Turkish prosecutors have launched investigations into writers of fiction including the award-winning novelist Elif Shafak, in what campaigners are describing as a serious threat to free speech.
The move comes in the wake of a vicious debate on social media in which novelists tackling challenging subjects – such as child abuse and sexual violence – have been accused of condoning these practices.
“Anything that has any passage on sexual abuse of children in Turkish literature, they want to investigate it,” Shafak said. “This is a very new focus for them. And of course the irony is that this is a country in which we have an escalating number of cases of sexual violence against both women and children. Turkish courts are not taking action, the laws have not been changed. So in a country where they need to take urgent action to deal with sexual violence, instead they’re prosecuting writers. It’s the biggest tragedy. It has become like a witch-hunt.”