Fikret Baskaya

Job:
Medium:
Beats Covered:
Gender:
Local or Foreign:
Freelance:

Baskaya, an academic and writer for the now defunct, pro-Kurdish daily Ozgur Bakis, was jailed after a State Security Court sentenced him to 16 months in prison for “separatist propaganda,” a violation of Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law.

The case against Baskaya stemmed from a June 1, 1999, column he wrote in Ozgur Bakis titled “Is this a Historical Process?” The article decried Turkey’s policy toward the country’s Kurdish minority, saying: “Turkish leaders have always considered the Kurdish problem to be one of public order, when it is in fact a national problem, and have thought they could resolve the problem through a chauvinist, racist and nationalist political agenda.”

An Istanbul State Security Court convicted him of the charge on June 13, 2000. The sentence was confirmed by the Court of Appeals on January 15, 2001. He is jailed in Kalecik Prison near Ankara.