In 1971, the Turkish government was overthrown. Ragıp Zarakolu was tried on charges of secret relations to Amnesty International. He spent five months in prison before being declared innocent. In 1972 Ragıp Zarakolu was sentenced to 2 years in prison for his paragraph in the journal "Ant" (Oath) on "Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnam War". He stayed in Selimiye Prison (in Istanbul) and was set free in 1974 after a general amnesty. On his release Zarakolu refused to abandon his work for freedom of thought, because he wanted different thoughts and cultures to be available in Turkey.