Documents: The Turkish Coalition lawsuit against the U of Minnesota

For those interested in reading the main documents in the legal battle over the University of Minnesota's portrayal of the Web site of the Turkish Coalition of America, I've scrounged up the lawsuit and an image of the portrayal in question.

In a nutshell:

Armenia and Turkey have long argued over whether Turkish forces committed genocide against Armenians during World War I.

Bruno Chaouat, director of the university's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, told the Pioneer Press that  "the vast majority of serious and rigorous historians" considers it genocide. But the Turkish Coalition of America and U of M freshman Sinan Cingilli -- who filed the suit -- say genocide has never been proved.

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The center angered the coalition by placing the coalition's Web site on a list of "unreliable" sites for research, saying they mixed fact with opinion, had unknown backing or denied  genocide. Although the center has since pulled the listing, the coalition argues that it hasn't gone far enough to reverse its "blacklisting" of the coalition's Web site.

Accusations in the suit include defamation as well as violations of due process and freedom of speech. The U has rejected the charges, saying it never cut off any access to information.

The suit asks for unspecified damages.

For more details, read the Pioneer Press article here and the Minnesota Daily article here.