Straitjacket in Turkey

The Turkish press was fitted for an authoritarian straitjacket last week by Premier Adnan Menderes. The government quickly whipped a new press bill through its Democratic Party caucus, and a Grand National Assembly committee approved it. This week, if the Democrat-dominated Assembly passes it as expected, the new law will confront Turkish editors and publishers with a hard choice: drop all criticism of the Menderes regime or face fines up to 10,000 lire ($3,600 at the official rate) and jail sentences up to three years.

The penalties are laid down for newsmen who publish anything that the government feels lessens the Turkish public's regard for the state, its political and financial reputation. If a paper publishes or even hints at news from any meeting closed to the public, it can be shut down for as long as three months--and nobody on its staff may write for another publication during the shutdown. Persons attacked in a paper can demand twice as much space for rebuttal. Even newsboys are forbidden to shout any news that indirectly causes "doubts" about the government.

The government's motives were painfully clear. Turkey is virtually bankrupt, its foreign trade at a standstill, its people suffering from shortages that range from coal to horseshoe nails. Its lira sells at a black-market rate of about twelve to the dollar instead of the official rate of 2.80.

The country's desperate plight and the government's shortcomings in coping with it have been reported fully in opposition (Republican) and independent newspapers in Istanbul and Ankara, which vigorously protested the gag. Warned Opposition Leader General Ismet Inonu, former Turkish President: "We are going toward totalitarianism." The only hope was that Turkey's newspapers, which boldly and cleverly evaded a less repressive press law of 1954, might find ways to make the new restrictions unenforceable.

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