H.E. Ahmet Necdet Sezer
President
Office of the President
Cumhurbaskanlugu koskü
Cankaya
06100 Ankara
Republic of Turkey
Fax: (011.90.312) 468-5026
Your Excellency:
We write on this day, World Press Freedom Day, to protest your continuing attacks on freedom of the press. To the best of our knowledge, there are 193 journalists imprisoned around the world, most of them solely for having done their jobs as journalists. Among the 29 countries that have put their journalists in jail, Turkey has imprisoned seven — the sixth largest number imprisoned.
According to our information, the 11 journalists jailed by your government are:
Memik Horuz, jailed since 2001, was the editor-in-chief of two newspapers whose titles in English are Free Future and Workers & Peasants . He was sentenced to 15 years for publishing an interview with members of the illegal Marxist-Leninist Community Party.
Sinan Kara, jailed since last October after tangling with bodyguards of former prime minister Tansu Ciller when he was trying to take pictures of Ciller@quot;s son on vacation. A news agency correspondent and former owner of the fortnightly, Datça Haber , Kara was sentenced to one year in prison.
Burhan Gardas, jailed in 1995 after police raided his magazines@quot; offices and found there materials issued by an outlawed organization. He was sentenced to a total of 30 years.
Erdal Dogan, jailed in 1995 for 12 years for allegedly belonging to the outlawed Turkish Revolutionary Communist Union. He said he had attended events sponsored by the union as a journalist representing the weekly, Alintera.
Sadik Celik, also jailed in 1995 for 12 years. He was Zonguldak bureau chief for the now banned leftist weekly, Kurtulus and was accused of belonging to an outlawed party.
Kemal Evcimen, jailed in 1995 and sentenced to twelve and a half years for belonging to an out-lawed party. He was owner and editor-in-chief of Ozgur Karadeniz.
Nureddin Sirin, jailed in 1997 for organizing a rally in favor of Palestinian self-determination. Editor of the newspaper, Selam , he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Among the countries that have jailed journalists, Turkey stands out for the length of the sentences handed out and the severe treatment of the prisoners, which has included torture and solitary confinement.
Your Excellency, these journalist should be released because they have done nothing more than exercise a universally recognized right. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that ?everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.? U.N. members recognize that this principle is sometimes difficult and inconvenient to uphold, but it is crucial for both practical and moral reasons. A nation that stifles freedom of thought forfeits the good opinion of the world and isolates itself. This may prompt political or economic sanctions, with loss of diplomatic influence and domestic prosperity; at the least, it relegates a country to the company of North Korea, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, or Zimbabwe. In the long run, a repressive regime will be overturned.
The Overseas Press Club of America, an independent organizations of journalists that has defended freedom of the press around the world for 65 years, urges you to re-think your policy, to welcome the free expression of ideas and opinions, and to release the seven journalists your government holds in jail.
The courtesy of a reply would be appreciated.
Respectfully yours,
Jeremy Main
Kevin McDermott
Freedom of the Press Committee