‘Arrested Journal’ set for 2nd issue

ISTANBUL

The second issue of the “Arrested Journal,” which was created by journalists serving time behind bars, is set to be released today as a supplement to several other daily newspapers.

“I could no longer bear the weight of remaining outside [of prison]. I am freer here!” arrested publisher and activist Ragıp Zarakolu wrote in the paper.

Some 43 arrested journalists and two guest writers, as well as two other journalists who were recently released, contributed to the 16-page paper, which is being released today as a supplement in dailies Aydınlık, BirGün and Evrensel.

 “If I am free, and you are free, then we will all be free; or else we are all prisoners,” prominent journalist Nedim Şener said in the journal, which was printed in monochrome.

Around 100,000 copies of the journal will be distributed, while a number have also been dedicated to Suzan Zengin, who died after she underwent heart surgery following her release from prison.

“[The authorities] are ‘deporting’ dissident journalists, students, academics, publishers, Kurds and socialists to prisons,” arrested journalist Ahmet Şık wrote in an allusion to the 1915 deportation of Armenians.

“We are journalists, not terrorists,” read the streamer headline of the journal, featuring such writers as Nevin Berktaş, Ece Temelkuran, Doğan Yurdakul, Müesser Yıldız, Soner Yalçın, Tuncay Özkan and Murat İlhan, among others.

“The smell of power permeates every corner of Turkey,” arrested daily Cumhuriyet journalist and parliamentary deputy Mustafa Balbay wrote in reference to the words of an Aboriginal leader in North America who once said “the smell of humans” had permeated every corner because whites had ravaged nature.