His Excellency Bülent Ecevit
Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey
Prime Minister’s Office
Ankara
Turkey

Vienna, 21 October 1999

Your Excellency,

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors and media executives, strongly condemns the murder of Ahmet Taner Kislali, a prominent journalist and former Turkish minister of culture.

Kislali, 60, died at an Ankara hospital on Thursday, 21 October, of injuries sustained in a bomb blast, which was triggered when he picked up a package left on his car.

Kislali was a columnist for the left-wing daily, Cumhuriyet, and served briefly as culture minister in 1978 and 1979. In a recent column, he attacked the leaders of a Moslem sect for saying that the deadly earthquake which shook Turkey in August was divine retribution for the country’s official clampdown on Islamic activism. Cumhuriyet’s writers frequently receive death threats from radical Islamic groups for their staunch defence of the secularist principles on which Turkey was founded. In 1993, another Cumhuriyet columnist and critic of Islamic fundamentalism, Ugur Mumcu, was killed in a bomb attack. His assassins have never been found.

We understand that police suspect the outlawed Great Islamic Eastern Raiders-Front (IBDA-C) could be behind the attack, but that no claims of responsibility have been made. The group has previously targeted leading secularist intellectuals, including journalists.

IPI fears that Kislali was killed because of his work as a journalist. We urge Your Excellency to authorise an immediate and thorough investigation into his murder and to ensure that those responsible for this heinous crime are brought to justice. We further urge that you disclose any findings with regard to this case.

We thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Johann P. Fritz
Director