European Reaction on Özgüdens Indictment
Indictment against Özgüden in the Council of Europe's Report
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, at its plenary meeting of January 28, 2003, adopted a recommendation on freedom of expression and information in the media in Europe. After having noted that "criminal prosecution against journalists continues in Turkey", the parliament gave as an example the recent indictment against Dogan Özgüden, Info-Türk Chief Editor, and his two colleagues in Turkey.
In the explanatory memorandum of the recommendation, Mrs. Tytti Isohookana-Asunmaa, Finland, Liberal, Democratic and Reformers' Group, presents the current situation in Turkey as follows:
Turkey (legislation, legal harassment)
"In May Turkey's parliament passed a media law widely criticized as an assault on media freedom and a threat to the country's Internet industry. Political analysts and journalists have said the law encourages monopolies and curbs press freedom. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed the bill last June, arguing that it was undemocratic. He then appealed to the Constitutional Court to cancel it.
"In my capacity of Acting Chair of the Sub-Committee on the Media, I sent a letter to the Turkish member of the Sub-Committee on the Media, Mr. Yürür. At the meeting of the Sub-Committee held on 27 June, he informed us that the Constitutional Court had rejected several provisions of the law and therefore the Parliament was now drafting a new text.
"Between 26 March and 20 April 2002, PEN International members world-wide staged a campaign aimed at highlighting the huge number of trials under way against writers and journalists in Turkey. PEN has on its records over 100 trials believed to be ongoing against those whose only act has been to write critically of Turkish government policies, ranging from human rights to corruption.
"Three journalists accused of "insulting the army" were indicted by a criminal court in Istanbul on 27 September. They are Dogan Özgüden , editor in chief of the news agency Info-Türk; Emin Karaca, a freelance journalist and writer; and Mehmet Emin Sert, editor of the magazine Türkiye'de ve Avrupa'da Yazin. The journalists have been charged in connection with articles published in the April issue of Türkiye'de ve Avrupa'da Yazin - in which they accused the army of involvement in the murders of several leaders of the far-left movement Progressive Youth in the 1960s. An arrest warrant has been issued against Özgüden, who has lived in exile in Belgium since the 1971 military coup."
Belgian Foreign Minister Michel's letter on Özgüden's indictment
On the other hand, on January 23, 2003, Belgian Foreign Minister Mr. Louis Michel answered the letter of Mrs. Martine Simonis, National Secretary of the General Association of Belgian Professional Journalists (AGJPB), concerning Özgüden's indictment.
Below is the text of Mr. Michel's answer:
"Mrs. National Secretary,
"Your letter of October 25, 2002, concerning the case of Mr. Özgüden and the situation of the humans right in Turkey held all my attention. I entirely share your concern and I regret noting that Turkey still carries out lawsuits against the freedom of expression.
"According to information's collected by my services, the risk of imprisonment is limited for the interested party, since there no was international warrant for arrest launched against him in the hanging case. However, the risk undoubtedly remains for the earlier lawsuits against him. I asked our ambassador in Ankara to follow closely the specific case of Mr. Özgüden.
"In addition, as regards human rights, Turkey has lately made considerable progress within the framework of its candidature to the European Union. I hope well that the constitutional reforms that Turkey already decided in order to apply the freedom of expression in particular will be followed in practice and will lead to a fundamental improvement. At least, this is what the new government was committed doing. We will continue to intervene in this direction, particularly within the European Union, in order to encourage Turkey to continue on the way of the reforms."
However, in spite of the absence of a "international warrant for arrest", it is still in force a Turkish court's decision which asked all the Turkish border posts to immediately submit Özgüden to the justice as soon as he returns to Turkey.
As for the "earlier lawsuits", the risk remains indeed. Özgüden, like more than 200 other opponents of the regime in exile, had been deprived of Turkish nationality in 1982 because of his criticisms against the military junta.
Although this decision was cancelled ten years later, the Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry has never given a written guarantee that Özgüden and his wife Inci Tugsavul, in the case of returning to Turkey, will not be pursued and imprisoned for the charges carried against them by the same ministry in 1992 before the European Commission of Human Rights.
It is an undeniable fact that the practices of the Ankara regime do not follow the promises made to the European Union.
Very recently, during January 2003, many newspapers were confiscated, journalists and artists indicted by justice, the broadcasting of many TV channels and radio stations prohibited or suspended.
A detailed list of these last violations of the freedom of thought and expression are in the chapter "Violations of thought freedom in brief" in Info-Türk's issue N° 293 of January 2003. (NM)