By:Hambersom Aghbashian
Ragıp Zarakolu is a Turkish human rights activist and publisher who has long faced legal harassment for publishing books on minority and human rights in Turkey. He was born in 1948 (Büyükada island close to Istanbul), and grew up with members of the Greek and Armenian minorities in Turkey. In 1968 he began writing for “Ant” and “Yeni Ufuklar” magazines. He was sentenced in 1972 to 2 years imprisonment for his article in “Ant” (Pledge) on Vietnam War and was released in 1974.
The Belge Publishing House, established in Istanbul in 1977 by Zarakolu and his wife Ayşenur, has been a focus for Turkish censorship laws ever since. Charges brought against the couple resulted in imprisonment for both of them and the wholesale confiscation and destruction of books and the imposition of heavy fines. In 1979 Zarakolu was one of the founders of the daily (Demokrat) which was banned with the military coup of 12 Sept. 1980. He was shortly imprisoned in 1982 and was banned from leaving the country between 1971 and 1991. In 1986 he became one of 98 founders of the Human Rights Association of Turkey (HRA). Since 2007, he chairs the Committee for Freedom of Publication in the Union of Publishers.(1)
After the military coup of 12 Sept.1980, (Belge) started to publish a series of 35 books which included more than 10 books (translations) of Greek literature, 10 books on the Armenian Question and 5 books related to the Jews in Turkey. Also a number of books dealing with the Kurds in Turkey. He also has published several books on the Armenian Genocide, which brought new criminal charges in 2005. In November 2007 he published a book about the Assyrian Genocide. The Belge Publishing House offices were firebombed in 1995.
Ragip Zarakolu’s Belge Publishing House, has challenged publishing taboos on subjects such as the Armenian Genocide and minority rights in Turkey for more than three decades (2). In 2012, Jean Rafferty (England) petitioned Erdogan (more than 750 signatures) to release Ragip & Deniz Zarakolu. She mentioned that Ragip Zarakolu, has been judicially harassed for over 30 years by the Turkish authorities. She said that “The books Belge publishes often discuss either Kurdish human rights or the Armenian massacre of 1915 when over a million Armenians were slaughtered by the Ottoman Empire in one of the first modern genocides. To discuss either of these subjects is a criminal act in today’s Turkey under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code. This clearly breaches the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention of Human Rights.”(3). In 2011 , after he was arrested ,The International Publishers Association (IPA) and the worldwide association of writers PEN International criticized the arrest of Zarakolu. IPA said Turkish Publisher Zarakolu deserves the Nobel Prize, not prison(4). On Feb.3, 2012 Zarakolu was nominated for Nobel Price (3).
Ragıp Zarakolu was awarded the Novib/PEN Free Expression Award in 2003,and in 2008, the IPA Freedom to Publish Prize and in March 2012 the Assyrian Culture Award (Sweden). In May 2012 he received an Armenian state award for what President S. Sarkisian called a “remarkable contribution” to international recognition of the 1915 Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire as GENOCIDE. He added that “His struggle for conveying historical truth to the Turkish society is a brilliant example of high civic stance and courage.” In his speech at the ceremony, Zarakolu reaffirmed his belief that the World War I-era mass killings and deportations of Armenians were a genocide that must be acknowledged by modern-day Turkey. “Turkey must accept historical truth,” he said. “Only in this way can Turkey regain its self-respect.”(5) ————————————————————————————————————–
Sources:
1-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rag%C4%B1p_Zarakolu
2-http://www.armenianweekly.com/author/ragip-zarakolu/
3- http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/prime-minister-of-turkey-release-ragip-deniz-zarakolu
4-http://www.ekurd.net/mismas/articles/misc2011/11/turkey3542.htm
5-http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Ragip_Zarakolu
Also published in
Nor Or No.5 – Jan. 30, 2014