From communist works to a comic book, thousands of titles banned by Turkey over the decades were taken off the restricted list Saturday, thanks to a government reform.

In July, the parliament adopted a bill stipulating that any decision taken before 2012 to block the sale and distribution of published work would be voided if no court chose to confirm the ruling within six months. The deadline came and went Saturday and no such judicial decisions were recorded, the head of Turkey's TYB publisher's union, Metin Celal Zeynioglu, told AFP.  "All bans ordered by (the courts in the capital) Ankara will be lifted on January 5," city prosecutor Kursat Kayral confirmed .

Kayral had announced last month that he would let lapse every ban in his jurisdiction, a decision that cleared 453 books and 645 periodicals in that area alone.Among them were several communist works such as the "Communist Manifesto" written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, as well as writings by Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin and Russia's revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.