Turkey
Jailer of Journalists

   Turkey has the shameful distinction of imprisoning more journalists
   than any country in the world. The New York-based Committee to Protect
   Journalists has compiled a list of 78 reporters, writers and editors
   now in jail, and the Turkish Press Council reckons the total may be
   twice as high. Now that a new government has assumed power, it has a
   timely opportunity to open those prison doors. Doing so would lessen a
   stain on Turkey's reputation and enhance the democratic credentials of
   Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz's secularist center-right coalition.
   
   Most of the journalists in prison are charged with disseminating
   "separatist propaganda" or with being members of proscribed
   pro-Kurdish political groups. In fact, under Turkey's broad
   Anti-terrorism Law, journalism itself is criminalized and reporters
   face prison for doing their job. An emblematic case is that of Ocak
   Isik Yurtcu, a prominent writer and former newspaper editor who has
   served three years of a 15-year sentence. Mr. Yurtcu's offense was to
   publish articles about the Turkish Army's scorched-earth campaign
   against Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey.
   
   Mr. Yurtcu's plight, along with scores of other cases, will be taken
   up this summer by a visiting delegation of journalists, among them
   Terry Anderson and Peter Arnett, at the request of Turkish press
   organizations.
   
   By responding favorably, Prime Minister Yilmaz would signal a halt to
   Turkey's descent into repression. He would begin to answer critics,
   especially in the European Union, of Turkey's dismal human rights
   record, and would set a different example from his immediate secular
   and Islamic predecessors. This is more than a press issue. For nearly
   a decade Turkey has relied primarily on force to counter Kurdish
   terrorists, without opening a parallel political track for a huge,
   aggrieved ethnic minority. Press freedom is among the casualties of a
   failed strategy, imposed by the military, which Mr. Yilmaz cannot
   change overnight. Yet it is within his power to release jailed
   journalists and decriminalize free speech, an essential precondition
   for an end to Turkey's domestic turmoil. Turkey's friends hope he will
   not let this moment pass.