Haluk Gerger Returns to Prison

[greenscreen at mailexcite.com]

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received from: akin at kurdish.org
posted by:  Umit Ozturk <grenscreen at gn.apc.org>

===============================
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PO Box 10386
London E17 7RG, U.K.
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e-mail:  greenscreen at gn.apc.org
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>Turkey Jails Dissident Who Praised Rebel Kurds
>By STEPHEN KINZER
>Wednesday, January 28, 1998
>
>ISTANBUL, Turkey -- In a sign of Turkey's determination to limit public 
>praise for Kurdish guerrillas, an outspoken essayist and political 
>scientist has been jailed to begin serving a 10-month sentence. 
>
>The dissident, Haluk Gerger, 50, who is not Kurdish, was jailed on 
>Monday. He was convicted last year in connection with an article he wrote 
>in 1993 praising the rebels and accusing the army of bombing villages and 
>burning farms in the Kurdish region. 
>
>Soon after the article appeared in the newspaper Ozgur Dundem, the paper 
>was declared a guerrilla organ and closed. 
>
>Speaking in Ankara before he complied with a police order to surrender, 
>Gerger said he was moving "from the open-air prison of Turkey to a closed 
>penitentiary." 
>
>"We began our struggle even though we realized that there is a high cost 
>for remaining human," Gerger told journalists and supporters at the Human 
>Rights Association headquarters. "Standing against the impositions of 
>this system is the only way to keep alive the individual within us. We 
>will continue to tell the truth and shelter the innocent. We cannot stay 
>indifferent to the fanatic terror of this dirty war." 
>
>The 14-year-old war between the Turkish army and separatist Kurds is 
>estimated to have killed 27,000 people and cost billions of dollars. The 
>government describes the guerrillas as terrorists, and cannot tolerate 
>hearing its own soldiers described that way. 
>
>Officials say those who condemn the war are in effect supporting efforts 
>to divide the country. To suppress them, courts have sent scores of 
>writers and other intellectuals to prison. 
>
>One of the most prominent among them, the blind lawyer and playwright 
>Esber Yagmurdereli, 52, was released on health grounds shortly before 
>Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz visited Washington last month. He protested 
>that he was not ill, and last week prosecutors informed him that he is 
>likely to be sent back to jail for refusing to submit to medical 
>examinations. 
>
>In a telephone interview Tuesday from a location he would not identify, 
>Yagmurdereli suggested that he was in hiding. "As soon as the police see 
>me," he said, "they will take me." 
>
>Yagmurdereli and Gerger are leftist critics of the Turkish political 
>system and of the military's role in it. They have called for an end to 
>the Kurdish war and unrestricted freedom to speak, broadcast and teach in 
>the Kurdish language. 
>
>The government says it will grant such freedoms when the war ends, but 
>cannot do so now because they would be misused by those who want to fan 
>the flames of Kurdish nationalism with the aim of dismembering the 
>country. 
>
>Restrictions on freedom of speech, especially those enforced against 
>Kurds and their supporters, are often cited by foreign leaders and others 
>who question the fullness of democracy in Turkey. 
>
>In Bonn, Germany, human rights advocates demanding the release of Hamdi 
>Turanli, a Kurdish leader who is said to be seriously ill, picketed 
>Tuesday meetings between German officials and Turkish Foreign Minister 
>Ismail Cem. Turanli, who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years and 
>holds German and Turkish citizenship, was arrested on Jan. 12 in Ankara 
>and has not yet been charged. 
>
>In speeches and articles, Gerger has based his opposition to the war on 
>what he says is its corrosive effect on Turkish society. The article that 
>led to his sentencing violated a strict taboo by urging that the Turkish 
>government negotiate with the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the 
>PKK. 
>
>The government describes the party as a gang of cut-throat terrorists, 
>but Gerger said they represent the Kurdish people. He also asserted that 
>"Kurdish villages are being bombed and homes, fields and forests are 
>being burned." 
>
>"This bleeding wound which we call the Kurdish problem has its roots in 
>the objective realities of history, culture, politics and social 
>relations," he wrote. "The Kurds and the PKK are so closely tied that 
>whoever tries to extinguish the fire inside the Kurdish soul finds his 
>hands burned by the PKK." 
>
>Gerger was dismissed from his university professorship after the 1980 
>military coup and later served two years in prison for making what was 
>deemed a statement of support for Kurdish rebels. 
>
>At his news conference in Ankara on Monday, the president of the Human 
>Rights Association, Akin Birdal, who was himself recently acquitted of 
>charges that he supported terrorism, hailed him as a martyr to free 
>expression. 
>
>"In civilized countries writers wait at the doors of theaters and opera 
>houses with tickets in their hands," Birdal said. "In Turkey they wait at 
>prison gates with verdicts in their hands."
>
>
>
>
>----
>American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
>2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
>Washington, DC 20008-1522
>
>Tel: (202) 483-6444
>Fax: (202) 483-6476
>E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
>Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
>----
>
>The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service 
>to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship
>
>
>



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Turkey Jails Dissident Who Praised Rebel Kurds
By STEPHEN KINZER
Wednesday, January 28, 1998

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- In a sign of Turkey's determination to limit public 
praise for Kurdish guerrillas, an outspoken essayist and political 
scientist has been jailed to begin serving a 10-month sentence. 

