This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 ANKARA 005948 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, EUR/PGI, EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD PREF TU
SUBJECT: TIP IN TURKEY: TURKISH MEDIA ATTENTION, September 
16-30, 2005 
 
¶1. In response to G/TIP inquiries, national and 
  international media sources published the following news 
  articles about TIP in Turkey.  Text of articles 
  originally published in Turkish is provided through 
  unofficial local FSN translation. 
 
¶2.  Published by Bu Gun on Saturday, September 17: 
 
     TITLE:  Fire to Prostitution 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  A fire started by the explosion of a 
     propane gas cylinder revealed a prostitution nest. 
     Prostitutes were nearly killed. 
 
     An explosion of a propane gas cylinder in a tea room of 
     the Yesil Payas Hotel in Erzurum revealed that the 
     hotel was being used as a place of prostitution.  In a 
     short period, the first floor of the hotel was engulfed 
     in flames.  As the fire department was fighting the 
     fire, women were saved from their beds from certain 
     death. 
 
     The Hotelier is Injured 
 
     A team of firefighters found 28-year-old Azeri Gullare 
     Bayramova and hotel worker Gurbuz Boz in a half-dressed 
     and injured state.  Also saved by the firefighting team 
     were Azeri citizens Arzu Navdar, Vefa Huseyinova, 
     Huseyin Cakinay and Kyrgyz citizen Bayova Braley and 
     Sulaliyova Aysunov, all practicing prostitution.  END 
     TEXT. 
 
¶3.  Reported by Sabah on Monday, September 19: 
 
     TITLE:  Human Smugglers are Organized 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  The measures taken by the Interior 
     Ministry against human and immigrant smuggling have 
     begun to bear fruit.  Although the number of smugglers 
     who charge between $1000-5000 per person has increased, 
     the number of illegal immigrants has decreased.  In 
     2003, 1,599 immigrants and 72 smugglers were captured; 
     last year there were 479 victims and 95 organizers 
     captured.  In 2003, there were 263 operations against 
     smuggling, and in 2004 324 operations, many of them 
     done with international cooperation.  Among the 
     organizers were Turks, a Greek ship captain, Iraqis and 
     Iranians.  Smugglers smuggle immigrants particularly 
     from Africa, China, Iraq, Iran and Egypt to Europe. 
 
     According to the new Turkish Penal Code, those involved 
     in human smuggling and trafficking can be punished with 
     imprisonment from three to eight years.  Financial 
     resources obtained through these crimes are considered 
     as money laundering and that money and vehicles used 
     are confiscated. 
 
     For the fact that some European countries accept the 
     political asylum demands of illegal immigrants for 
     various reasons and that international humanitarian 
     assistance organizations are providing financial 
     assistance to people who are subject to illegal 
     passages, immigrant smuggling is believed to be 
     accelerating. END TEXT. 
 
¶4.  Published by Kathiemerini (Greece's International 
English Language newspaper) on Tuesday, September 20: 
 
     TITLE:  Turkish coast guard fire on immigrant boat, one 
     dead 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  Turkish coast guards opened fire on a boat 
     carrying about 30 illegal immigrants to Greece 
     overnight, authorities said yesterday.  One Syrian 
     immigrant was killed and two people, including a Greek 
     crew member, were injured.  The coast guard opened fire 
     when the Greek boat did not heed calls to stop and 
     attempted to escape toward the Greek island of Chios 
     off the Aegean port city of Izmir, authorities said. 
     Two Greek crew members were expected to be charged with 
     human trafficking.  END TEXT. 
 
¶5.  Also published by Kathiemerini on Tuesday, September 20: 
 
     TITLE:  Trafficker caught on Samos after chase as Turks 
     open fire on Greek smugglers 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  Coast guard officials said they detained 
     29 illegal immigrants on the island of Samos yesterday 
     and arrested the captain of the ship that transported 
     them into the country.  After a six-hour manhunt, 
     officials located the boat and man in charge of the 
     vessel, a Turkish national.  The illegal immigrants, 
     from different countries, were taken to the island's 
     migrant detention center.  Meanwhile, two Greeks were 
     arrested in Turkey after being fired at coast guards 
     while attempting to smuggle 30 migrants to Greece.  END 
     TEXT. 
 
