TURKEY

Country Summary

Authorities have sustained their all-out assault on the press. Censorship, arbitrary detention, harassment, and imprisonment of journalists persists, as the state punishes independent reporting and commentary on the government’s 11-year-old conflict with Kurdish rebels in the Southeast. Seventy-eight journalists remain in prison­the highest such total of any country in the world. Turkish courts sentenced the majority of these prisoners for violating the infamous Anti-Terror Law and the Penal Code. Both laws give courts considerable latitude in prosecuting journalists.

The most prominent case in 1996 was a state security court’s March 7 conviction of noted author and journalist Yasar Kemal under Article 312 of the Penal Code. Kemal received a 20-month suspended sentence for “inciting hatred” in relation to two articles he had written for a book of essays titled Turkey and Freedom of Expression. In one of the articles, Kemal accused the Turkish government of waging a “campaign of lies” in its comprehensive censorship of reporting on the Kurds.

The state security courts have used the Anti-Terror Law and the Penal Code with equal severity to censor newspapers, frequently issuing closure orders. The leftist daily Evrensel, in particular, suffered a series of harsh measures in early 1996. On April 4, an Istanbul security court ordered the paper closed for one month for “inciting hatred” and “promoting racism.” On April 9, April 19, and May 9, the paper was again ordered closed, for periods ranging from 10 to 30 days, for violating both the Anti-Terror Law and the Penal Code.

Beyond prosecution and censorship, journalists have increasingly been the targets of harassment and police violence. In 1996, CPJ was able to document 14 cases of arbitrary detention and 19 instances of police physically assaulting journalists doing their jobs. Most alarming was the Jan. 8 beating death of Evrensel journalist Metin Goktepe. Eleven police officers charged with Goktepe’s murder went on trial in October. If convicted, they each face up to 16-and-a-half years in prison.

In the self-styled republic of Northern Cyprus, propped up by 35,000 Turkish troops, unknown assailants on July 6 gunned down Kutli Adali, a 61-year-old columnist for the daily Yeni Duzen, near his home. Adali was an outspoken critic of the Ankara-backed northern government’s controversial population policies, which continue to facilitate the settlement of Turkish nationals in north Cyprus. Shortly before his murder, he had received anonymous threats spurred by an investigative report about the theft of antiquities from a Cypriot monastery, in which he had implicated a retired Turkish general. A little-known group, the Turkish Defense Brigades, claimed responsibility for Adali’s murder, although no one has yet been charged in the crime. Government investigations into the murder have been described by many observers as inadequate.

The formation of the Islamist-led government of Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in June 1996 failed to result in any noticeable improvements in the realm of press freedom. But the international community’s sustained scrutiny of the Turkish government’s actions offers a modest degree of hope for the future. Efforts such as the European Parliament’s decision in October to temporarily suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid to the government, because of its poor human rights record, may produce the necessary leverage to pressure Ankara for change.

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