@COVER = NEWS FROM TURKEY @CENTBIG = FEBRUARY 1990 @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @CENTBIG = @HEAD = @HEAD = FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION Helsinki Watch is deeply concerned about continuing harsh restriction of free expression in Turkey. We call upon the government of Turkey to repeal Penal Code Articles 140, 141, 142, 158, 159 and 163, to release immediately all journalists imprisoned for the non-violent exercise of free expression, and to assure full rights to free expression to all of its people. While Turkish citizens are freer to voice their opinions and to criticize the government than they were in the period following the September 1980 military coup, they continue to risk harassment, detention, torture, criminal charges and imprisonment for expressing their views. There has been much talk of revising Turkey's Penal Code, adopted in 1938 from the penal code of Mussolini's Italy, which contains the infamous articles 141 and 142 (prohibiting the establishment of a communist party and communist or separatist propaganda) and 163 (prohibiting the establishment of a religious state). These articles are regularly used to punish expressions of opinion. Articles 158 (insulting the president), 159 (insulting the authorities<%-20> <%0>C<%-20> <%0>Parliament, the government, the military) and 140 (injuring Turkey's reputation while abroad) are used as well to suppress free expression. @HEAD = 400 JOURNALISTS CHARGED WITH CRIMES FOR THEIR WRITINGS IN 1989 Since the March 1989 release of the Helsinki Watch report, Paying the Price - Freedom of Expression in Turkey, Turkish authorities have taken hundreds of actions against Turks for what they have written in books, in newspaper or magazine articles, in films, or sung in concerts. Dateline Turkey reported on January 13, 1990, that 183 criminal cases had been brought against nearly 400 journalists in 1989 and that court cases against the print media had reached a record level in that year. In addition, magazines have been confiscated and banned, books seized and banned, and performances forbidden. According to the daily Cumhuriyet, at the end of November, 1989, at least 23 journalists and editors were in prison for what they had written or published, many serving absurdly long sentences. One journalist received a sentence of 1,086 years, later reduced on appeal to about 700 years.<$F None will serve more than 36 years, the maximum time permitted by Turkish law.> Harassment is most intense with regard to small left-wing and socialist journals, but the mainstream press is also subject to prosecution. 2000'e Dogru (Toward 2000), a left-wing weekly with a circulation of 30,000 (the second-largest magazine circulation in Turkey), continues to be a target of government harassment. Seventy-two criminal cases have been brought against editors of the magazine since it began publication three years ago. Until March 1989, Fatma Yazici was the journal's responsible editor (Turkish law requires that each publication have a "responsible editor" who bears legal responsibility for the contents of the publication). Fifty-six cases were brought against her for articles that appeared in the magazine. Helsinki Watch knows of six cases in which she was found guilty of such offenses as "insulting the president," "being disrespectful of religion and the Prophet Mohammed," and "weakening national sentiments." In four of these cases, an appeals court affirmed the verdicts and total sentences of eleven years and five months in prison. In one of the four, Ms. Yazici was sentenced to six years and three months for publishing without comment a summary of the Helsinki Watch report, Destroying Ethnic Identity: the Kurds of Turkey. Ms. Yazici has not yet started serving her sentences; she is reported to have gone into hiding. Helsinki Watch efforts to persuade the Turkish government to reverse her sentences have been unsuccessful. Sixteen cases have been brought against the journal's second responsible editor, Tunca Arslan; most of the indictments have been based on Penal Code Article 142(3), which states: @INDQUOTE = Whoever makes propaganda in order to abolish partially or entirely public rights, because of race, or to exterminate or weaken nationalist feelings, shall be punished by heavy imprisonment for five to ten years. Mr. Arslan has been found not guilty in four cases and has paid a fine in one<%-20> <%0>C<%-20> <%0>the rest of the cases are still in court. In seven cases, the offending issue of the journal was confiscated. Those issues contained: @BULLET = a letter with a statement by a Marxist-Leninist party on elections (March 19, 1989); @BULLET = a summary of the final communique of an international human rights conference held in Bremen (April 13, 1989); @BULLET = an article and editorial pointing out the similarity in the situations of the Turks in Bulgaria and the Kurds in Turkey (June 18, 1989); @BULLET = a news item entitled, "What does the word `Kurd' mean to the ordinary man?" (August 27, 1989); @BULLET = an interview with Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) (October 22 and November 5, 1989); and @BULLET = a press release from the PKK claiming that it bore no responsibility for a massacre that had taken place in Ikiyaka (December 3, 1989). 