Turkey: Old Habits

Before his fall in 1960, Premier Adnan Menderes made a practice of padlocking hostile Turkish newspapers, imprisoned journalists by the hundreds; police once threw a newsboy into jail for hawking a headline about a minister's resignation. At the time, the loudest protests came from wispy old Opposition Leader Ismet Inonu, who denounced "those who would seek to establish a coercive regime." But now that he is in power himself, Premier Inonu, 78, shows signs of falling into Menderes' old habits.

Hauling out a Menderes-era law outlawing any written or spoken word aimed at disturbing "the established" order, the Inonu regime last month jailed Kayhan Saglamer, managing editor of Istanbul's influential daily, Cumhuriyet, and Sadi Alkilic, a freelance writer. It turned out that Cumhuriyet had published an article by Alkilic entitled "Socialism Is the Only Salvation for Turkey"—one of a score submitted in the newspaper's annual essay contest.

Fortnight ago, Dr. Adnan Benk, respected professor of philology at Istanbul University, and Afsar Timucin, editor of the cultural magazine Atac, were clapped into prison for another crime with words. Atac had carried Benk's translation of parts of a book that included four quotations from Karl Marx. Prior to releasing the pair last week on bail, an Istanbul judge ignored Benk's argument that the entire book can be read in the Istanbul University library.

Specifically accused of spreading Communist propaganda, the four defendants, under Article 142, could get prison terms of 15 years.