Turkey: Premier v. Press

One day last week in Istanbul, the portals of Uskudar prison snapped shut on Sahap Balcioglu, editor and publisher of Kim (Who), a Turkish weekly newsmagazine. Barring commutation of his sentence, which is unlikely, Balcioglu will spend the next 16 months in Uskudar.

Editor Balcioglu is only one of the several thousand newsmen who, over the last six years, have felt the mighty wrath of Turkey's Premier Adnan Menderes, 60.

The battle between the Premier and the press goes back to 1954, when Menderes was the target of a heavy fire from Turkish journalists critical of his administration. Enraged, the Premier ordered the Grand National Assembly to pass stringent new laws to control newsmen. Since then, nearly 900 have been found guilty --some of them two and three times--and sentenced to terms ranging up to three years. The list of arrests grows weekly: last week, besides collaring Balcioglu, police stood silently by at Istanbul's airport when Ahmet Emin Yalman, dean of Turkish journalists and editor-publisher of the daily Vatan (Nation), arrived from a trip to Pakistan to put his affairs in order before entering prison for his third conviction in as many years.

"We Are Liars." Turkey's press laws were ostensibly drawn to fill a void in the national statutes, which were vague on the subject of libel. Libel laws clearly were needed in a new democracy whose newspapers were far more inclined to the savage and often baseless personal attack than they were to calm, deliberate judgments. But the laws of Menderes go well beyond mere libel control.

On pain of fines, imprisonment and suspension of their papers, Turkish journalists must not print anything that might "undermine financial and economic stability," anything that "belittles" or "insults" a public official, anything "of an offensive nature." If they commit any of these offenses inadvertently, they must print a correction or retraction the same day it is received from the public prosecutor. The correction must run precisely where the original story appeared, and exactly as received. WE ARE LIARS, headlined one Turkey paper above one such handout retraction, THE NEWS WE PUBLISHED YESTERDAY WAS WRONG.

The crimes for which Turkish newsmen are jailed would be considered fair editorial treatment in any other democracy. Editor Balcioglu was jugged for reprinting part of a story by U.S. Newspaper Publisher Eugene C. Pulliam (the Indianapolis Star, nine other papers), who, after a 1958 visit to Turkey, called the Premier a poor administrator and a conceited man. Tune Yalman, subeditor of Vatan and son of its publisher, was sentenced to prison for writing that the "government is uncultural."

Even When It Hurts. Not content with these restrictions, Menderes has also seized control of newsprint supply, uses it to punish outspoken papers by reducing their quota. Similarly, he established a government agency to handle the placing of all newspaper ads. While private advertisers have successfully resisted strict government control over their ads, Menderes' men see to it that government advertising goes to his favorite publications. After the Ankara weekly Akis (Reflection) criticized a public official, its government ad quota dropped to zero.

Far from bringing Turkish newsmen into line, Adnan Menderes has only made them more circumspect. Above all else the Turks have spirit, and the Turkish press has responded to its travail with courage. When Kim's Balcioglu went off to prison, his magazine, faced with a month's suspension and a fine, merely went out of business as Kim and back into business as Mim (Mark). Stoically accepting the laws as occupational hazards, the responsible press goes right on practicing the journalist's right to print the truth, even when it hurts as much as it does in Adnan Menderes' Turkey.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.