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

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW-BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RlVISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASlN ÖZETi
Pro-Kurdish newspaper tests
Turkish press freedom
By Metin Demirsar
Reuters
ISTANBl,lL- For its readers, the pro-Kurdish
newspaper Ozgür Gündem is a flickering beacon
of free speech. For the Turkish authorities,
it is the mouthpiece of the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) which is waging a guerrilla war for
an independent Kurdish state in southeast Turkey.
Given the restrictions on freedom of expression
which ~ave lingered since the 1980 military
coup, 0 zgür Gündem's troubles are ],~ss
surprising than its ability to publish at a]1. "0 z-
gür Gündem is the PKK daily," said an official
at the government Press and Information Department.
"The newspaper feeds its readers on
exaggerations and sensational news." Al1l}ed
forces chief General Dogan Güre~ refers to Oz-
~ür Gündem and the leftIst daily Aydmhk ~s the
terrorist press". Since the Istanbu]-based 0 zgür
Gündem went on sale in April 1992, prosecutors
have tried to gag it on the grounds that it
publishes separatist propaganda on behalf of the
PKK. More than 70 indictments have been brought
against its staff.
Its chief editor, Gurbetelli Ersöz, 29, spends
several days a week at the state ,security court
embroiled in legal battles. A former uß1versity
chemistry lecturer, she says the court cases are
aimed at silencing information on the Kurdish
cause. "Officials want us to toe the government
line, like other mainstream Turkish newspapers.
They do not want us to publish what is really
happening in the southeast," she told Reuters.
More than 7,200 people have been killed in
Turkey since the PKK, claiming to speak for the
country's estimated 12 million Kurds, began its
armed secessionist campaign in 1984. Prime
Minister Tansu Çiller's government has promised
to expand democratic rights and stop human
rights vioJatiQns, but such talk does not inspire
optimism at Ozgür Gündem. Six of the paper's
journalists, includingMusa Anter, 74, a prominent
Kurdish author, have been victims of unsolved
murders. They are among 17 journalj,sts
killed in Turkey since 1990..Neverthe]ess, Ozgür
Gündem, published in Turkish, managed an
average daily circulation of 28,000 in one week
in September. The newspaeer has enraged the
authorities with reports that furkish troops have
used chemical weapons against PKK rebels, razed
Kurdish villages and, on one occasion,
dragged the body of a PKK fighter behind an
armoured troop carrier.
Turkish clfficials have denied all the reports
and accused the paper of falsifying photographs
it published as ~vidence. The officials also said
the murdered 0 zgür Gündem reporters were
Kurdish militants, not bona fide journalists.
"The murder of journalists worries us," said
Necmi Tan>'o]aç, president of the Istanbu]-based
Journahsts Association. He said that reporting
in the mainly Kurdish southeast was increasingly
difficult, partly because of lack of cooperation
from officials.
Oktay Ekji, president of the Istanbul-based
Press Council and columnist for the big Hun;-
yet newspaper, said the council felt unable to
defend journalists who wer~ also PKK militants.
It was intolerable for 0 zgür Gündem to
refer to Turkey as the "enemy republic", he said.
Yet Ek~i argued that Turkey was a "closed
state, which claims that all news belongs to it
and not to the public". He said the statute book
contained more than 150 laws and decrees relating
to the press, many of them restrictive. "We
are under very severe pressure from the state,"
he declared.
Ek~i said that Turkey,like other democracies,
faced a real dilemma over how to protect the interests
of the country without simultaneously
destroying its democratic system.
Kurdish nationalists and people holding radicalleftwing
views appear to take the brunt of
official harassment. 0 zgür Gündem's publisher,
Ya~ar Kaya, who also heads the pro-Kurdish
Democracy Party, was arrested thIS month in
connection with a speech he made in Kurdish-
~eld northern Iraq. Four of the paper's editors,
mcluding Ersöz's predecessor, Davut Karadagh,
are also m jail.
Özgür Gündem reporter Aysel Malkaç was
abducted outside the paper's Istanbul office on
August 6 and is still mIssing. Editors say the
pohce t09k her. Security officials deny it. Vendors
of Ozgür Gündem have also come under
attack: Kiosks have been burned, A 13-year-old
boy selling the paper was knifed in Diyarbakir
and one vendor, Orhan Karaaga, was killed in
the..eastern city of Van.
o zgür Gündem does not hide its sympathies
for the PKK. Ersöz herself was arrested while
teaching at Adana University and served a twoyear
prison sentence for membership of the group.
"Ifyou say you are a Kurd, all doors shut in
your face in Turkey," she said, describing what
prompted her militancy.
Southeast
Turkey remains one of the ~orld's
most dangerous trouble-spots for a Journalist
to work.
...Although the govern~e~t ha~ vigorousl.y denied
involvement m the kllhngs, It ha.~contmued
to take other forms of action against 0 zgür Gündem
(Free Agenda) which has been almost constantly
harassed since its launch in May 1992. A
total of 80 issues of the newspaper have been
confiseated.
The paper closed down voluntarily for four
months in January, but there has bee~ no let-up
since it reappeared. The paper's premIses are often
placed under s~rvei!lance, and !he Istanbul
state security court IStrymg to close It down permanently
on the ground that it praises PKK a~tivities
with separatist propaganda ... Meanwhde,
the bad news continues: Aysel Malkaç, 22, are.
porter from the paper, went missing since she left
Its Istanbul offices... Her colleagues presume that
she is dead.
I
Turkey's PKK note to the. US
Iurkey iast montn askea tna Unltea 8tates to taKe measures against cenaln ~uralsn
groupswhich it claimed were organizing in that country for the outlawed Kurdistan
Workers' Party (PKK), the daily CUMHURIYET reported on Friday. The new~paper
said in its front page story that Washington had still not responded to Turkey s note .
The note reportedly said that various associations and organizations in the United ,
States including the Kurdish-Americ.an Information f':Jetwork were actually front organizations
fotthe PKK and supporting this terrorist organization. The note asked
Washington to give immediate information on this, Cumhuriyet said.
45