DATE=6/2/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=TURKEY / KURDS (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-263093
BYLINE=AMBERIN ZAMAN
DATELINE=ANKARA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: The Turkish government has banned the
country's largest pro-Kurdish newspaper in five
largely Kurdish provinces. The action comes only a
week after the newspaper resumed publication under a
new name. Amberin Zaman reports from Ankara on the
pressures facing pro-Kurdish journals, radio stations
and newspapers.
TEXT: "New Agenda in the Year 2000" -- or "Ikibinde
Yeni Gundem," as it is known in Turkish -- is the new
name of Turkey's largest circulation pro-Kurdish daily
newspaper. But its staff says their newspaper, re-
launched only a week ago, is facing the same pressures
from the Turkish government.
Yurdusev Ozsokmenler is the Ankara bureau chief of
"New Agenda." She says the emergency rule governor
based in Turkey's largest Kurdish province,
Diyarbakir, ordered the newspaper banned without
citing -- what she terms -- any justification for
doing so.
/// Ozsokmenler Act in Turkish, fade under
///
Mrs. Ozsokmenler says the newspaper has not violated
any of Turkey's harsh censorship laws under which
hundreds of journalists and academics have been jailed
and hundreds of publications banned. The paper has
appeared only seven times so far.
If anything, some of the New Agenda's readers find its
coverage too mild. Readers say they would like to see
more criticism leveled against the Turkish government
for what they describe as its repressive policies
against the country's estimated 12-million Kurds.
It is that sort of aggressive coverage that landed
most of New Agenda's predecessors in trouble with
Turkish authorities. Many of their reporters have
been jailed, some killed in so called "mystery
murders," and their Istanbul headquarters bombed by
unknown assailants.
Over the past months, the governor's office has banned
several other pro-Kurdish or Kurdish language
publications, including the humor magazine "Pine" and
a women's magazine, "Ozgur Kadinin Sesi" or "Free
Women's Voice." The prohibition was ordered under an
Emergency Law. /// Opt /// The law empowers
authorities to ban publications, "to protect general
security, safety and public order and to prevent the
spread of acts of violence." /// End Opt ///
/// Opt /// Analysts say the bans appear to contradict
the more relaxed atmosphere prevailing throughout the
largely Kurdish southeast regions ever since Abdullah
Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers Party - or P-K-K - called off his 15
year long armed insurgency for an independent Kurdish
state last year. Clashes between Turkish security
forces and P-K-K guerrillas have all but ceased.
Ocalan was handed the death sentence on treason
charges by a Turkish court last June. /// End Opt ///
/// Begin Opt ///
/// Ozsokmenler Act in Turkish, fade under
///
Mrs. Ozsokmenler says hopes of greater rights for the
Kurds has been on the rise especially after the
emergency rule governor's office permitted the
celebration of the Kurdish new year, called Newroz, to
take place for the first time ever this year. She says
the aim of New Agenda is above all to contribute
towards the new peaceful atmosphere. She rejects the
idea that the newspaper is "pro Kurdish." It is, she
says "pro-democracy."
/// End Opt ///
If the ban on New Agenda is not lifted, Mrs.
Ozsokmenler says the newspaper staff will seek justice
at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human
Rights. (Signed)
NEB/AZ/GE/JP
02-Jun-2000 13:16 PM EDT (02-Jun-2000 1716 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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