'Prisoners Gazette' Published with "Enlarged Staff"

The second issue of the Prisoners Gazette written by journalists in prison will be distributed on Tuesday (10 January) as a supplement of the Aydınlık, Atılım, BirGün and Evrensel newspapers.

The issue will be printed with more than 100,000 copies. 16 pages were prepared by 43 journalists in prison, two journalists who were released recently and two guest writers.

The issue also includes an obituary for journalist Suzan Zengin. She underwent a heart surgery after she had been released from prison from which she was not able to recover.

The Turkey Journalists Union (TGS) announced a number of quotations from the "enlarged staff of writers":

Ragıp Zarakolu: "I could not bear the burden of being outside the prison any longer. I am freer here!"

Nevin Berktaş: "All sectors of society joined the struggle against war and the organization to fight for freedoms. This is of great importance".

Ece Temelkuran: "When did it happen that you became such professional tyrants? I am here, my friend! Where are you?"

Doğan Yurdakul: "What can we touch without getting burned? Corruption, bribery, lighthouse, eggs, Hopa cut, colon, rectum..."

Mustafa Balbay: "Considering the words of Native American Reis who said that the white man who destroyed nature left the 'human scent' everywhere - in Turkey, every place is being filled up with the scent of power..."

Nedim Şener: "If I am free, if you are free, we are all free; otherwise, we are all prisoners..."

Müyesser Yıldız: "The privatized justice presents theatre scenes of 1919, 1960 and of today..."

Ahmet Şık: "A 'relocation' with prison as its destination is being applied to dissident journalists, students, academics, publishers, Kurds and socialists".

Soner Yalçın shared the secret of the chats with invisible prison cell fellows in solitary confinement...

Barış Pehlivan: (from a letter written to journalists in a hundred years) "In your times, are their colleagues being arrested; are their journalists who struggle for maintaining their freedom; so-called journalists who blow the whistle with lies?"

Hikmet Çiçek: "We know our 'crime': Opposing the fascist dictatorship represented by the AKP".

Turhan Özlü: "We call on all our colleagues to become members of the TGS".

Erol Zavar: "Legally approved books, magazines, hooded cloaks, head scarves, plastic flag sticks and dozens of other things are being put in the file as evidence. An absurd concept like an unarmed terrorist organization is being plunged into legal literature".

Hüseyin Deniz: "We were chosen in order to create a bigger and deeper speechlessness".

Çağdaş Kaplan: "Who are the real journalists if the journalists who want to reveal the truth in this country are 'members of illegal organizations'?

The Prisoners Gazette furthermore includes the Kurdish article of Murat İlhan. (AS)