Justice in Turkey . . .
THE Turkish NI inister for Justice. Esat Budakoglu. has been trying to defend his Government from the charges recently levelled against it by the International Press Institute. Of all the journalists charged during the past live years, he claims. 'only' 238 were convicted. An average of nearly fifty journalists convicted a year would itself suggest that the Turkish Government has a curious notion of democratic rights; and one of Mr. Budakoglu's further excuses—that most of these offences were petty—only makes his case worse. Why, if they were 'relatively minor' offences, bring the journalists to court at all?
The fact is that the Turkish Government is deliberately using trivial 'infractions of complex laws to harass opposition editors. Significantly, the Minister includes in his list of minor offences the 'failure to print a contradiction in the proper form.' The 'proper form' in such cases happens to be prescribed by the GoVernment in the most Pettifogging detail and on the most absurd pre- texts. Editors are compelled to retract statements Which they know (and the Government knows) to be true; and departure from the words, or even from the punctuation, laid down (or putting the apology an inch or two lower than the Prominent position ordered), can be an excuse for a Prosecution.
At the same time the Turkish Government has been busy manipulating. State advertising, giving h to newspapers which are prepared to toe the . government line, and taking it away from those Which show any sign of independence. As IPI bulletins have -pointed out, it is a tribute, to the Courage and pertinacity of Turkish opposition newspapermen that they continue the struggle, though thirty-five of them have been sent to Prison in the last five years for 'offences'. against the State which would 'be laughed out of court In any prosecution here.
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