¶6.  Written by columnist Saves Ay and published in Sabah on 
Thursday, September 22: 
 
     TITLE:  From Ecstasy to Heroin and Girls who are Sex 
     Slaves 
     BEGIN TEXT:  When ecstasy was found in Ata's blood, 
     eyes were again focused on this disease.  If you are 
     following the comprehensive study by zlem and Gungor 
     from the Central News Agency, you might have already 
     read that this disease is spreading to almost the 
     entire nation. 
 
     I want to relate a true story and by increasing the 
     tremor, bring it to the attention of those who are 
     slumbering. 
 
     I'll tell you the story of a black well that sucks up 
     not only our own citizens, but foreign youngsters as 
     well. 
 
     The newly-rich and those who want to be a part of high 
     society have striking demands.  They order beautiful 
     eastern bloc women from international human 
     traffickers. 
 
     Their goal is to make these young and well-bred women 
     be tools for their sexual fantasies and turn them into 
     sex slaves in return for a few hundred dollars. 
 
     Ceyan, a young and beautiful musician from the Ukraine, 
     is one of them and let me tell you her story.  She is 
     lucky because an honest Anatolian young man fell in 
     love with her.  He (Ibo) fell in love with her at first 
     sight and began a struggle against this bloody and 
     vicious dark gang. 
 
     First he managed to pull Ceyan out of the prostitution 
     and heroin quagmire.  He saved her from the brothel of 
     Oksana, who serves as a pimp with the codename "Blonde 
     Dragon."  Later he took Ceyan, who frequently suffered 
     from heroin withdrawal, to treatment and waited with 
     her for hours as an outpatient in the emergency ward of 
     hospitals.  His goal was to take her to AMATEM (a 
     special hospital for addicts) where she would receive 
     real therapy.  But he neither had the legal nor the 
     financial means to do such a thing.  Ibrahim had a hard 
     time but he applied to the Istanbul Police Department. 
     With information obtained from Ceyan and Ibrahim, the 
     police raided many addresses.  At each address they 
     encountered many young women who were drug addicts.  In 
     secret places they found heroin, hashish and ecstasy, 
     known as the "bridge pill." 
 
     These evil pills are called "bridge" because they let 
     its users pass on to heroin eventually.  When the 
     investigation continued in depth, they reached a gang 
     leader called Omer, whose codename was "Black Snake." 
 
     After long work, police determined where the Black 
     Snake's house and store were.  Raiding his home, police 
     found foreign women, Turkish youngsters, one and a half 
     kilos of heroin, 3,000 USD in cash and a 6.35 mm 
     pistol. 
 
     Police found out that Omer was in touch with a Van- 
     based heroin network and that the Narcotics Police had 
     been searching for him already.  Thus the entire gang 
     was pulled down and the criminals were brought to 
     justice. 
 
     As a result of all her help, Ceyan was offered 
     treatment.  She bid goodbye to her love Ibrahim and 
     entered AMATEM. 
     In conversations with her doctors, she said, "I was a 
     person who was going to a conservatory and representing 
     my country by playing the cello.  First ecstasy and 
     later hashish and other pills, and later without 
     realizing how, I began to use heroin."  END TEXT. 
¶7.  Reported by Anatoly Janis on Friday, September 23: 
 
     TITLE:  Prostitution Operation in Izmir 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  Four women of Ukrainian citizenship and a 
     Turkish man who reportedly forced them into 
     prostitution were captured in the Hatay District of 
     Izmir. 
 
     The Izmir Police conducted an operation and captured 
     the four Ukrainian women who were brought to Turkey to 
     serve as nannies, but actually were forced into 
     prostitution. 
 
     The Public Order Department Morals Police conducted the 
     operation on a house on Inonu Street where foreign 
     women allegedly were forced into prostitution. 
 
     The police team, with the orders of the prosecutor, 
     raided the house and captured Ukrainian citizens O.K. 
     (19), O.O. (21), T.S. (23) and L.Z. (21). 
 
     The women were taken to the police department where 
     they claimed they were brought to Turkey to work as 
     nannies.  They claimed that some people here took away 
     their passports and forced them into prostitution. 
     They were turned over to the Foreigners' Police. 
 
     G.K., who was charged with human trafficking, was sent 
     to the Izmir Judicial Hall.  G.K. as a record of human 
     trafficking and the information found on him was shared 
     with the Ukrainian police.  END TEXT. 
 
¶8.  Published by Milliyet on Thursday, September 29 and 
Vatan and Sabah on Friday, September 30: 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  Five people who allegedly forced a 14-year- 
     old girl to enter relations with many people in return 
     for money were captured and two are being searched for. 
 
