A publisher has been sentenced to five months in prison for ‘insulting the Turkish Republic’. Index on Censorship reports
A Turkish publisher has become the latest victim of the notorious article 301, which makes it a crime to ‘insult the Turkish republic’.
A judge ruled that Ragip Zarakolu, who published British author George Jerjian’s The Truth Will Set Us Free, had broken the law, by printing references to the Armenian ‘genocide’ of 1915. The Turkish government does not dispute that many Armenians were killed in 1915, but refuses to recognise the events as genocide.
Zarakolu has been sentenced to five months in prison.
Speaking to Index, Zarakolu said he believed the decision to convict him had been made from the start. ‘The judge and prosecutor were harsh. It was an ideological court — on a mission to defend the system and the state philosophy.’
He also suggested the politics of his case were determined by the extent to which the AKP government, with its roots in Islam, feels under threat in the current climate. A case opens in a Turkish court next month seeking a ban on the AKP — many in Turkey’s establishment see the religious party as a threat to the secular principles of the state.
‘Everyone is playing their own game — it’s like an arm-wrestling contest and I’m in the middle.’
Zarakolu will appeal the sentence, and has plans to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Today’s ruling may help to fend off ‘fishing expeditions’, writes
Burma’s junta has arrested dissident comedian Zarganar and put a stop to his aid work for Cyclone Nargis victims. Rohan Jayasekera reports 
Balibo Five still haunt Indonesia
The announcement of the coming production of a film about the Balibo Five, the Western journalists allegedly executed by the Indonesian military in 1975, has elicited an equivocal response from the Indonesian foreign ministry. Indonesia has long tried to bury the story but it has remained on the radar, particularly in Australia, due to the stubborn persistence of relatives of the dead men.
Indonesia’s foreign ministry has said that the film Balibo, which will star Australian-born star Anthony LaPaglia, should include the Indonesian official point of view.
The five men were killed in East Timor in 1975 at the time of the Indonesian military invasion of the former Portuguese colony, which then underwent a 23-year occupation that cost the lives of some 250,000 East Timorese. The newsmen’s bodies were burned in a clear attempt to hide the evidence.
The Australian government long denied having any prior knowledge of the impending attack or that the men from an Australian television station were in harm’s way. This story was permanently rubbished in 2000 with the release of Foreign Affairs files by Canberra.
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