CEATL recently sent a letter to the Turkish minister of Culture and Tourism and the minister of Justice to express its concern about the restriction of the freedom of expression of translators and publishers in Turkey.
The reason for this letter is a law case against the Turkish translator and publisher of the novel Les exploits d’un jeune Don Juan by French author Guillaume Apollinaire on the charges of dissemination of an obscene text. In December 2013 the court decided to suspend the case for three years. The case will only be dropped if in that period no similar charges are filed. This means that for the coming three years the publisher and the translator will live under constant threat of imprisonment.
Similar court cases have recently been filed against the Turkish translators and publishers of the novel The Soft Machine by W.S. Burroughs and Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. These cases have been suspended for three years as well.
More information about the court cases can be found here (http://www NULL.ceatl NULL.eu/?p=4941) (please click here (http://www NULL.ceatl NULL.eu/tag/turkey) for related articles in CEATL’s news archive).
The letters sent by CEATL are available here (http://www NULL.ceatl NULL.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-02-13-Letter-to-turkish-minister-of-culture-1 NULL.pdf) and here (http://www NULL.ceatl NULL.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-02-13-Letter-to-turkis-minister-of-justice-1 NULL.pdf).