Star Tribune

January 20, 1996, Metro Edition

Targeting journalism; In Turkey, a free press means risking freedom // In

some countries, the pen is mightier than the sword. But not in Turkey, where

thousands of journalists find themselves jailed - or worse - for the crime of

trying to report the news.

Istanbul, Turkey

In a modern newsroom in the center of Istanbul, Gulsen Yuksel, 31, coolly

contemplated the risks of being a journalist in Turkey.

"There is a danger here," she said. "We all know it." Over her shoulder,

the portraits of eight dead colleagues at the newspaper stared from the wall.

Two weeks later, on Dec. 3, 1994, her newsroom erupted in a huge bomb

blast that killed a receptionist and injured 19 others. The blast reinforced

the message: A journalist in Turkey can pay a high price for trying to

exercise freedom of the press.

Last week, Metin Goktepe, a reporter for the paper Evrensel, paid that

price. He was picked up by police while covering a funeral of two leftists

killed in a prison clash, according to colleagues. He died from a severe

beating; his head was crushed and a rib broken, according to the autopsy.

Yucel Gokturk, editor of a small, weekly newspaper called Express, hopes

the price he pays will be only a prison term. But he is not certain.

"People get shot. People are missing," he said.

Human rights is risky topic

Gokturk edits the paper from a tiny office on a third-floor walk-up in

Istanbul and sends it to a printer who publishes 9,000 copies. The Express is

a left-leaning paper, full of praise for workers and scorn for the

establishment. Its political pages often focus on Turkey's abysmal human

rights record. There is plenty of material.

"When the state violates human rights, we write it. Sometimes people

write us with their own accounts. Sometimes we report it ourselves," Gokturk

said. "It's an issue to bring to the public's attention."

His interest in this issue bodes poorly for his future. Gokturk has been

indicted on six charges and ordered to appear before the state "security

court" to account for what he has written.

None of the trials has been held yet. If they had, he would not be

reclining on an old stuffed chair in the newsroom talking about his business.

There is a "50-50" chance he will be imprisoned after the first trial,

scheduled for next month, he said. And he is an optimist.

Turkey has used the state security courts, which are outside the normal

civil court system, to imprison hundreds of journalists and writers over the

past few years.

According to the Turkish Daily News, 432 journalists were detained last

year alone. Sentences against "freedom of thought" prisoners totaled 1,564

years, the paper calculated. At the end of November, 133 people were in

prison for what they had written, according to the Human Rights Foundation in

Ankara.

Most of the writers were charged with violating the "Law to Fight

Terrorism."

Kurds have regime edgy

Turkey has been locked in a grinding struggle with its Kurdish minority.

Criticism of how the government conducts that struggle, or even a hint of

sympathy for the plight of the Kurds, is interpreted by the government as

espousing "separatism," a crime akin to treason.

The charges against Gokturk, for example, involve his publishing pictures

of Turkish soldiers cutting off the ear of a Kurdish woman as a battle prize.

Another charge involves his publishing an interview with a Kurdish leader

in exile. Another involves his writing about a man who refused to serve in

the Turkish army, claiming he was a conscientious objector. The other charges

were for reporting on human rights violations.

"The state has created such an atmosphere, that to bring up human rights

violations is seen as supporting the PKK" - the Kurdish guerrillas, Gokturk

said. "If you say the Turkish government is violating human rights, killing

people, burning villages, then the public's attitude is that you are wrong."

Public is mostly apathetic

There is little pressure on the Turkish government from its own citizens

to change this pattern.

"Unfortunately, violence is one of our national characteristics," said

Seref Turgut, a human rights lawyer in Istanbul. "The Turkish police are

accustomed to treating people quite cruelly. A police chief will openly say,

'If I catch a suspect, what can I do to get a confession except to torture

him?' "

Human rights workers hope this is changing. Thousands of Turks marched in

protest in Istanbul last week after the body of Goktepe was found.

Goktepe, who wrote for a left-wing newspaper, had been seen by other

reporters among the scores of people arrested at the funeral. His body was

found in the sports complex where police had taken those detained.

Authorities denied he was in their custody. Such denials are not unusual.

"When you say the government is doing these things, it's very difficult,

because the term government really doesn't define the authority in Turkey,"

said Gokturk. "There is the state. There is the government. There are wings

of the state and wings of the government.

"The authority is ambiguous here. It could be a political chief, an

officer in the military, a prosecutor. You have to think on a Latin American

model."

Human rights groups try to publicize abuses. But they, too, have found

their workers and officers imprisoned, dead or missing.

Europe has been critical

The most important pressure for reform comes from Europe. The United

States, anxious to keep using Turkish air bases for flights over northern

Iraq, offers only rare and muted public criticism of Turkey's human rights

record.

But the European Union demanded that Turkey change its Article 8 - a

notorious law used to prosecute many of the writers - before the country

would be granted customs concessions this year. Turkey amended the law in

October.

After the amendment, writers were given new trials and nearly 100 were

released after their sentences were reduced, according to human rights

groups. But they say it is a cosmetic lull.

Other writers are being imprisoned under different laws, such as one

making it a crime to "insult" the military.

"Someone can be released from trial on one article and held in prison for

trial on another one," said Nevzat Kirac, an official of the Human Rights

Foundation in Ankara. "The changes in Article 8 did not make much difference.

It provided only a temporary relaxation. In a year or two, there will be just

as many journalists in prison."

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