Fatih Tas

Aram Publishing House (Istanbul, Turkey) published a book by MIT Professor Noam Chomsky and, as a result, is now facing charges:

Fatih Tas of the Aram Publishing House faces a year in prison for daring to print American Interventionism, a collection of Mr Chomsky's recent essays including harsh criticism of Turkey's treatment of its Kurdish minority. Mr Chomsky, a linguistics professor at MIT, is planning to fly to Turkey for Mr Tas's first court appearance on 13 February and has already written to the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, pointing out that amendments to Turkish law were supposed to have provided greater freedom of expression, not less.  ...  [more]

Professor Chomsky has issued the following statement addressed to the defendant:

“I learned with astonishment of the charges brought against you for publishing material of mine that is drawn exclusively from the reports of the leading human rights organizations (Human Rights Watch and others), the most respected standard scholarship, and official US government documents, dealing with repression of the Kurds in Turkey and the US involvement in these actions. 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 recognize this and withdraw these charges without delay, demonstrating their respect for democracy and fundamental human rights.”

UPDATE: February 14, 2002