Turkish atrocities
From Anne M. Sebba Sir: I have just returned from a trip to Turkey in the company of two elegant Swedish ladies who neither wore trousersuits nor had irritating accents (`Roasted Turkey', 30 March). All three of us were in Istanbul as observers of a trial which even the Turkish ambassador in London, Mr Korkmaz Haktanir, had earlier told me was 'completely disturbing'.
On 27 March the Swedes — one representing Swedish Pen, one Lawyers Without Borders — and I, English Pen, watched incredulously as Asiye Zeybek, a 31-year-old journalist and editor who has been brutally raped as well as tortured and shot while in prison but still not sentenced after five years, came up for yet another hearing at the Istanbul state security court. In spite of an impassioned defence from her lawyer. she was once more returned to prison for a further hearing on 5 June.
Turkey may indeed be 'a force for good in an exceedingly difficult part of the world', as Hasan Unal asserts. But surely, when he then points out that Turkey 'is nowadays a big market for Western goods and a major supplier of consumer goods', he cannot mean that this justifies the rest of us ignoring widely recorded humanrights abuses.
Anne M. Sebba
Richmond, Surrey
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