Dr. Atilla Yayla, a professor of politics at Gazi University in Turkey, was sentenced to a 15-month jail term on January 28, 2008, for insulting Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in a speech in November 2006 in which he reportedly described the first phase of the leader’s rule as “regressive in some respects.” The sentence was suspended, with the court saying that it would monitor Professor Yayla for the next two years and apply it should he commit the same offense again. Commenting to the media, Professor Yayla said: “that means that I have a thought policeman from now on.” Not only is this threat hanging over Professor Yayla an infringement of his academic freedom, his conviction is a blow to freedom of expression in Turkey, acting as a precedent for the effective gagging of critical discourse in regard to the country’s history.