Memik Horuz, managing editor of the paper Ozgur Gelecek (Free Future), has been detained since June 18, 2001. He was arrested in Cemberlitas, Istanbul, by the Turkish state security forces and charged with interviewing a guerilla leader. The charge was subsequently dropped but he is now charged with belonging to a banned organization. He is being held in Sincan Prison (F-type isolation) in Ankara.

Memik Horuz has worked for “Free Future” since 1993. He is one of many left journalists to suffer frequent harassment and intimidation and spent several years in prison in the 1980s. Before his arrest in June 2001, he was detained in April 2001 at the Istanbul security headquarters where he had gone for a passport application and was strip-searched and interrogated.

Memik Horuz is also the deputy chairperson of an international organization, the International League of Peoples’ Struggles (ILPS), an anti-imperialist and democratic formation of mass organizations from a number of countries.