(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of Justice Hikmet Sami Türk, RSF protested the seizure of journalist Celal Baslangiç’s book, which contains testimonies implicating the Turkish state in a series of violent acts against Kurdish civilians in the country’s south-eastern region. “It seems that Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership, still has no […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of Justice Hikmet Sami Türk, RSF protested the seizure of journalist Celal Baslangiç’s book, which contains testimonies implicating the Turkish state in a series of violent acts against Kurdish civilians in the country’s south-eastern region.
“It seems that Turkey, a candidate for European Union membership, still has no intention of ending censorship,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “We ask that you pledge to respect Turkey’s commitments with respect to freedom of expression,” added Ménard.
According to information collected by RSF, on 21 August 2001, the third edition of the book “The Temple of Fear”, written by Baslangiç, a journalist from the centre-left daily “Radikal”, was seized following an order by Judge Dursun Ali Gümüs. On 21 August, Istanbul’s state prosecutor launched legal proceedings against the journalist before the Second Police Tribunal. The journalist is charged with making “unfair and false remarks against the military” and “mockery and insults against the Turkish armed forces.” Testimonies collected in the book “The Temple of Fear” implicate the state in massacres committed during military operations against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in the country’s south-eastern region. The book deals specifically with four series of violent actions committed against the civilian population since 1989. The journalist faces one to six years in prison, in accordance with Article 159 of the Turkish Penal Code.
RSF recalls that those who are prosecuted for their beliefs still face imprisonment in Turkey, a country which nonetheless is a candidate for European Union membership. On 29 June, the State Security Court sentenced Fikret Baskaya, an academic and editorial writer, to a sixteen-month prison term for “separatist propaganda by way of the press.” He was incarcerated the same day. In a 1 June 1999 editorial in the pro-Kurdish daily “Özgür Bakis”, Baskaya wrote that “Turkish leaders have always considered the Kurdish problem to be a public order problem though it is a national problem, and they thought they could solve the problem by enforcing a chauvinistic, racist and nationalist policy.” Zeynel Abidin Kizilyaprak, publisher of a supplement in the daily “Özgür Bakis” titled “From 1900 to 2000, the Kurds,” was also sentenced to a sixteen-month prison term for having expressed “separatist remarks” (see IFEX alert of 11 June 2001). He is scheduled to be incarcerated on 22 October. RSF renewed its appeal to the minister of justice for the release of journalists Baskaya, Asiye Zeybek Güzel, Hasan Özgün, Mustafa Benli and Kemal Evcimen, and a fair and impartial trial for journalist Nureddin Sirin (see IFEX alerts of 18 April and 7 March 2001, 22 and 20 December 2000 and 7 December 1999).
