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A Turkish publisher, a translator and two editors went on trial here Tuesday, risking up to six years in jail, over a book by prominent US leftist Noam Chomsky, Anatolia news agency reported.
The trial is the latest in a string of court cases against intellectuals, among them 2006 Nobel Literature Prize laureate Orhan Pamuk, which have prompted harsh European Union warnings that Turkey's failure to ensure freedom of expression is undermining its membership bid.
The four defendants are accused of "inciting hatred" on the basis of racial differences and "insulting Turkishness".
The charges resulted from the book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media", co-authored by Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, and published in Turkish in March.
The book, which makes references to several countries as it analyzes how individuals and media outlets are influenced to shape social agendas, contains passages on the heavy-handed treatment of Turkey's Kurdish minority in the 1990s, which the prosecution argues are insulting.
The defandants -- Fatih Tas, owner of the Aram publishing house which released the book, editors Omer Faruk Kurhan and Taylan Tosun and translator Ender Abadoglu -- rejected the charges.
The judge adjourned the hearing to give them more time to prepare their defense, Anatolia reported.
Speaking outside the court after the hearing, Tas denounced the prosecution of editors and translators.
"No one should be surprised if distributors, book-sellers and readers are also put on trial soon," he said.
Tas was already tried and acquitted in 2002 for publishing a Chomsky book, "American Interventionism", in which the author criticizes Ankara's treatment of its Kurdish minority and US arms sales to the Turkish government.
In a show of support for his publisher, Chomsky travelled to Istanbul to attend one the hearings and then gave conferences in Diyarbakir, the main city of the predominantly Kurdish southeast.
A professor of linguistics Chomsky is famous for his attacks on US foreign policy.
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AFP 171535 GMT 10 06
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