DAWKINS PUBLISHER MAY BE TRIED FOR ATTACK ON ‘SACRED VALUES’
Associated Press
Guardian Unlimited
Wednesday November 28, 2007
‘Assaulting sacred values’ … Richard Dawkins
A Turkish prosecutor is considering whether to prosecute the Turkish
publisher of Richard Dawkins’ bestselling atheist polemic, The God
Delusion, on the grounds that it incites religious hatred.
The publisher, Erol Karaaslan, said today that he expected to be
questioned on Thursday by an Istanbul prosecutor as part of an
official investigation, and faces prosecution both as its publisher
and translator. The book has sold some 6,000 copies in Turkey since
it was published by his Kuzey publishing house in June. The inquiry
apparently began after one reader complained that passages in the
book were an assault on "sacred values".
The investigation comes in the wake of controversy over the issue
of freedom of speech in Turkey after Orhan Pamuk’s prosecution in
2005. The Nobel prize-winner was tried under Article 301 of the Turkish
criminal code for "insulting Turkishness" following comments he made
to a Swiss magazine to the effect that a million Armenians had died in
Turkey during the first world war – "and nobody but me dares to talk
about it". The charges were eventually dropped. The author Elif Shafak,
too, was last year acquitted of similar charges brought over remarks
made by a character in her latest novel, The Bastard of Istanbul.
Karaaslan could be required to stand trial if the prosecutor concludes
that Dawkins’ book incites religious hatred and insults religious
values, and would face up to one year in prison if found guilty,
according to the Turkish daily newspaper Milliyet.
The European Union, which Turkey hopes to join, is pressing Ankara
to change laws that curb free expression and do not conform to the
Union’s standards of free speech.