The dissident, Haluk Gerger, 50, who is not Kurdish, was jailed on 
Monday. He was convicted last year in connection with an article he wrote 
in 1993 praising the rebels and accusing the army of bombing villages and 
burning farms in the Kurdish region. 

Soon after the article appeared in the newspaper Ozgur Dundem, the paper 
was declared a guerrilla organ and closed. 

Speaking in Ankara before he complied with a police order to surrender, 
Gerger said he was moving "from the open-air prison of Turkey to a closed 
penitentiary." 

"We began our struggle even though we realized that there is a high cost 
for remaining human," Gerger told journalists and supporters at the Human 
Rights Association headquarters. "Standing against the impositions of 
this system is the only way to keep alive the individual within us. We 
will continue to tell the truth and shelter the innocent. We cannot stay 
indifferent to the fanatic terror of this dirty war." 

The 14-year-old war between the Turkish army and separatist Kurds is 
estimated to have killed 27,000 people and cost billions of dollars. The 
government describes the guerrillas as terrorists, and cannot tolerate 
hearing its own soldiers described that way. 

Officials say those who condemn the war are in effect supporting efforts 
to divide the country. To suppress them, courts have sent scores of 
writers and other intellectuals to prison. 

One of the most prominent among them, the blind lawyer and playwright 
Esber Yagmurdereli, 52, was released on health grounds shortly before 
Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz visited Washington last month. He protested 
that he was not ill, and last week prosecutors informed him that he is 
likely to be sent back to jail for refusing to submit to medical 
examinations. 

In a telephone interview Tuesday from a location he would not identify, 
Yagmurdereli suggested that he was in hiding. "As soon as the police see 
me," he said, "they will take me." 

Yagmurdereli and Gerger are leftist critics of the Turkish political 
system and of the military's role in it. They have called for an end to 
the Kurdish war and unrestricted freedom to speak, broadcast and teach in 
the Kurdish language. 

The government says it will grant such freedoms when the war ends, but 
cannot do so now because they would be misused by those who want to fan 
the flames of Kurdish nationalism with the aim of dismembering the 
country. 

Restrictions on freedom of speech, especially those enforced against 
Kurds and their supporters, are often cited by foreign leaders and others 
who question the fullness of democracy in Turkey. 

In Bonn, Germany, human rights advocates demanding the release of Hamdi 
Turanli, a Kurdish leader who is said to be seriously ill, picketed 
Tuesday meetings between German officials and Turkish Foreign Minister 
Ismail Cem. Turanli, who has lived in Germany for more than 30 years and 
holds German and Turkish citizenship, was arrested on Jan. 12 in Ankara 
and has not yet been charged. 

In speeches and articles, Gerger has based his opposition to the war on 
what he says is its corrosive effect on Turkish society. The article that 
led to his sentencing violated a strict taboo by urging that the Turkish 
government negotiate with the rebel Kurdistan Workers Party, known as the 
PKK. 

The government describes the party as a gang of cut-throat terrorists, 
but Gerger said they represent the Kurdish people. He also asserted that 
"Kurdish villages are being bombed and homes, fields and forests are 
being burned." 

"This bleeding wound which we call the Kurdish problem has its roots in 
the objective realities of history, culture, politics and social 
relations," he wrote. "The Kurds and the PKK are so closely tied that 
whoever tries to extinguish the fire inside the Kurdish soul finds his 
hands burned by the PKK." 

Gerger was dismissed from his university professorship after the 1980 
military coup and later served two years in prison for making what was 
deemed a statement of support for Kurdish rebels. 

At his news conference in Ankara on Monday, the president of the Human 
Rights Association, Akin Birdal, who was himself recently acquitted of 
charges that he supported terrorism, hailed him as a martyr to free 
expression. 

"In civilized countries writers wait at the doors of theaters and opera 
houses with tickets in their hands," Birdal said. "In Turkey they wait at 
prison gates with verdicts in their hands."




----
American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN)
2623 Connecticut Avenue NW #1
Washington, DC 20008-1522

Tel: (202) 483-6444
Fax: (202) 483-6476
E-mail: akin at kurdish.org
Home Page: http://www.kurdistan.org
----

The American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN) provides a public service 
to foster Kurdish-American understanding and friendship


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