"Twists and turns in Turkey's censorship story
The country has long had draconian censorship laws – but things are more interesting than the western media suggests
At last week's Frankfurt book fair, where Turkey was this year's guest of honour, Orhan Pamuk used his keynote speech to alert the world to the fact that hundreds of writers continue to be prosecuted in Turkey. Numerous articles in the Turkish penal code make it an offence to insult Turkishness, the memory of Ataturk, the judiciary, or the army. He went on to lament the consequences: 'A century of banning and burning books, of throwing writers into prison, killing them or branding them as traitors and sending them into exile, continuously denigrating them in the press; none of this has enriched Turkish literature – it has only made it poorer.'"
More:Maureen Freely: The western media doesn't tell the full story about Turkey's censorship laws | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
