Dr. Fikret Baskaya

Fikret Baskaya, Professor of Economic Development and International Relations and founder and chairman of the Turkey and Middle

East Forum Foundation, is the author of several books and articles on development economics. He also wrote a regular newspaper opinion column.

On 1 June 1999, he published an article entitled "A Question of History?" in the daily newspaper Özgür Bakis, in which he questioned the viability of the Turkish state’s approach towards the Kurdish problem following the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan.

As a result, he was indicted under Article 8/1 of the Anti-Terror Law for "disseminating separatist propaganda through the press".

Istanbul State Security Court sentenced him to 16 months’ imprisonment and a fine on 13 June 2000. He was remanded to prison over a year later, on 29 June 2001.

Dr. Baskaya was again imprisoned from March 1994 to July 1995 under Article 8 of Turkey´s Anti-Terror Law for writing a book titled "The Bankruptcy of [the] Paradigm".

In June 2000, he was convicted under the same Article 8 for "disseminating separatist propaganda through the press" based on a 1999 newspaper column titled "A Historical Trial." Found guilty on appeal, he was released from prison in June 2002 after serving one year of a sixteen-month sentence.

Fikret Baskaya was finally acquitted in 2005. Read Jonathan Fryer's report on his last trial here.