iNSAN HAKLARI DERNEGI
The book “insan Hakları Tarihi” (History of Human Rights) written by Mr.Erol Anar, Vice Secretary General of the Human Rights Association in Turkey was confiscated in May 1996 with a great emergency only 3 days after it was published.
A court action was brought against the writer Erol Anar and the publisher Özcan Sapan by the State Security Court in Istanbul on charges of “disseminating separatist propaganda against the indivisibility of the State“.
While the writer Erol Anar is being charged with “disseminating separatist propaganda against the indivisibility of the State via press, by having claimed in the Chapter titled Kürt Sorunu (Kurdish Question) that the policies based on the continual assimilation and denial of the Kurds are increasingly continued, and that the Kurds are treated with special warfare techniques” in accordance with article 8/1-3-4 of the Anti -Terrorism Act and article 36 of the Turkish Penal Code, the publisher Özcan Sapan is being charged in accordance with article 8/3-4 of the Anti -Terrorism Act and with the Law on Press.
The first trial hearing of Mr.Erol Anar will be heard before the State Security –Court No: I in Ankara, on 22 August 1996. (Since Mr.Anar resides in Ankara, the trial hearing has been transferred from Istanbul to Ankara)
Repressions against the freedom of expression become increasingly harsher in Turkey. These repressions have now targeted the History of Human Rights. However, the history, especially the history of human rights cannot be tried. It does try, at the very most.
This conduct violates article 19 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 10 of the European Human Rights Convention which guarantee the freedom of opinion and expression.
We want the repression upon the freedom of opinion and of expression to be stopped and all the laws and arbitrary practices which restrict the freedom of expression to be abolished at once.
Hüsnü Öndül
Secretary General