1991: Ragip Zarakolu

1991

Ragip Zarakolu - Turkey

Imprisoned

Ragip Zarakolu, born in 1948, is a long time Turkish publisher and human rights activist. After graduating college in 1968, Zarakolu began writing for magazines such as Ant and Yeni Ufuklar, both of which focused on issues of social justice in Turkey. After a military coup in 1971, Zarakolu was among large numbers of writers who were arrested. He served three years in prison for his refusal to abandon his campaign for freedom of thought, striving for an "attitude of respect for different thoughts and cultures to become widespread in Turkey." Since his writings were repeatedly banned in Turkey, Zarakolu began to turn his attention to abuses of human rights by governments in South America and elsewhere. For twenty years, 1971 and 1991, Zarakolu was banned from travelling outside Turkey.

In 1977 Zarakolu and his wife, Ayse Nur, set up the Belge Publishing House. Since then, Zarakolu has put Turkish censorship laws to the test by translating and publishing controversial books from Armenian and Greek authors into the Turkish language. As a result, Zarakolu has been sentenced to imprisonment several times. Prior to the military coup of September 1980 Belge mostly published academic and theoretical books. After the coup, Belge started to publish a series of books written by political prisoners. Zarakolu's office was firebombed by an extremist rightist group in 1995, forcing it to be housed in a cellar.

Zarakolu's staunch belief in freedom of expression, his vocal campaign against book bannings, and his persistence in publishing works that violate Turkey's repressive censorship laws have resulted in a catalog of indictments against him. Since his 1971 conviction Zarakolu has continued to defy Turkey's censorship laws.

Ayse Nur Zarakolu died in 2002, and Zarakolu has continued to publish writings critical of human rights violations around the world, especially in his native Turkey. Outside of his work for Belge, Zarakolu founded of Demokrat, a newspaper which was banned after the military coup in 1980, and was one of the 98 founders of the Human Rights Association in Turkey. For some time he chaired the Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN in Turkey and is the chairperson of the Freedom to Publish Committee of the Turkish Publishers Association. Today, thirty years after his first arrest, he continues to fight court cases against his publications.

Writing Sample:

It is quite possible to consider Turkey as a "democracy under control". Turkey has still been experiencing the problems of transition into a normal democracy since the military coup of September 1980.

The "national security doctrine" is still a predominant factor in the Turkish regime. It is also possible to define this regime as a "national security state" very much like some Latin American countries or some Asian countries such as South Korea. Despite some serious democratization efforts at times, this system however defends its stance. Therefore the so called "Turkish democratization" since the 1980s sounds like the national military anthems of the Ottoman era. In other words, whenever it takes two steps forward, it is definitely followed by one step backwards. Some legislative changes are taking place, but they are immediately compensated by some other existing laws. The essential thing here is the change of attitude, not simply the restyling of laws.

The Martial Law Courts were abolished in Turkey, but they were immediately replaced by State Security Courts (SSC), which had the same attitude and principles of operation. Similarly, shortly before the abolition of the Emergency Rule Region Law (OHAL), a new law called Provincial Administration Law was enacted. At present there are extreme powers granted to the governors which enable them to ban the performances such as theatrical plays or concerts without any court order. The standing stone of this system is judiciary, especially the state security courts.

The overwhelming majority of the cases pending before the SSCs are the cases related to the "offences committed by way of press/publications". The rest of the cases are related to charges of drug trafficking and clandestine organizations. It appears that the state melts the publication and press activities in the same pot with the drug related offences and, in a way, it equates both of them. In other words, the state believes that all the above are potential criminal activities. Of course, with such an attitude, the writers, publishers and journalists - sometimes even printing houses - were branded as "terrorists" and this has led to heavier sentences in the cases that resulted in convictions, and different standards were applied during the course of the execution of these sentences.

From ‘Freedom to write and to publish is still under the threat of the "National Security Concept"'