Adıyaman daily sets lawsuit record
Güncelleme Tarihi:
by Vercihan Ziflioğlu
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Nisan 04, 2009 00:00
ISTANBUL - Hacı Boğatekin, the owner of Gerger Fırat, a local newspaper in the eastern city of Adıyaman, has had 113 lawsuits filed against him. He has been put in prison three times and suffered health problems as a result. But he said he has never thought of giving up journalism.
Two weeks ago, Boğatekin received the Turkish Contemporary Journalists Association, or ÇGD’s, "Solidarity Award" for his story "Feto-Apo," which criticized the Fethullah Gülen movement, drawing yet another court case.
Financial problems due to lawsuits left Boğatekin unable to hire reporters, but his 12 children did not leave him to publish the news alone. Some worked behind the scenes at the paper while others reported from the cities where they were studying.
Boğatekin, who often received threats because of the news he published, was shot with a Kalashnikov in front of his house a few years ago. Some of his children were also wounded in the attack, but none of them stopped writing. When Boğatekin was jailed, his children kept the paper going Ğ and continued being subjected to lawsuits. Most of Boğatekin’s children are studying at universities in big cities Ğ many getting an education in law in order to examine their father’s cases.
A life of struggle
After receiving the Solidarity Award, Boğatekin came to Istanbul and spoke about his more than 30 years of professional life, a period full of struggle. The winner of many national and international awards, Boğatekin started out in 1976 working for the Hürriyet news agency, where he stayed until 1992. Sometime later, he decided to work independently and founded Gerger Fırat.
"Every year, dozens of women were dying while giving birth. There was no road, no school, no water," Boğatekin told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "Our aim was to draw attention to these problems of Gerger."
At first, the paper had 250 subscribers. Now it has 3,000.
Inconvenience and imprisonment
During the first years of the paper, Boğatekin said, the telephone was a luxury. To use a fax machine, they had to walk to the district governorship office 65 kilometers away. "They used to read the content of the news before faxing it," he said. "If they saw an inconvenient thing, the 65-kilometer walk was for nothing."
Boğatekin was first imprisoned for using the expression "Kurdish public" in a 1994 story. He was given six months, but the sentence was rejected by the Court of Appeals. He received a second sentence because of his story "The state is infested with lice."
"There was a lice epidemic in schools in the region," Boğatekin said. "Children were infested and I reported this." Other lawsuits followed, one after the other.
Awarded while in prison
Boğatekin said he had spent most of his life in prison, where he continued writing. "Every time I was imprisoned, I would take 2,500 pieces of paper and write stories and dailies," he said, adding that most of his writing was seized by prison officials.
"The most painful thing was last year, on July 24. The Turkish Journalists Association gave me an award. I wanted to fax to thank them, but they did not let me," Boğatekin said.
He also described an event that occurred in prison. "We were more than 50 people in the ward. There was only one toilet and we caught an infection. We had protruding abdomens and diarrhea. The director recommended we eat dry tea rather than bringing a doctor. But a big miracle happened Ğ the prosecutor visited the ward. The director told us to not say anything, but I told the prosecutor about the situation and we were treated. He saved our life."
Financial problems due to lawsuits left Boğatekin unable to hire reporters, but his 12 children did not leave him to publish the news alone. Some worked behind the scenes at the paper while others reported from the cities where they were studying.
Boğatekin, who often received threats because of the news he published, was shot with a Kalashnikov in front of his house a few years ago. Some of his children were also wounded in the attack, but none of them stopped writing. When Boğatekin was jailed, his children kept the paper going Ğ and continued being subjected to lawsuits. Most of Boğatekin’s children are studying at universities in big cities Ğ many getting an education in law in order to examine their father’s cases.
A life of struggle
After receiving the Solidarity Award, Boğatekin came to Istanbul and spoke about his more than 30 years of professional life, a period full of struggle. The winner of many national and international awards, Boğatekin started out in 1976 working for the Hürriyet news agency, where he stayed until 1992. Sometime later, he decided to work independently and founded Gerger Fırat.
"Every year, dozens of women were dying while giving birth. There was no road, no school, no water," Boğatekin told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review. "Our aim was to draw attention to these problems of Gerger."
At first, the paper had 250 subscribers. Now it has 3,000.
Inconvenience and imprisonment
During the first years of the paper, Boğatekin said, the telephone was a luxury. To use a fax machine, they had to walk to the district governorship office 65 kilometers away. "They used to read the content of the news before faxing it," he said. "If they saw an inconvenient thing, the 65-kilometer walk was for nothing."
Boğatekin was first imprisoned for using the expression "Kurdish public" in a 1994 story. He was given six months, but the sentence was rejected by the Court of Appeals. He received a second sentence because of his story "The state is infested with lice."
"There was a lice epidemic in schools in the region," Boğatekin said. "Children were infested and I reported this." Other lawsuits followed, one after the other.
Awarded while in prison
Boğatekin said he had spent most of his life in prison, where he continued writing. "Every time I was imprisoned, I would take 2,500 pieces of paper and write stories and dailies," he said, adding that most of his writing was seized by prison officials.
"The most painful thing was last year, on July 24. The Turkish Journalists Association gave me an award. I wanted to fax to thank them, but they did not let me," Boğatekin said.
He also described an event that occurred in prison. "We were more than 50 people in the ward. There was only one toilet and we caught an infection. We had protruding abdomens and diarrhea. The director recommended we eat dry tea rather than bringing a doctor. But a big miracle happened Ğ the prosecutor visited the ward. The director told us to not say anything, but I told the prosecutor about the situation and we were treated. He saved our life."