Turkish human rights activist Zarakolu to live in Sweden for 2 years

PanARMENIAN.Net - Well-known Turkish human rights activist and publisher Ragip Zarakolu will live in Sweden for two years on invitation of International Cities of Refuge Network. He will reside in Sigtuna city.

The director and owner of Belge Publishing House, Ragip Zarakolu has been subject to a lifetime of harassment from the Turkish authorities.

Zarakolu was arrested along with more than 40 people on October 28, 2011.

Turkey arrested up to 1,000 scholars, writers, publishers, and rights advocates during a two-year crackdown targeting activists who focus on Kurdish issues. Zarakolu’s son, Deniz Zarakolu, who is an editor at Belge Publishing House and a Ph.D. student at Bilgi University, was arrested weeks earlier, on Oct 7.

On March 19, 2012, Zarakolu was formally indicted under the charge of "aiding and abetting an illegal organization" under Turkey's sweeping anti-terror laws, for which he could receive up to 15 years in prison if convicted. He is among 193 defendants named in the indictment. He was released pending trial on April 10, 2012.

He also has published several books on the Armenian Genocide, such as George Jerjian's “The Truth Will Set Us Free: Armenians and Turks Reconciled” and Professor Dora Sakayan's “An Armenian Doctor in Turkey: Garabed Hatcherian: My Smyrna Ordeal of 1922” — which brought new criminal charges in 2005. In November 2007 Zarakolu published David Gaunt's book “Massacres, resistance, protectors” about the Assyrian Genocide in Turkish.

He last visited Yerevan on Dec 10, 2013 to attend Verjine Svazlian’s “Armenian Genocide. Testimonies of the Eyewitness Survivors” book.