Five journalists were taken to hospital after being attacked by police, one reporter had a trouser leg ripped off by a police dog. Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz expressed his regret over the incidents. Anatolian news agency said none of the 48 policemen charged in the beating death of journalist Metin Goktepe in 1996 appeared at the trial in the western town of Afyon. Attacks on media organizations and journalists in Turkey reached dangerous levels last month, a report by the Turkish journalists' union. Newspaper and television buildings, as well as journalists, were subject to armed attacks, while reporters were beaten and detained by the authorities, the report quoted by Anatolian news agency said.
Historian pays a heavy price for translating biorgaphy critical of Ataturk.
The book's publishers were forced to eliminate the work's offending passages and republish a censored version in March. Seventy-two protesters, including several trade union officials, are still held incommunicado at Ankara Police Headquarters after the releases of others on Sunday. Goktepe was reporting on the funeral of two prison inmates who had died in their cells in January 1996 when he and several other journalists were arrested and taken to a sports stadium. The others were released, but he was held, and the next day his body was found in a nearby park. The New York Times correspondent based in Istanbul said Tuesday that security forces detained and interrogated him for 19 hours on suspicion of spying for Kurdish rebels.