Riot police use shields to protect themselves as they clash with Pro-Kurdish demonstrators during a peace day rally on the Asian side of Istanbul on 1 September 2011. Photo: REUTERS/Osman Orsal
VIENNA, 3 Nov. 2011 – The International Press Institute (IPI) today condemned the arrest and pre-trial detention of Turkish publisher and free speech activist Ragip Zarakolu.
Zarakolu – director of the Belge Publishing House, a member of the Turkish PEN Center and chair of the Freedom to Publish Committee of the Turkish Publishers Association – was among approximately 40 suspects detained Friday under anti-terror laws.
The arrests came amid an ongoing crackdown by Turkish authorities against activists who focus on Kurdish issues, including the Koma Civakên Kurdistan (KCK) party, or Union of Kurdistan Communities, which is reportedly affiliated with the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to worldwide writers association PEN, Turkish authorities have arrested up to 1,000 scholars, writers, publishers and rights advocates during the two-year crackdown. The group commented that “Zarakolu’s staunch belief in free expression, his tireless campaign against book bannings, and his courage in publishing works that challenge Turkey’s repressive censorship laws have resulted in a catalog of indictments dating back to the early 1970s.”
PEN said that the Belge Publishing House, which Zarakolu founded with his wife Ayse Nur in 1977, had tested Turkish publishing restrictions by translating and publishing controversial books from Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish authors including works on the Armenian genocide and the experiences of Turkey’s Kurdish minority. PEN also reported that a right-wing extremist group firebombed Zarakolu’s office in 1995 and that authorities banned him from travelling outside Turkey from 1971 to 1991.
Ferai Tinç, a member of IPI’s Executive Board and the chair of IPI’s Turkey National Committee, said: “Terrorism cannot be defeated by silencing opinions and creating a climate of fear to express ideas. The healthiest environment to dry the causes of terrorism is an environment of lively discussion. Only under these conditions can people isolate terrorists and insist on a search for political solutions to their problems. We call on the government to change anti-terror laws with which journalists, editors, writers and publishers can easily be threatened and deprived of their freedom of expression. "
In other news, IPI World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Şener was acquitted Monday following trial on charges of insult and breach of privacy. Bianet reported that the charges, which carried a punishment of six years in prison, stemmed from an article Şener wrote about bribery that allegedly mentioned a judge in Istanbul by nickname.
Şener, who has been detained since March following a police raid on the offices of Oda TV, was acquitted in June of charges of "violation of confidentiality" and the "attempt to influence a fair trial" related to another article.
However, he, investigative journalist Ahmet Şık and 12 others arrested in connection with the Oda TV raid face charges in the so-called “Ergenekon” probe into an alleged clandestine Kemalist ultra-nationalist organisation with ties to members of the country's military and security forces which has been accused of plotting to use terrorism to overthrow the government. Şener and the others are accused of working to form a media that would direct public opinion towards the interests of Ergenekon.
A hearing in the trial is set to take place in Istanbul on 22 November.
Turkey’s Justice Ministry in August acknowledged that it was holding 63 journalists in prison and that only 18 had been convicted of a crime. The ministry reportedly declared that four journalists were imprisoned due to their writings, but maintained that the others were not in prison because of their work.
Many of the imprisoned journalists have not been informed of the charges they face, nor have their attorneys, and many are subject to lengthy pre-trial imprisonment.
The South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO), an IPI affiliate, supports this statement.http://www.freemedia.at/home/singleview/article/turkish-publisher-detained.html
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