Atilla Yayla is not a terrorist. He is not a Kurd. He is not an Armenian. He is not a Marxist. He is not a conscientious objector. He is not a gay activist. He is not a Christian. He is not a Muslim fundamentalist. He is not famous, like Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel Prize winning author. Dr Yayla is a quietly spoken Turk, a liberal, a professor of politics at Gazi University in Ankara.

On July 2 Dr Yayla will be on trial in Turkey, facing a maximum of four and a half years in prison, for breaching Article 53 of the Turkish penal code. According to the ultra-Kemalists who have brought the case, his crime was to “publicly insult the moral legacy” of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Dr Yayla is supposed to have committed the offence during a seminar given in Izmir, a city on Turkey’s Aegean coast, last November to a group of 30 or so members of the ruling Law and Justice Party (AKP).