IPA Award Goes to İrfan Sancı

This year's Freedom to Publish Award by the International Publications Association (IPA) goes to İsrapil Shovkhalov, editor-in-chief of the Dosh Magazine in Chechnya. A special Award will also go to Turkish publisher İrfan Sancı from Sel Publishing. Sancı is currently facing a nine-month prison sentence in a trial on "obscenity".

The President of the IPA, Herman P. Spruijt, announced on 6 October 2010 in Frankfurt/Germany that Shovkhalov was chosen for his exemplary courage in upholding freedom to publish. The other short-listed candidates were publisher Rosspen of Russia and Bui Chat from Vietnam. The decisions came after the meeting of IPA's Board at the Frankfurt Book Fair on 6 October.

Prize giving ceremony at Book Fair in Istanbul

IPA established the IPA Freedom to Publish Prize to honour a person or an institution that 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 by the IPA President in Istanbul, Turkey, on 2 November 2010 on the closing day of the international days of the Istanbul Book Fair (30 October - 2 November).

IPA Secretary General declared: "Because of its fearless journalism and open commitment to human rights and understanding between the conflicting parties in the Caucasus, the editors, reporters and freelance journalists of the Dosh magazine are being threatened from all sides, and sometimes even harassed and threatened in an increasingly hostile environment. A serious incident as recent as March 2010 underlines the threats. Israpil Shovkhalov and executive editor Abdulla Duduev were on their way to make an interview with the President of the Republic of Ingushetia when they were abducted by unknown assailants who ended releasing them after a while".

In court for three literary works

IPA Freedom to Publish Committee Chair Bjørn Smith-Simonsen said: "The owner of Sel publishing, Irfan Sanci, has been sued under Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK; obscenity) for having published the following books: Ben Mila's The Fairy's Pendulum; Guillaume Apollinaire's Adventures of the Young Don Juan; and Letters of a Learned and Well-mannered French Bourgeois Lady by P.V., facing up to 9 years in jail."

"In May 2010, despite an experts' report from the Galatasaray and Bahcesehir Universities, concluding that the books were works of literature, an Istanbul court decided, for the first time in history, to send the three books to the Prime Ministerial Board for the Protection of Children from Harmful Publications for review, deciding whether they constitute literature or obscenity. The next hearing is due on 15 December 2010. There is potential political censorship in the air. We therefore call for Sel's acquittal". (EÖ/VK)

Source: IPA