TURKEY: When an Amnesty Is Not The Answer To HR Crisis

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/** ips.english: 459.0 **/
** Topic: DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-TURKEY: When An Amnesty Is Not The Answer To **
** Written  4:14 PM  Aug 18, 1998 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.english **
       Copyright 1998 InterPress Service, all rights reserved.
          Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

                      *** 15-Aug-98 ***

Title: DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-TURKEY: When An Amnesty Is Not The Answer To
Human Rights Crisis

By Nadire Mater

ISTANBUL, Aug 11 (IPS) - 'They are free. And you?' read the ironic
slogan on the placards raised alongside pictures of  Turkey's four
most famous prisoners of conscience: sociologist Ismail Besikci,
playwright Esber Yagmurdereli, journalist Ragip Duran and
international relations analyst Haluk Gerger.

Hundreds of people, including prominent journalists and human
rights activists, gathered in Istanbul's Ortakoy District Square
at the weekend, calling for the immediate release of all Turkey's
political prisoners, jailed journalists and writers. Street p
erformers and musicians gave the event a festive air.

The government, which includes several figures who were jailed as
'subversives' and 'terrorists' during the years of military rule
in the 1970s, has tabled general amnesty proposals for the Turkish
Republic's forthcoming 75th anniversary.

But they exclude freedom for ''prisoners of conscience''. For the
political prisoners in Turkish jails, a national amnesty that
excludes them is nonsense.

''It is a universally accepted standard that 'amnesty' means the
state's annulment of so-called crimes committed by its  political
dissidnts,'' Esber Yagmurdereli told IPS during an interview in
Cankiri Central Prison last week.

Having spent 13 of his 53 years of life in prison, the veteran
peace campaigner, blind since the age of 11, is expected to serve
another 22 and a half years in jail. The media has called for
freedom of ''prisoners of conscience'' and for changes to the l
aw, while insisting that captured Kurdish guerrillas stay in jail.

Most of Turkey's prisoners of conscience were jailed for their
efforts to spread the word about the country's debilitating 14
year civil conflict in the south-east, where Turkish Kurds seek
autonomy for their region.

Support for the Kurdish case, even voicing concern about the
conduct of the war, is dubbed by the Turkish state as illegal
support for 'separatism'. Dozens of people, from paliamentarians
to playwrights, have been jailed for speaking out.

''For every gain a price should be paid,'' Yagmurdereli said, in
a special message to the weekend event in Ortakoy. ''The price
should be paid for final victory. I greet those who have been
paying and those who are lined up to pay for their part.''

Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit has proposed a limited
general amnesty for the 75th anniversary of the creation of the
Turkish Republic.

But citing constitutional articles 14 and 87, which restrict
parliament's power to pardon crimes against the state, Ecevit says
a general amnesty is out of question. ''However,'' he adds, ''we
can pardon those prisoners who have committed crimes due to p
overty and want.''

Rights activists argued that the amnesty should free its
dissidents, not pick out prisoners whose release would make the
state look sweet. Instead Ecevit has redefined 'crimes against the
state' as 'crimes of terrorism' and grouped them with state frauds
ters, torturers, murderers, rapists and tax evaders -- all of whom
will be denied amnesty as well.

''They (the government) say, `If you are a prisoner of
conscience, you better stay inside','' says journalist Oral
Calislar  mockingly.
A leading columnist with the Istanbul daily Cumhuriyet, Calislar
spent 20 months in jail on charges of 'separatism' aft er he
interviewed two Kurdish leaders in 1993, Abdullah Ocalan of the
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kemales Burkay of the Kurdistan
Socialist Party (PSK).

Optimism rang in Calislar's words: ''Turkey's democratic public
should not lose hope, for we are fighting to change the world.''

''This is a century old story,'' says journalist Nazim Alpman,
spokesman for the group behind the weekend protest, Uninterrupted
Fight for Freedom of Conscience (DOSS). ''Esber Yagmurdereli was
released on health reasons, in November, on the eve of the E
uropean Union's Luxembourg summit, against his will as well.''

The summit announced the next group of nations to join the bloc,
but Yagmurdereli's release was not enough to ease the EU's
concerns about Turkey's rights record, and Ankara's name was left
off the list. ''Turkey was not admitted to the EU and  Yagmurdere
li was once again jailed,'' Alpman noted wryly.

''According to the globalisation legend the world has become
smaller. Well it has for all, campaigners of freedom of expression
included,'' he said. ''We are determined to internationalise our
campaign until the last prisoner of consciece released and a ll
the restrictive laws are abolished.''

The campaign is collecting signatures from Turkey's prominent
political and intellectual figures who urge all, ''including
parliamentary deputies, to assume their responsibilities and bring
about freedom of conscience and expression.''

The petition has already been signed by some 500 hundred major
figures, including veteran novelists Yasar Kemal and Adalet
Agaoglu, poet Can Yucel, and human rights activists Akin Birdal
and Ercan Kanar.

According to Turkish Ministry of Justice figures, at last cunt
there were 63,468 prisoners in Turkey's jails, 24,708 or 44
percent of whom will be denied amnesty if parliament passes
Ecevit's proposal in October.

Of that total, 9,306 were convicted under anti-terrorism laws,
13,024 for murder, 4,037 for rape, 709 for bribery, 2,633 for
fraud and 3,640 for drugs related crimes. The 9,306 'terrorism'
convicts include almost all of Turkey's prisoners of conscience,

jailed under articles 6,7 and 8 of the 'anti-terror law' and
Article 312 of the Penal Code.

The law's ambiguous terminology gives the State Security Court
judges to decide freely what constitutes 'support for separatism'.
Ismail Besikci, Haluk Gerger and Ragip Duran all fell foul of
these draconian laws.

Sociologist Ismail Besikci, 53, doyen of Turkey's 'criminals of
conscience' is srving his 15th year in prison. He has served
several jail terms for his views on the Kurdish separatist
question and his latest stint began in 1991. Already condemned to
a t otal of 100 years in jail, Besikci faces sentences totalling
another 104 years in cases pending against him in the State
Security courts.

Associate Professor Haluk Gerger, 50, international relations
analyst and former lecturer at Ankara University' Faculty of
Political Sciences, is currently serving eight months for
separatism in Ankara's Gudul District Prison. He has published a
book, Th e Political Economy of Turkish Foreign Policy, while in
prison and also faces fresh charges and sentences for his writing
and speeches.

Journalist Ragip Duran, 44, is serving out a 10 month sentence in
Saray District Prison in north west Turkey. He was jailed for
writing a commentary on PKK guerrilla leader Ocalan, whom he had
interviewed in 1994.

''I should remind that the four of us are not heroes but just
symbols for the ongoing fight for freedom of expression,'' said
Duran, speaking to IPS by phone from jail this week. ''You must
not forget the 90 other journalists now in prison. We do not cla
im any special privilege and we have no right to that.''

But for him, amnesty will be an inadequate response if the laws
stay on the statute book and the state retains its power to jail
journalists and parliamentary deputies as it sees fit.

''I do not look for an amnesty,'' Duran says. ''This should be
finished once and at all. The concept of 'crime of conscience`
should be abolished for ever. This is the final answer.''
(END/IPS/NM/RJ/98)


Origin: Amsterdam/DEVELOPMENT BULLETIN-TURKEY/
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