IPI condemns journalist’s murder

(IPI/IFEX) – IPI strongly condemns the murder of Ahmet Taner Kislali, a prominent journalist and former Turkish minister of culture. **Updates IFEX alert of 21 October 1999** Kislali, 60, died at an Ankara hospital on Thursday 21 October 1999, of injuries sustained in a bomb blast, which was triggered when he picked up a package […]

(IPI/IFEX) – IPI strongly condemns the murder of Ahmet Taner Kislali, a
prominent journalist and former Turkish minister of culture.

**Updates IFEX alert of 21 October 1999**

Kislali, 60, died at an Ankara hospital on Thursday 21 October 1999, of
injuries sustained in a bomb blast, which was triggered when he picked up a
package left on his car.

Kislali was a columnist for the left-wing daily “Cumhuriyet” and served
briefly as culture minister in 1978 and 1979. In a recent column, he
attacked the leaders of a Moslem sect for saying that the deadly earthquake
which shook Turkey in August was divine retribution for the country’s
official clampdown on Islamic activism. “Cumhuriyet”‘s writers frequently
receive death threats from radical Islamic groups for their staunch defence
of the secularist principles on which Turkey was founded. In 1993, another
“Cumhuriyet” columnist and critic of Islamic fundamentalism, Ugur Mumcu, was
killed in a bomb attack. His assassins have never been found (see IFEX alert
of 28 January 1998).

IPI understands that police suspect the outlawed Great Islamic Eastern
Raiders-Front (IBDA-C) could be behind the attack, but that no claims of
responsibility have been made. The group has previously targeted leading
secularist intellectuals, including journalists.

IPI fears that Kislali was killed because of his work as a journalist.

Recommended Action

His Excellency Bülent Ecevit

Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey

Prime Minister’s Office

Ankara, Turkey

Fax: +90 312 417 0476

E-mail: ddlbsl@tccb.gov.tr