Talking in Turkey:
Dissent in a Land of Contradictions

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- A new prison drama opened here recently to a packed
house, and by the time the premiere performance ended, more than a few of
the spectators were in tears as they stood to applaud. 

At one point in the play the lead character, a blind and bearded
chain-smoker, says to a fellow inmate, "Sometimes I wonder whether the
people doing this to us are human or whether they are totally oblivious to
the people around them." 

"Whatever they do," his friend replies, "it's fear that makes them do it." 

The play is remarkable not just for its trenchant treatment of human rights
issues, but because it was written by the lawyer and social critic Esber
Yagmurdereli, who happens to be a blind and bearded chain-smoker with 
long
experience in Turkish prisons. 

Yagmurdereli was recently sentenced to another long jail term, but he was
released after a wave of foreign and domestic criticism. For years a
faceless prisoner, Yagmurdereli has suddenly become the most prominent
figure in the human rights firmament here. In a situation that recalls the
more highly publicized experiences of China's dissidents, his case reflects
some of the contradictions of Turkish politics. 

Western governments criticize rights abuses in Turkey, but continue selling
weapons to the security forces. Critics openly damn the regime, but are
often brought to trial for doing so. Prisoners, including those convicted of
aiding terrorism, are freed when foreign pressure demands it. 

Yagmurdereli's release, for example, came as the European Union was
reviewing Turkey's application for membership and as Prime Minister Mesut
Yilmaz was preparing to visit Germany and the United States. Officials said
they were releasing him because he was in poor health, but as he walked out
of jail he told reporters, "I have not been given a medical examination as
far as I know." 

"What I want is that my ideas be regarded as true or false, rather than as
useful or harmful," he said. 

"Expression of one's thoughts is still an offense in Turkey. My release in
this way does not mean the problem has been eliminated, and I will continue
my struggle to resolve this problem as long as it exists." 

In Turkey as in other countries where human rights are at issue, protesters
and their foreign supporters have always found it useful to single out a
figure who crystallizes the debate. Journalists concerned about press
restrictions here picked the jailed editor Ocak Isik Yurtcu last summer, and
soon after they began organizing international protests on his behalf, he
was released. Campaigners against jailhouse torture have seized on the cases
of Metin Goktepe, a journalist who died in police custody in 1996. 

In Washington, pro-Kurdish activists are staging a hunger strike not just
for Kurds in general, but specifically to win the freedom of a prominent
Kurdish firebrand, Leyla Zana, a member of the Turkish Parliament who was
stripped of her seat in 1994 and then jailed on charges of supporting
terrorism. 

Yagmurdereli, who lost his sight as a child, was sentenced to death in 1978
after being convicted of directing a terrorist cell. His sentence was later
commuted to life imprisonment, which in Turkey is equivalent to 35 years. 
He
served more than 13 years, seven of them in solitary confinement, before
being paroled in 1991. 

Although terms of his parole meant that he would have to serve the 
remainder
of his sentence if he committed another crime, he nonetheless threw himself
back into political activity. He helped form a left-leaning party and
organized a campaign to gather one million signatures protesting the war
against Kurdish separatists in southeast Turkey. 

Inevitably the justice system finally caught up with Yagmurdereli again. He
was convicted of encouraging separatism and sentenced to a year in prison,
plus the nearly 22 years remaining on his previous life sentence. He had
served just three weeks when the Government bowed to foreign pressure
earlier this month and suspended his sentence for one year, a highly unusual
if not unique maneuver. 

Turkish rightists were furious. "Yagmurdereli is a sheer terrorist, not a
human rights figure or anything like that," said Altemur Kilic, a
conservative politician and columnist. "The government is showing its
weakness by releasing him." 

Turkey is in a unique position among the world's human rights violators. In
many ways it is a free and open society. It considers itself pro-Western and
is a valued member of the NATO alliance. 

Precisely these aspects of Turkish society encourage writers, politicians,
and journalists to challenge the state in ways that would be unthinkable in
Iran or Iraq, Burma or Belarus, Cuba or Kenya, Syria or Sudan. 

But in doing so, they confront a power structure that fears that open
discussion of issues like Kurdish identity will encourage separatist terrorism. 

Like many of Turkey's problems, the human rights dilemma has its roots in
the Kurdish southeast. Military commanders and their civilian supporters
insist there can be no serious change in military and police tactics, or in
laws restricting freedom of speech, until the war there is over. But the war
itself is fueled by resentment over those tactics and laws. 

Although European countries have condemned Turkey's human rights 
record, its
strategy in the southeast and specifically its imprisonment of Yagmurdereli,
the United States has been more cautious. A strong coalition in Washington,
led by powerful Greek, Armenian and pro-Kurdish lobbies, presses for action
against Turkey, but successive administrations have blocked it on the
grounds that Turkey's strategic position is too valuable. 

Turkish human rights leaders are not impressed when foreign governments 
urge
Turkey to improve  its human rights record, and they were unmoved by 
German,
French and British appeals on behalf of Yagmurdereli. 

"As long as these countries sell weapons to Turkey, they don't have the
right to say anything about  human rights here," said Nadire Mater, who has
been active in many human rights campaigns.

"These public statements are like a game. A government says something or
makes some protest, but at the  same time these governments are selling
weapons which are used to carry out the violations. That is not being 
serious."