The Press: Curb in Turkey

In Turkey, where the democratic administration of President Celal Bayar has been harassed by extremist newspapers, the government hesitated to shut the fanatics up. But more than a year ago, an act of violence changed the mind of President Bayar and his Premier, Adnan Menderes: Ahmed Emin Yalman of Istanbul's Vatan, one of Turkey's leading newspapers, was shot three times one night after his paper warned against the tactics of Turkish religious fanatics. Editor Yalman survived, but Premier Menderes closed up many papers and put dozens of others under close surveillance. Last week the Menderes government took a more drastic step that seemed to go beyond the boundaries of preventing violence in Turkey. It pushed a new law through the Assembly that provided for heavy fines and prison sentences on newspapermen whose writing "could be harmful to the political or financial prestige of the state."

The opposition party charged that the law was an attempt to muzzle critics before the Turkish national election in May. Turkish newsmen and foreign correspondents were also against the new law. Although the avowed target was scurrilous papers, newsmen rightly feared that the vague law could also be used against responsible reporters or papers that disagreed with the government.