Güney,Turkey and the West: an interview

Thanks to Dayanisma (available from 32 Ickburgh Road, London E5) for a great deal of information and invaluable translation.

See an anonymous interview with Guney, recorded in prison in 1977, in Positif (No. 234, September 1980). Elia Kazan described his visit to Guney in prison in 1978, New York Times Magazine (4 February 1980), reprinted in Positif (No. 227, February 1980). For good articles on Yilmaz Guney, see Tony Rayns , 'From Isolation', Sight and Sound (Spring 1983); Roy Armes , 'Yilmaz Güney, an interview' and 'Yilmaz Güney, the limits of individual action', Framework (Nos 15, 16, 17, 1981); Attila Dorsay , 'Guney', Cinema 80 (No 262, October 1980).

Directed by Zeki Okten.

Directed by Zeki Ökten.

M. Ali Birand, 12 September 04.00 Hours (Istanbul, Karacan, 1984).

Directed by Serif Gören. Guney made this in response to the coup of 12 September 1980, knowing that it could not be shown in Turkey because it had some dialogue and songs in Kurdish.

Times Literary Supplement (21 January 1983 ).

Michael Simmonds in the Guardian (17 August 1984).

City Limits (14 January 1983).

Ibid.

For an account of Kurdish history, see Gerard Chaliand (ed.), People without a country ( London, 1980).

BBC2, 'Brass Tacks' (17 October 1984). This was the first major feature on Turkey on British television since 1973, and dealt specifically with torture.

David Barchard , 'Western silence on Turkey', Index on Censorship (Vol. 12, no. 6, December 1983).

Guardian (12 September 1984).

Ozal himself had been an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for the NSP before the coup. There is evidence daily in the Turkish press that Islamic fundamentalism is being heavily promoted, in the name of 'Turkish-Islamic synthesis'.

For a history of Turkey up to the coup of 1980, see Berch Berberoglu , Turkey in Crisis (London, 1982).

Estimates for political prisoners vary between 23,000 and 33,000. Figures given by Dayanisma state that, since the coup, 178,586 people have been held, 64,505 detained, 41,727 sentenced, 400 sentenced to death, with a further 30 awaiting ratification of their death sentence. There have been at least 70 deaths from torture, 49 executions, 17 deaths from hunger strike and countless killed in military operations.

According to Amnesty International. See their report on torture in Turkey, May 1984. David Barchard quotes a British Embassy official in Ankara who dismissed Amnesty with the comment: 'It was perfectly obvious what their political views were', Index on Censorship, op. cit.

'Face the press', 7 October 1984.

Milliyet (20 March 1984), quoted in Dayanisma (March 1984).

For an account of the Peace Association's Trials, see Dr. M.A. Dikerdem, Turkey Peace trials, available from Dayanisma.

Morning Star (27 October 1983).

See The Kurds of Turkey and Human Rights ( Utrecht, Kurdestan Committee, April 1981 ); Appeal, Komkar (Federal Republic of Germany, March 1983 ).

Personal conversation.