Mainstream news on Turkey

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TDN:    14 March 1998

MIT is in contact with CIA and MOSSAD

Ankara - TDN Parliament Bureau

National Intelligence Organization (MIT) Undersecretary Senkal
Atasagun, noting that different intelligence organizations could
interact with each other and share information on some issues, added
that MIT sometimes has contact with the CIA and MOSSAD.

In an answer to Virtue Party (FP) deputy Zeki Unal's written question
which he addressed to Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz in order to learn
whether claims that the MIT was in contact with the CIA and MOSSAD
were true, Atasagun provided a written declaration by State Minister
Yucel Seckiner on behalf of Mesut Yilmaz. "The fact that intelligence
organizations share information when needed is a known reality. The
MIT interacts with these organizations with the permission of the
relevant state offices," the statement said.

---

 US lawyers' group lambastes release of cops in Manisa case

  * 'Such impunity will only fuel a continuation of human rights
 abuses'

Washington -- Turkish Daily News

Turkey is shooting itself in the foot by acquitting ten police
officers accused of torturing teenagers in Manisa in early 1996, said
the U.S. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (LCHR) on Thursday.

"The acquittal of the officers accused in this case, which has
provoked outrage in Turkey, is a blow to the Turkish government's
claims that it is engaged in a serious effort to improve its human
rights performance," said an LCHR statement.

"Positive words from Turkish government leaders must be reflected in
real improvements in human rights practices. The acquittal of the
police officers casts doubts on whether those responsible for gross
human rights violations will be held accountable by the Turkish legal
system," said LCHR Senior Program Coordinator Neil Hicks. "Such
impunity will only fuel a continuation of human rights abuses."

  Praise and criticism

The LCHR praised Prime Minister Yilmaz and State Minister Turk for
instituting the Human Rights Coordination Board, which put together "a
wide-ranging program of human rights promotion and concrete proposals
for legislative reform."

Then came the criticism: "So far, we have received mixed signals about
whether reform is being achieved in practice." The LCHR said they were
in particular following the cases of the "prosecution of alleged
killers of Metin Goktepe, a journalist beaten to death while in police
detention in Istanbul, in January 1996," and "the prosecution of more
than 60 members of the security forces accused in the killing of 10
prisoners in Diyarbakir prison."

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
For justice, democracy and human rights in Turkey and Kurdistan!
Website: http://www.ozgurluk.org                          
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