Ragip Zarakolu, Turkey
Ragip Zarakolu, owner of the Belge Publishing house, has been subject to repeated harassment, trials and periods of imprisonment since the 1970s for publishing books that violate Turkey’s repressive censorship laws. He is currently being prosecuted for publishing a book which alleges that leading figures in the Ataturk government were responsible for the mass deportation of Armenians in 1915. This claim is an offence under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code which forbids “insulting the State and the memory of Kemal Ataturk.” In December 2008, Zarakolu and Cevat Düsün, the chief editor of the Alternatif newspaper, were indicted for “making propaganda for a terrorist organisation” (Anti Terror Law 7/2), alienating people from the military (Penal Code Article 318) and praising crime and criminality (Article 215). The charges arose from articles published in Alternatif (which Zarakolu owns and edits) published in August 2008. One article by a conscientious objector was titled “I Refuse to be a Turkish Soldier,” another referred to the PKK as “the organisation fighting for freedom of Kurdish people,” and a third suggested that Kurdish guerrilla activities in Turkey might resume “if a political solution fails.” Zarakolu received the NOVIB/PEN Free Expression Award 2003.

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