Islamist Turkey suspends trial over century-old French erotic novel.

Islamist Turkey suspends trial over century-old French erotic novel.(AA).

An Istanbul court on Tuesday suspended the trial of a Turkish publisher and a translator accused of corrupting public morals over a French book written more than a century ago.

The case over "The Exploits of a Young Don Juan" by French surrealist Guillaume Apollinaire is the latest in a string of trials testing freedom of expression in a country often under fire over its human rights.

The court suspended the case against publisher Irfan Sanci and translator Ismail Yerguz for three years, citing a technicality in the Turkish penal code.

But the ruling disappointed the defendants and their lawyers, who said they were expecting a full acquittal.
"They tell us not to commit a crime for three years. For them, publishing a book is a crime," Sanci's lawyer Adem Sakal told AFP."We might go to the European Court of Human Rights," he said.

Sanci vowed that he would continue publishing the book, but added: "This decision is like the Sword of Damocles over my head."

Translated by Ismail Yerguz for the publisher Sel Yayincilik, the book's Turkish edition appeared in January 2009. In 2009, a local court in Istanbul filed a complaint over the "obscene content" in the book, which chronicles the sexual awakening of a 15-year-old boy.


But in 2013 Turkey's supreme court overturned the verdict, concluding the novel lacked "any artistic or literary value". Instead, it was alleged to be filled with "vulgar, ordinary phrases, which intend to provoke sexual desires by way of representing deviant, lesbian, unnatural, even animal-related sexual relationships through the use of children, and with a coarse language" and have "no plot whatsoever".

"Cases such as these create an atmosphere of intimidation," Ola Wallin, chairman of the International Publishers Association's Freedom to Publish Committee, told AFP.

In a joint press statement, IPA and US writers' association PEN International accused the Islamist-rooted government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan of failing to act to prevent such cases.

"There are many more examples of the dead hand of government cencorship on Turkish courts at the moment, affecting publishers, translators, writers and journalists."

There is some doubt as to whether Apollinaire was really the author of Les Exploits d'un Jeune Don Juan, which chronicles the sexual awakening of Roger, a 15-year-old boy whose fixation with carnal knowledge turns him into an object of desire for a large group of women – including his own aunt.


Turkey has long been criticised for a lack of medie freedoms and there are 60 journalists currently serving time in Turkish prisons, according to the European Federation of Journalists.

Erdogan's government is also under fire for what critics say are creeping efforts to force Islamic values on the predominantly Muslim but staunchly secular country.Hmmm.......“Thank God Almighty,” said Mr. Erdogan in 1994, when he was the mayor of Istanbul. “I am a servant of Shariah.”