The BBC reports that a Turkish publisher has gone on trial for insulting the Turkish state and the founder of the Turkish republic.

Fatih Tas published a translation of a work by a US academic that included passages highly critical of the Turkish military during the Kurdish insurgency.

He is being prosecuted under the same article of law as Turkey’s best-selling novelist Orhan Pamuk and several dozen other writers and publishers.

Mr Tas, who owns Aram Publishing House, is no stranger to court appearances. His firm makes a point of publishing books on sensitive subjects and, under Turkish law, that means trouble.

Prosecutors are accusing him of having violated Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which makes it a crime to insult Turkishness or the Republic. Specifically, they have taken offence at a map that labels a large section of Turkey a traditionally-Kurdish area, as well as allegations of human rights abuses by the Turkish military during the Kurdish insurgency of the 1980s and 1990s.

Article 301 has been highlighted by the EU as a serious concern in its recent progress report on Turkey’s membership bid.

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