When the Turkish Publishers Union granted Bedri Kadanir and Ahmet Sik their “freedom of expression and thought” award may 26, Kadriye Adanir asked,
“My brother did not kill a person, he merely published a book. Why is there so much fear about a book? He is being tried on anti–terrorism charges.”
Her brother, the Kurdish publisher Bedri Adanir, has been in prison a year and a half in Diyarbakir while awaiting trial. Ahmet Sik, on the other hand, never got the chance to publish his book; digital copies of it were seized by the police last March 24, and Sik has been in prison awaiting trial ever since.
In defending the rather unusual step of confiscating a book and arresting its author before the book was even published, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: