Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RMSTA
18
STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETÎ
Turkish Probe May 19,1995
has to launch an investigation and question those
who found his corpse,those who carried out the
autopsy and buried him in a very short time without
conducting any checks," Birdal demanded. The IHO
chairman also pointed out that Hasan Ocak's case
was very well known publicly and it was very hard to
understand the officials who decided to bury someone
without informing the public that a body had
been found. He claimed that there was an organized
group carrying out torture and murders. Both the
IHO and TIHV called on nongovernmental organizations
to set up a civil commission to investigate the
Hasan Ocak case. They repeated their demand for
human rights now and invited everybody with any
piece of information about those missing to testify.
"We call on the government to disclose what has
happened to those who have disappeared," they
said, and for prosecutors to set up investigations to
find out who is responsible for people going missing.
Hasan Ocak, 27, disappeared in Istanbul on March
21 after calling his sister to say he would be home
shortly. Nothing was heard from him after that.
Although at least two people who were detained at
the Istanbul police department and later released
testified that they had seen Hasan Ocak in the
police center, officials denied they had detained
Ocak. The campaign to shed light on Ocak's whereabouts
brought no results, and finallyon May 16 his
relatives identified his body from a photograph in the
police forensic medicine department. Sources said a
nurse working in the department, who did not want
to be identified, called Ocak's family and informed
them about the corpse. The family then went to
check the photographs. It emerged that Ocak's body
was found on March 26, five days after he disappeared,
and he was buried on April 13 in Istanbul's
Küçükçekmece district. The Beykoz district prosecutor
also confirmed that the corpse was that of Hasan
Ocak, that it had been found in Beykoz, and had
remained at the forensic medicine department for 29
days, then was buriedin Küçükçekmece cemetery.
The prosecutor's office said Ocak's family identified
him from photographs, that the body had been
examined before it was buried, and a court order
was necessary to exhume the body and carry out a
second autopsy. With Hasan Ocak's murder the list
of people who have disappeared in Turkey has been
shortened but the list of unsolved killings has ..
increased by one. Now, Ocak's family is waiting for.
his grave to be reopened and for an autopsy to discover
how and when he was killed.
(Turkish Daily News, May 18)
Altan charged for
satire about Kurds
A Turkish columnist who satirized the country's
restrictions against Kurdish cultural and political
rights has been charged with provoking racism,
court officials said on April 17. Ahmet Altan, who ..
was fired from his job at the daily Milliyet because of
the column, was charged this week with Article 312
of the penal code, under which it is a crime to promote
differences among people based on race, religion,
class or region. He faces up to six years in
prison if convicted. The use of Article 312 under-
. scores the myriad laws which can be used to limit
debate, although Western attention recently has
focused on Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorism Law, a
catchall ruling which bans "separatist propaganda".
Human rights officials say as pressure mounts on
Turkey to lift Article 8, prosecutors are increasingly
applying 312. Altan's column two months ago
caused a furore because he imagined what the
country would be like if Turkey's revered founder ..
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had been a Kurd instead of a
Turk. Altan, who comes from a distinguished journalistic
family, wrote that Turkey would be called
"Kurdey," Turkish would be banned and Turk's.
defending their ethnicity would be jailed. The column •
turned on its head the problems Turkey's Kurds
face, from the burning of civilian villages in the .
Southeast by soldiers fighting rebel Kurds to torture
faced by detainees and Turkey's attempts to forcibly
assimilate Kurds.
(Turkish Daily News, Reuters, May 18)
Ankarawelcomes Juppe'sappointment as PM
. . Turkish Daily News
ANKARA- Turkey, which considers France one of its
, c~ef supporters in its ~fforts to realize a customs union
With the European Umon, has welcomed the appointment
of Alain Juppe. ' former foreign minister, as prime
.minister by new President Jacques Chirac.
rurkish officials, describing Juppe as "an old friend,"
pom~ o~~ ~at the French statesm