Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris
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REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RlVISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETi<br />
Pro-Kurdish newspaper tests<br />
Turkish press freedom<br />
By M<strong>et</strong>in Demirsar<br />
Reuters<br />
ISTANBl,lL- For its rea<strong>de</strong>rs, the pro-Kurdish<br />
newspaper Ozgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m is a flickering beacon<br />
of free speech. For the Turkish authorities,<br />
it is the mouthpiece of the Kurdistan Workers<br />
Party (PKK) which is waging a guerrilla war for<br />
an in<strong>de</strong>pen<strong>de</strong>nt Kurdish state in southeast Turkey.<br />
Given the restrictions on freedom of expression<br />
which ~ave lingered since the 1980 military<br />
coup, 0 zgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m's troubles are ],~ss<br />
surprising than its ability to publish at a]1. "0 z-<br />
gür Gün<strong>de</strong>m is the PKK daily," said an official<br />
at the government Press and Information Department.<br />
"The newspaper feeds its rea<strong>de</strong>rs on<br />
exaggerations and sensational news." Al1l}ed<br />
forces chief General Dogan Güre~ refers to Oz-<br />
~ür Gün<strong>de</strong>m and the leftIst daily Aydmhk ~s the<br />
terrorist press". Since the Istanbu]-based 0 zgür<br />
Gün<strong>de</strong>m went on sale in April 1992, prosecutors<br />
have tried to gag it on the grounds that it<br />
publishes separatist propaganda on behalf of the<br />
PKK. More than 70 indictments have been brought<br />
against its staff.<br />
Its chief editor, Gurb<strong>et</strong>elli Ersöz, 29, spends<br />
several days a week at the state ,security court<br />
embroiled in legal battles. A former uß1versity<br />
chemistry lecturer, she says the court cases are<br />
aimed at silencing information on the Kurdish<br />
cause. "Officials want us to toe the government<br />
line, like other mainstream Turkish newspapers.<br />
They do not want us to publish what is really<br />
happening in the southeast," she told Reuters.<br />
More than 7,200 people have been killed in<br />
Turkey since the PKK, claiming to speak for the<br />
country's estimated 12 million Kurds, began its<br />
armed secessionist campaign in 1984. Prime<br />
Minister Tansu Çiller's government has promised<br />
to expand <strong>de</strong>mocratic rights and stop human<br />
rights vioJatiQns, but such talk does not inspire<br />
optimism at Ozgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m. Six of the paper's<br />
journalists, includingMusa Anter, 74, a prominent<br />
Kurdish author, have been victims of unsolved<br />
mur<strong>de</strong>rs. They are among 17 journalj,sts<br />
killed in Turkey since 1990..Neverthe]ess, Ozgür<br />
Gün<strong>de</strong>m, published in Turkish, managed an<br />
average daily circulation of 28,000 in one week<br />
in September. The newspaeer has enraged the<br />
authorities with reports that furkish troops have<br />
used chemical weapons against PKK rebels, razed<br />
Kurdish villages and, on one occasion,<br />
dragged the body of a PKK fighter behind an<br />
armoured troop carrier.<br />
Turkish clfficials have <strong>de</strong>nied all the reports<br />
and accused the paper of falsifying photographs<br />
it published as ~vi<strong>de</strong>nce. The officials also said<br />
the mur<strong>de</strong>red 0 zgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m reporters were<br />
Kurdish militants, not bona fi<strong>de</strong> journalists.<br />
"The mur<strong>de</strong>r of journalists worries us," said<br />
Necmi Tan>'o]aç, presi<strong>de</strong>nt of the Istanbu]-based<br />
Journahsts Association. He said that reporting<br />
in the mainly Kurdish southeast was increasingly<br />
difficult, partly because of lack of cooperation<br />
from officials.<br />
Oktay Ekji, presi<strong>de</strong>nt of the Istanbul-based<br />
Press Council and columnist for the big Hun;-<br />
y<strong>et</strong> newspaper, said the council felt unable to<br />
<strong>de</strong>fend journalists who wer~ also PKK militants.<br />
