Turkey: Book of lectures attacked Chomsky to attend publisher's trial
Veteran critic of US foreign policy Noam Chomsky is the focus of a court case brought by a top Turkish anti-terrorism prosecutor, citing a Turkish translation of a collection of his essays. Publisher Fatih TaÞ faces a year in jail. Chomsky will travel to Turkey to attend his trial. Index on Censorship reports.
Turkey's chief of terrorism prosecutions is to bring a suit against the publishers of a book of translated transcripts of lectures by veteran US political commentator Noam Chomsky.
The author himself plans to attend the 13 February court hearing, when the pro-Kurdish Aram Publishing House is called to answer charges of "propagandising against the indivisible unity of country, nation and State of Republic of Turkey".
The chief prosecutor Bekir Rayif Aldemýr, claims that the book, published last September, "propagated separatism" and wants publisher Fatih TaÞ jailed for a year for breaches of the country's anti-terror law.
The articles refer to the Turkish war with Kurdish forces almost in passing, as part of a wider critique of US policy in the Middle East. Chomsky issued a statement expressing his "astonishment" at the charges.
He said the facts cited were drawn exclusively from the reports of leading human rights organisations and respected scholars.
"It should be unnecessary even to state that the charges are outrageous, a very severe attack on the most elementary human and civil rights. I trust that the state authorities will recognise this and withdraw these charges without delay, demonstrating their respect for democracy and fundamental human rights."
The contentious passage is found on page 143. "The Kurds have been miserably oppressed throughout the whole history of the modern Turkish state but things changed in 1984," reads the English original, "In 1984, the Turkish government launched a major war in the south-east against the Kurdish population. And that continued. In fact it's still continuing..."
He adds: "In fact in the single year 1997, US military aid to Turkey was greater than in the entire period of 1950 to 1983 when there were allegedly Cold War issues. The end result was pretty awesome: tens of thousands of people killed, two to three million refugees, massive ethnic cleansing with some 3,500 villages destroyed-about seven times Kosovo (suffered) under NATO bombing..."
An Aram spokesman argues that the case is linked to the current government's hostility to European demands for human rights reforms ahead of any serious consideration of Turkey's application to join the European Union.
Turkey's coalition government includes the racist far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), the notorious 'Grey Wolves'. It has a "serious phobia" of the demanded reforms, he said. "Kurds who attain certain basic rights and freedom in the framework of compliance with EU criteria are perceived as a major threat to national unity."
He also says that with its leader on death row in a Turkish jail, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) are abandoning the armed struggle in favour of a political programme calling for a multi-cultural, multi-national democratic Turkey.
"The Chomsky suit, like many other lawsuits, is staged by the forces that do not want the Kurdish problem to be discussed freely and to be solved democratically and humanely."