Far-left review weekly raided

Reporters Without Borders today condemns a violent raid by Turkish police late last year on the offices of a far-left Turkish weekly in which five people were held. The raid took place on the offices of Yürüyüs and was described officially as an operation to arrest a member of a terrorist organization. It has been strongly criticized by the Contemporary Lawyers Association (CHD). Acting on orders from a court in Ankara police raided the offices of the magazine to arrest an activist of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party (DHKP) a Marxist-Leninist organization considered a terrorist organization by the European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Turkey. On the night of December 24 dozens of police officers, backed up a helicopter, used a sledgehammer to smash down the walls of the editorial offices of the magazine. Its offices were badly damaged and 3,000 books and publications were seized from the magazine’s archives. Following the operation on 28 December, Halit Güdenoglu, the magazine’s editor, and three editorial staff, Kaan Ünsal, Cihan Gün, and Musa Kurt, and a guest of the magazine Naciye Barbaros, were arrested on the grounds that they were members of the armed organization the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party. After four days in detention they were transferred to the Sican prison in Ankara. On 4 January the Istanbul appeal court turned down their appeal for release. “Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the brutality of the operation and protests against the authorities who, once again, take advantage of anti-terrorist rhetoric to lock up media professionals,” the press freedom body said. The CHD said that the activist being sought had no effective or practical ties with the magazine and his home could have been identified by the use of the legal computer system. But the Ankara court and the police regard Yürüyüs as the mouthpiece of the DHKP. The CHD believes that the raid is part of the continuing pressure to which the magazine has been subject for more than three years. On 7 October 2007, the editor of Yürüyüs, Ferhat Gerçek, was seriously wounded by gunshots from a police officer which left him seriously handicapped. Toyland Tanya, president of the CHD in Istanbul, said the operation violated Article 26 of the Turkish constitution and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, of which Turkey is a signatory. Reporters Without Borders and the CHD make a joint appeal to the Turkish authorities to free the Yürüyüs staff.