It was intolerable for 0 zgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m to<br />
refer to Turkey as the "enemy republic", he said.<br />
Y<strong>et</strong> Ek~i argued that Turkey was a "closed<br />
state, which claims that all news belongs to it<br />
and not to the public". He said the statute book<br />
contained more than 150 laws and <strong>de</strong>crees relating<br />
to the press, many of them restrictive. "We<br />
are un<strong>de</strong>r very severe pressure from the state,"<br />
he <strong>de</strong>clared.<br />
Ek~i said that Turkey,like other <strong>de</strong>mocracies,<br />
faced a real dilemma over how to protect the interests<br />
of the country without simultaneously<br />
<strong>de</strong>stroying its <strong>de</strong>mocratic system.<br />
Kurdish nationalists and people holding radicalleftwing<br />
views appear to take the brunt of<br />
official harassment. 0 zgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m's publisher,<br />
Ya~ar Kaya, who also heads the pro-Kurdish<br />
Democracy Party, was arrested thIS month in<br />
connection with a speech he ma<strong>de</strong> in Kurdish-<br />
~eld northern Iraq. Four of the paper's editors,<br />
mcluding Ersöz's pre<strong>de</strong>cessor, Davut Karadagh,<br />
are also m jail.<br />
Özgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m reporter Aysel Malkaç was<br />
abducted outsi<strong>de</strong> the paper's Istanbul office on<br />
August 6 and is still mIssing. Editors say the<br />
pohce t09k her. Security officials <strong>de</strong>ny it. Vendors<br />
of Ozgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m have also come un<strong>de</strong>r<br />
attack: Kiosks have been burned, A 13-year-old<br />
boy selling the paper was knifed in Diyarbakir<br />
and one vendor, Orhan Karaaga, was killed in<br />
the..eastern city of Van.<br />
o zgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m does not hi<strong>de</strong> its sympathies<br />
for the PKK. Ersöz herself was arrested while<br />
teaching at Adana University and served a twoyear<br />
prison sentence for membership of the group.<br />
"Ifyou say you are a Kurd, all doors shut in<br />
your face in Turkey," she said, <strong>de</strong>scribing what<br />
prompted her militancy.<br />
Southeast<br />
Turkey remains one of the ~orld's<br />
most dangerous trouble-spots for a Journalist<br />
to work.<br />
...Although the govern~e~t ha~ vigorousl.y <strong>de</strong>nied<br />
involvement m the kllhngs, It ha.~contmued<br />
to take other forms of action against 0 zgür Gün<strong>de</strong>m<br />
(Free Agenda) which has been almost constantly<br />
harassed since its launch in May 1992. A<br />
total of 80 issues of the newspaper have been<br />
confiseated.<br />
The paper closed down voluntarily for four<br />
months in January, but there has bee~ no l<strong>et</strong>-up<br />
since it reappeared. The paper's premIses are often<br />
placed un<strong>de</strong>r s~rvei!lance, and !he Istanbul<br />
state security court IStrymg to close It down permanently<br />
on the ground that it praises PKK a~tivities<br />
with separatist propaganda ... Meanwh<strong>de</strong>,<br />
the bad news continues: Aysel Malkaç, 22, are.<br />
porter from the paper, went missing since she left<br />
Its Istanbul offices... Her colleagues presume that<br />
she is <strong>de</strong>ad.<br />
I<br />
Turkey's PKK note to the. US<br />
Iurkey iast montn askea tna Unltea 8tates to taKe measures against cenaln ~uralsn<br />
groupswhich it claimed were organizing in that country for the outlawed Kurdistan<br />
Workers' Party (PKK), the daily CUMHURIYET reported on Friday. The new~paper<br />
said in its front page story that Washington had still not respon<strong>de</strong>d to Turkey s note .<br />
The note reportedly said that various associations and organizations in the United ,<br />
States including the Kurdish-Americ.an Information f':J<strong>et</strong>work were actually front organizations<br />
fotthe PKK and supporting this terrorist organization. The note asked<br />
Washington to give immediate information on this, Cumhuriy<strong>et</strong> said.<br />
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