During the closing ceremony of the 28th IPA Publishers Congress in Seoul, Korea, IPA President Ana María Cabanellas announced that publisher Ragip Zarakolu was voted recipient of the 2008 IPA Freedom to Publish Prize for his exemplary courage in upholding freedom to publish.

The board of the International Publishers Association (IPA) meeting in Seoul, Korea, selected Ragip Zarakolu as Prize-winner from among many highly commendable candidates, announced IPA President Ana María Cabanellas.

IPA established the IPA Freedom to Publish Prize to honour a person who has made an important contribution to the defence and promotion of freedom to publish anywhere in the world. This year's award will be formally presented during the opening ceremony of the international seminar on neo-censorship in Amsterdam on 18 September 2008.

Ana María Cabanellas declares: "Ragip Zarakolu's work as a publisher and his wholehearted support of freedom to publish have often brought him into conflict with the authorities and endangered his personal safety. Ragip Zarakolu has persistently continued to tackle controversial issues, thus encouraging healthy debate in Turkey. We award this Prize to Ragip Zarakolu in deep respect for his courage as a publisher and as a salute to the passion, the integrity, and the steadfastness that he so marvelously demonstrates".

IPA Freedom to Publish Committee Chair Bjørn Smith-Simonsen adds: "Ragip Zarakolu has long been exposed to legal harassment for publishing books on minorities and human rights. We hope this Prize will encourage him to continue his publishing work".

Background: 

Ragip Zarakolu is a Turkish publisher born in 1948. Since starting his publishing house, Belge, with his wife Ayse Nur in 1977, he has been subjected to harassment from the Turkish authorities. Despite a three-year jail sentence, Zarakolu refused to abandon his campaign for freedom of thought, striving "for an attitude of respect for different thoughts and cultures to become widespread in Turkey". Over the years, the charges brought by the Turkish authorities against Zarakolu and his wife resulted in further imprisonment for the couple, confiscation and destruction of books, and the imposition of heavy fines, endangering the survival of his publishing house. Ragip Zarakolu is the chairperson of the Freedom to Publish Committee of the Turkish Publishers Association.

IPA established the IPA Freedom to Publish Prize to honour each year a person or an organisation that has made an important contribution to the defence and promotion of freedom to publish anywhere in the world. Recently, the 2006 IPA Freedom to Publish Prize was awarded to Iranian publisher Shalah Lahiji during the Göteborg Book Fair, and the 2007 Prize went to Zimbabwean publisher Trevor N'cube at the Cape Town Book Fair in South Africa. Special posthumous prizes were also given to Anna Politkovskaya and Hrant Dink. The 2008 IPA Freedom to Publish Prize is sponsored by the Dutch Publishers Association (NUV). For more information, see: http://www.nuv.nl/web/show/id=96378

The 2008 IPA Freedom to Publish Prize will be given in Amsterdam on 18 September 2008 during the opening ceremony of the International Seminar on Neo-censorship (18-20 September 2008). This seminar is part of the Amsterdam World Book Capital 2008 programme. For more about the seminar, please see: http://www.amsterdamworldbookcapital.com/index.cfm?page=agenda&y=2008&m=9&d=18