2000'e Dogru is not the only journal to be confiscated and charged with separatism or communism<%-20> <%0>C<%-20> <%0>many smaller left-wing journals continue to be confiscated or banned, and their writers and editors detained and sometimes beaten and charged with offenses. Toplumsal Kurtulus (Social Liberation) was the object of continuous prosecutions in 1989. Professor Yalcin Kucuk, a political commentator and former academic who edits and writes for the journal, told Helsinki Watch in December 1989 that he has been taken into custody so many times for his writings in Toplumsal Kurtulus that he has lost count: @INDQUOTE = In fact I have been detained by the political police almost once every month during the last one and a half years<%-20> <%0>.<%-20> <%0>.<%-20> <%0>.<%-20> <%0> my confinements have varied between two and thirteen days. Every time I get out, no sooner do I return home than they take me in again under any pretext whatsoever. On September 19, Professor Kucuk was taken into custody in Ankara for publishing an interview with Abdullah Ocalan, Secretary General of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). @INDQUOTE = After publishing the interview [Professor Kucuk reported], I spent six days in a cell<%-20> <%0>.<%-20> <%0>.<%-20> <%0>.<%-20> <%0>the cell was shorter than I am. I had to sleep on a cement floor and went on a hunger strike. [Later on] I was detained for thirteen days and then arrested, and spent two and a half months in the central prison [in Ankara]. I was both in DAL [the political section of police headquarters] and in the Security Court, accused of legitimizing Mr. Ocalan. Two months ago the Prosecutor made public his general indictment of the case and demanded that I be acquitted of all charges, saying that I had been mistakenly arrested. Of the remaining five cases of mine in Ankara Security Court I have been acquitted in all of them; three of the five have already been ratified by the High Court. @INDQUOTE = But I have other cases in other courts and two new ones were filed last month. Last month I had the luxury of being questioned by two prosecutors of the State Security Court separately, on two different grounds. A day after, while I was really joyful at having been able to avoid the cell, all of a sudden three men came in. It was as usual dark, and I did not recognize them, as they were not from one of my police teams. They took me into a car. This time I was very scared, as I thought I was being kidnapped. The way the political police come into your house is not different from your being kidnapped. In fact in order to frighten you they give you the impression that you are being kidnapped. You do not have the liberty, chance or means to check whether they are police or kidnappers; they come in in the dark, use private cars, wear civilian clothes and you are not allowed to question them. Professor Kucuk was later released. Helsinki Watch has received reports of other cases against Professor Kucuk and other Toplumsal Kurtulus writers and editors:<$F Many of these reports and others in this newsletter have come from Info-Turk, a monthly newsletter published in Belgium.> @BULLET = On April 12, Ilhan Akalin, the magazine's editor-in-chief, and Yalcin Kucuk were arrested and detained at Ankara Police Headquarters. Prof. Kucuk was released on April 14; Mr. Akalin was held until April 24. Both were accused of "making communist propaganda." @BULLET = On April 19, Bilgesu Erenus, the journal's owner, and Ilhan Arkalin were indicted by the State Security Court for an article concerning an incident in which inhabitants of Yesilyurt village had been forced by security forces to eat excrement. @BULLET = On August 14 and 15, two journalists from the review, Ahmet Ak and Aydin Isik, were arrested with Professor Kucuk for articles on hunger strikes in prisons. Confiscations, detentions and charges are common occurrences for small socialist journals: @BULLET = In April 1989 the journals Yeni Cozum, Yeni Acilim, Kivilcim, Emek Dunyasi and Yonelis, were all seized. In addition, two journalists from the monthly review Emek Dunyasi, Osman Gunes and Salahattin Karatas, were sentenced to six years and three months each by a court in Istanbul for an article on the Kurdish question. And the editor of the monthly review Genclik Dunyasi, Erdal Belenlioglu, was sentenced to a fine of 14 million Turkish lira (about $7,000); he had earlier been sentenced to a 75-day prison term for another article.