Dear friends,
MIT linguistics professor and activist Noam Chomsky is headed for Turkey for
the February 13 trial against Fatih Tas of Aram Publishing House, the
Istanbul-based publisher of his book American Interventionism.
The chief prosecutor of the Istanbul National Security Court has charged the
publisher with the crime of "propaganda against the indivisible unity of
[the]
country, nation, and State of the Republic of Turkey."
Fatih Tas could face a year in prison if found guilty.
Among the passages that the prosecutor singled out is Chomsky's
well-documented
assertion that "the Turkish government launched a major war in the Southeast
against the Kurdish population" in 1984.
You can read more about the trial and background at:
http://www.stopcensorship.org
http://www.zmag.org/content/ForeignPolicy/aram0122.cfm
Aram Publishers is asking for people to sign the following letter of
protest to
be delivered to the Turkish court on February 13.
We, the undersigned, oppose any efforts to prosecute Professor Noam Chomsky
and
his publisher Fatih Tas (Aram Publishing House). This is an abridgement of
fundamental and universal rights of free expression. We call on the Turkish
State to cease this an all similar efforts to limit free speech,
particularly
expressions of Kurdish ethnic identity and cultural rights, including
education
in the mother tongue.
Please e-mail your endorsements to: aramcase@hotmail.com and indicate your
full
name, organizational affiliation (if you desire), city, state, and country.
Please feel free to forward this to others who may be interested in signing
on,
as well.
In solidarity
Anthony Arnove
*
Anthony Arnove
South End Press
7 Brookline Street #1
Cambridge MA 02139-4146
v 617-547-4002
f 617-547-1333
e arnove@igc.org
w http://www.southendpress.org/
National Writers Union/UAW Local 1981
Editor of Iraq Under Siege (South End Press and Pluto Press, 2000):
http://www.southendpress.org/books/iraq.shtml
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