Reaction from Publishers’ Union to Pulling off the Shelves
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Publishers' Union of Turkey has criticized the ruling of the 3rd Criminal Court of Peace of pulling the books off the shelves and sentencing Ahmet Şık to a punitive fine on grounds of defaming Binali Yıldırım in his book.
“These decisions damage our faith in the independency of the judiciary and cause concern about experiencing greater violations of rights in the future.
“We call on the government to not contributing to the environment of violence through oppressing civilian and peaceable ways of expression in our country and requote our call for peace and freedom of publishing.”
“They perceive books as threats”
Publishers' Union has emphasized that the government perceived books as greater threats than weapons.
“The reason for this is that some publications are more effective in criticizing wrong actions and policies than weapons, find greater acceptance in the society and spread and thus force the government to listen to the society and correct their mistakes.
“Yet that is exactly why books, authors and journalists should be free.
“Likewise our concern is that the oppression of such civilian and peaceable ways of expression through prohibitions will only serve the purpose of extending this environment of war and violence originally claimed to be ended”.
“Authors and readers are not terrorists”
In its statement criticizing the decision, the union has also expressed that considering authors and readers of these books “terrorists” was unacceptable.
“We know that the authors Hasan Cemal, Tuğçe Tatari and Müslüm Yücel are not terrorists and do not write their works in favor of terrorist organizations.
CLICK - TATARİ, CEMAL BOOKS PULLED OFF SHELVES, PUNITIVE FINE FOR AHMET IŞIK
“We also do not accept the ones in hold of these books being considered terrorists for reading books.
“Reading and writing is not a crime, books can not be considered evidence of any crime. And what hurts is having to express and defend this fact over and over again”.
Oppression on the journalists
In the statement also attention has been drawn to the decision of sentencing Ahmet Şık to a punitive fine for moral indemnity in the amount of 1,230 euros (4,000 TL) on the basis of the accusation of defaming Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication in his book titled “We have walked parallel on these roads” and expressed that journalist are wanted to be suppressed.
“Government officials pressing charges against journalists and authors based upon the ‘defamation’ article of the Turkish Criminal Law and trying to suppress these persons through heavy punitive fines constitutes an ongoing violation of freedom of publishing without slowing down.”
What had happened?
Anadolu (Anatolia) 22nd Criminal Court of First Instance on the other hand had decided on the case brought to trial based on charges of Ahmet Işık defaming Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication in his book titled “We have walked parallel on these roads” and sentenced Şık to a punitive fine of moral indemnity in the amount of 1,232 euros.
3rd Criminal Court of Peace had ruled that books of Cemal, Tatar and Abdullah Öcalan which have been detected on the persons who had been taken into custody during an operation run with accusement of being members of the United Kurdish Community in Western Kurdistan (KCK), the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), to be pulled off the shelves.(YY/DG)