He has, after all, filed a complaint against Safak and her publisher for remarks made by of several characters in Safak's latest best-seller, "Baba ve Pic" (Father and Bastard). Kerincsiz says that certain remarks made by fictitious characters violate Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK), the infamous article about "insulting Turkishness.""
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