Movie Strikes a Nerve in Turkey

[english at ozgurlluk.xs4all.nl]

Movie Strikes a Nerve in Turkey 

 By Yalman Onaran 
 Associated Press Writer 
 Friday, January 30, 1998; 3:46 p.m. EST 

 AP Photos NY190 

 ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -- A movie that depicts police torture
 has scraped a raw nerve in Turkey, a nation wrestling with fresh
 disclosures of state-sponsored violence against political opponents
 and alleged rebels. 

 ``The Heavy Novel'' is not ``Midnight Express,'' the 1978 U.S.
 movie whose portrayal of a young American caught for drug
 trafficking and brutalized by Turkish jailers was dismissed as
 wildly exaggerated when it was first broadcast on Turkish
 television five years ago. 

 Rather, it is a story of ordinary people in Istanbul's back streets,
 leading anguishing lives rife with drugs, poverty and violence --
 some of it perpetrated by police. 

 The movie is on its way to becoming one of Turkey's most watched
 movies ever, not only because it deals with previously taboo
 subjects but because the country recently has come under severe
 international criticism for its human rights record. 

 ``The Heavy Novel'' describes Salih, a quiet young man who finds
 himself opposing organized crime in his neighborhood. He flees
 into hiding after attacking a man who insults his girlfriend. 

 Then, in one of the film's most graphic scenes, the police torture
 Salih's father to find out where he is. They pour water on his
 head, attach electrodes to his naked body and shock him,
 triggering uncontrollable spasms. 

 Salih himself is eventually tracked down by police and also
 tortured to extract a confession for his attack. He doesn't relent. 

 Offended by the depictions of torture and the film's portrayal of
 complicity between a police inspector and a Turkish mobster,
 authorities complained to the prosecutor, who launched an
 investigation into whether the film violates a law against insulting
 the security forces. 

 The probe caused an uproar in Turkish newspapers, with
 columnists claiming that authorities were attacking a film that
 simply told the truth. 

 The director of ``The Heavy Novel'' doesn't apologize for his work. 

 ``It is ridiculous to claim there is no torture in Turkey,'' said the
 director, Mustafa Altioklar. ``The reason we cannot solve our
 problems is because we are afraid to confront them.'' 

 According to Altioklar, Turkey's justice minister admitted last
 month that the government had confiscated ``torture tools'' from
 police stations. 

 Claims of torture by Turkish authorities have become an
 international embarrassment to Turkey. The European Union
 recently rejected Turkey's latest application for membership,
 listing systematic torture among its other human rights
 problems. 

 Furthermore, the release of ``The Heavy Novel'' two months ago
 followed the disclosure of a government report describing an array
 of official misdeeds, including torture by security forces and
 government-hired assassins. On one occasion, even a key
 intelligence officer became a torture victim, the report said. 

 Depicting police misconduct is not the only Turkish taboo broken
 by ``The Heavy Novel.'' A gay adopted brother is embraced by
 Salih, a prostitute is befriended by the whole neighborhood, and
 drugs are consumed like beer. 

 Now the producers are preparing Kurdish subtitles for the film's
 release in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, where a guerrilla
 war between Kurdish rebels and Turkish troops has been raging
 for over a decade. The clash has claimed at least 27,000 lives. 

 A release with Kurdish subtitles would be unprecedented in a
 country where Kurdish-language broadcasting and education are
 banned. 

 ``Hopefully the state won't be angered and won't try to prevent the
 showing with subtitles,'' said Sabahattin Cetin, the producer.
 ``We're encouraged by the softer attitude toward Kurdish
 language in recent years.'' 

-- 
Press Agency Ozgurluk
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