"Release Writer Nevin Berktaş"

The Proletarian Revolutionary Stance magazine called for the release of writer Nevin Berktaş, author of the book "Difficult places that challenge the faith: Prison Cells". The book describes the process of resistance in the prison cells where she was incarcerated herself during the time of the military coup in 1980. The publication is subject to a trial that has been pending for ten years now. Berktaş was arrested last week.

Magazine writer Berktaş is tried under charges of "spreading propaganda for an illegal organization" on the grounds of her book published in April 2000 at Yediveren Publishing. She was arrested on 3 November and taken to the Bakırköy Women and Children Detention House on Istanbul's European side.

The magazine demanded the release of Berktaş in a written announcement. It was said that the author was convicted under Article 7 of the Anti-Terror Law (TMY) (propaganda). Apparently, she is not in good health due to her participation in death fasts in 1984 and 1996. Berktaş was convicted in the scope of the military coup on 12 September 1980 and was imprisoned for 22 years. The announcement put forward that the sentence exceeded the anticipated upper limit by five years.

The announcement highlighted the following issues:

* Torture and disciplinary penalties in prisons are increasing. All sorts of methods are being used to disconnect the imprisoned revolutionist from their identity. Under the conditions where the crisis is very acutely felt, the state that cannot stand any focus of resistance is planning to destroy the leading forces. They have great fears and that is their reasoning to kill or arrest the revolutionists wherever they see them.

* The arrest of Nevin Berktaş should be handled in this scope accordingly. The state detains a communist person by disregarding its own set of laws. There is the great fear that seeing them as revolutionists constitutes a general reason for killing or arresting them. (BT/EÖ/VK)