CAGE PLAN IS TERRIFYING, SAYS RIGHTS ACTIVIST

Today’s Zaman
Dec 3 2009
Turkey

Human rights activist and publisher Ragıp Zarakolu says the Cage plan,
a military plan which was exposed earlier this month that plotted to
assassinate non-Muslim figures and detonate explosives in museums in
order to scare the public and make them turn against the ruling party,
is the most terrifying action plan he has seen during his career as
an activist.

In an interview with Today’s Zaman last week, Zarakolu, who is
the deputy chairman of the Human Rights Association (Ä°HD), said:
"We have been following such things as human rights defenders. Even
for us this was unbelievably horrendous."

Zarakolu also criticized the government for turning back on earlier
positive steps in the field of freedom of thought and expression after
the year 2005, such as an amendment to Article 8 of the Anti-Terrorism
Law that introduced a new definition of "terrorism," making it possible
for as few as two people who are jointly engaged in what is defined as
"propaganda against the indestructible integrity of the state" to be
tried as terrorists. He said it is this attitude of compromising in
the face of militarist tendencies that was responsible for documents
such as the Cage plan. He said attacks against Alevis in Corum and
KahranmanmaraÅ~_ in the late 1970s and in Sivas in 1993 show that
such plans are highly provocative. He also classified these as crimes
against humanity.

Referring to illegal groups inside the armed forces, he said:
"If some groups have the freedom to commit crimes and if these
groups are accepted as being above the law then we can’t speak
of the state in question as a land of rule of law or a democratic
regime or a republic. This is a shameful situation." Zarakolu says
privileged groups having the freedom to commit crimes as they wish is
a cancer, saying this situation owes it existence to the militarism
of the Constitution which was the product of the Sept. 12, 1980,
military coup.

Freedom of speech

As a publisher, Zarakolu has frequently been a victim of violations of
freedom of speech. N. Mehmet Guler’s book "Decisions More Difficult
than Death," which was published by Zarakolu’s Belge Publishing,
was taken of the shelves by a court ruling which charged the author
and the publisher with spreading propaganda on behalf of a terrorist
organization. This was followed by a lawsuit against the publisher on
May 29, 2009. Zarakolu said he was involved two similar cases before.

In the first case, he found himself before a court in 1982 for
publishing Dido Sotiriu’s "Farewell Anatolia" — a bestseller in Turkey
for many years. He was finally acquitted. In 2004, he was once again
in court for publishing George Jerjian’s "The Truth Will Set Us Free:
Armenians and Turks Reconciled." He was sentenced to six months in
prison which was commuted to a monetary fine for violating Article
301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) — which criminalizes defaming the
Turkish nation — and another law that criminalizes insulting Ataturk.

Zarakolu, who is against paying such fines on principle, has appealed
the ruling. He also notes that the ruling makes him the first person
to be fined under Article 301 after the article was changed to make
it more difficult to convict individuals under it.

Zarakolu also made a call to Erdogan, saying unconditional freedom of
expression and publishing has to be guaranteed to ensure the success
of any democratic initiative. Zarakolu also recommended the government
add a new article to the Constitution that says, "Freedom of thought
and expression cannot be restrained for any reason." Zarakolu said
the United Kingdom has ensured this without a written constitution,
while the United States has done so under the First Amendment. He said
it would be much more significant if such a change occurred under the
rule of Prime Minister Erdogan, who himself was jailed for several
months in the past for reciting a poem.