Ocak Işık Yurtçu

Ocak Işık Yurtçu
Born	1945
Died	8 September 2012
Nationality	Turkish
Occupation	reporter
Organization	Özgür Gündem
Known for	Imprisonment by Turkish government
Awards	International Press Freedom Award (1996)

Ocak Işık Yurtçu (1945–8 September 2012) was a Turkish reporter detained for thirty-two months between 1993-1997 by the Turkish government for his reporting on the Kurdish–Turkish conflict, a case The New York Times called "emblematic" of the Turkish press's struggle for press freedom in the 1990s. In 1996, Yurtçu was awarded the International Press Freedom Award of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Yurtçu began his journalistic career in 1966 as a reporter at the Ekspres. Over the next twenty-five years, he worked at another half-dozen papers as a reporter or columnist, including Yenigun, Ulus, Politika, Dunya, Demokrat, Gunes, Cumhuriyet, and Yeni Halkci. At Yeni Halkci in 1971, Yurtçu published a series of articles on the torture of political prisoners, bringing him national recognition. In 1975, he was made an honorary member to the National Writers' Union of Turkey.

At the time of his imprisonment, Yurtçu was serving as the editor of Özgür Gündem (English: "Free Agenda"). The paper was particularly known for its extensive coverage of the ongoing conflict between the Turkish Armed Forces and the PKK, a Kurdish guerrilla army, which was being downplayed by mainstream Turkish media. During Yurtçu's tenure as editor, the paper's circulation grew to more than 100,000, a record for an independent Turkish paper.

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