Last week, the Turkish publisher Ragip Zarakolu was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. As an advocate of freedom of speech, Zarakolu has on a number of occasions over the past forty years fallen foul of the Turkish authorities.
His publishing firm Belge (which means ‘documents’) has published various titles in Turkish by Greek, Armenian and Kurdish authors, whereby he has drawn people’s attention to subjects that have been labelled taboo in Turkey. Zarakolu is a member of PEN Turkey and chairman of the Freedom to Publish committee of the Turkish publishers association.
In 2008, he was a guest of the Dutch Foundation for Literature at the Residency for Writers, located at Spui in Amsterdam, in order to receive the Freedom to Publish Award. PEN and the International Publishers Association have started a campaign to try and ensure the publisher’s release.