"ISTANBUL, Nov. 29 -- Turkish prosecutors on Thursday questioned the Turkish publisher of the book The God Delusion, by a British author, Richard Dawkins, after a young reader complained that it was offensive, the publisher said.
Erol Karaaslan, whose publishing house is Kuzey Publications, does not face formal charges at this point for bringing out the book, which is a best seller in the United States. But he was informed by prosecutors that a young reader from the neighborhood of Kadikoy filed a complaint against him under a law prohibiting inciting hatred, Mr. Karaaslan said in a telephone interview.
In Turkey, the government can open cases against authors or publishers based on complaints about content filed by private citizens, a far-reaching power that sharply limits freedom of expression and is an enduring part of Turkey's rigid state-controlled past.
The rules have led to the prosecution of authors including Orhan Pamuk, who won the Nobel Prize for literature. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working to soften these rules as part of Turkey's effort to join the European Union.
The book, which argues against the existence of God, upset the reader, who argued that it meets the criteria of inciting hatred, because it insults God and is offensive to Muslims, Christians and Jews in Turkey.
Mr. Karaaslan said his lawyer was preparing a written defense that prosecutors would consider in deciding whether to press charges.
Turkey is a secular state, but to its Muslim population, religion is a deeply felt topic. Turkish nationalists have killed Christians, including some priests, apparently believing they aim to split apart the Turkish state.
A priest from an Assyrian Christian monastery was kidnapped on Wednesday near the eastern city of Midyat. The state-controlled Anatolian News Agency quoted Turkey's interior minister, Besir Atalay, on Thursday as saying that police forces were scouring the area to find the priest, Edip Savci, who is from the Mor Yakup Monastery. His kidnappers have demanded a ransom of 300,000 euros.