     Five people were captured in Antalya and two are being 
     searched for forcing a 14-year-old girl to enter 
     relationship with many people in return for money. 
 
     AA reporter has learned that HA (14) ran away from home 
     and began to work at a bar. MB (28), GA (38), IE (23) 
     and MCE (26), who were working at the same bar, forced 
     her to be with men in return for money and later forced 
     her to go with two unidentified people in return for 
     1000 YTL.  These people reportedly forced her to work 
     as a prostitute at a house that belonged to TB (43) in 
     the Mayan District. 
 
     HA called the 155 police hotline when she got the 
     chance.  The police saved her when she told them that 
     she was kept in a house and was forced into having sex 
     with men in return for money. 
 
     MB, GA, IE and MCE, who forced her into prostitution, 
     and TB, the owner of the house, were detained.  The 
     police are searching for the other two people. 
 
     HA, who was forced to be with many men, is three and 
     half months pregnant.  END TEXT. 
 
¶9.  Published by Mail&Guardianonline (www.mg.co.za) on 
Thursday, September 29: 
 
     TITLE:  Deaths highlight EU immigration troubles 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  The deaths of five people during a night 
     of clashes on the Spanish-Moroccan border on Thursday 
     once again threw into focus the growing pressure 
     exerted by illegal immigration on the gateways into the 
     European Union across the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
     Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero met 
     his Moroccan counterpart Driss Jettou in Seville on 
     Thursday for talks on the problem following the unrest 
     on Morocco's border with Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on 
     the North African coast. 
 
     Five people died before dawn when hundreds of would-be 
     immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa attempted to storm 
     the border fence around the enclave, just across the 
     Strait of Gilbraltar that divides Africa from mainland 
     Europe. 
 
     The European Commission called on its member to bolster 
     cooperation with third countries to avert similar 
     incidents. 
 
     Spain's troubles are by no means unique among its 
     fellow EU member-states that border the Mediterranean. 
     All face a daily challenge in trying to contain illegal 
     immigration, while also respecting the rights of 
     potential asylum-seekers. 
 
     According to the Italian interior ministry, more than 
     7,500 would-be immigrants landed in the first half of 
     2005 on the southern island of Lampedusa, a focal point 
     for people arriving from the coats of Libya and 
     Tunisia. 
 
     Malta faces a similar challenge, compounded by its 
     small size, and multiplied in gravity since the island 
     joined the European Union. 
 
     Valetta on September 27 warned the arrival of 235 
     stowaways over the weekend threatened to plunge the 
     island nation into a humanitarian crisis, and appealed 
     to Brussels for help. 
 
     "It is equivalent to the arrival of 23,500 people in 
     Sicily," said Maltese Interior Minister Tonio Borg. 
 
     In Cyprus, heightened vigilance against illegal 
     immigration landed the authorities in trouble in June, 
     when a group of Chinese travel agents invited to 
     promote the island was mistakenly detained by airport 
     immigration officials. 
 
     In contrast to Malta and Cyprus, which effectively have 
     one coastline to monitor, Greece has dozens of islands 
     and islets scattered across the Aegean Sea facing 
     Turkey, a region where Greek coastguard patrols make 
     scores of interceptions every month. 
 
     The coastguard reported 3,047 arrests in 2004, and 
     1,280 interceptions by June 30 this year. 
 
     A more perilous option is the overland route across the 
     Greek-Turkish border, which was mined following the 
     Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, and where 
     more than 70 migrants have been killed since 1994, 
     according to a toll compiled by Agence France Presse. 
 
     Turkey, which aspires to join the European Union, has 
     long been a major route for immigrants from poor Asian 
     and African countries trying to sneak into prosperous 
     Europe, but officials say the influx has been somewhat 
     reduced after Ankara toughened sanctions against 
     trafficking. 
 
     About 387,000 illegal immigrants and about 5,000 
     suspected traffickers were detained between 2000 and 
     2004, official statistics show. 
 
     According to a 2003 report by the international 
     organization for Migration (IOM), the annual number of 
     illegal immigrants transiting through Turkey may be 
     estimated to be around 200,000. 
 
     The IOM report predicted that the business of sneaking 
     migrants across Turkey likely involved half a billion 
     US dollars (415 million Euros) per year, on the 
     assumption that a migrant pays an average of 2,500 USD 
     to traffickers. 
 
     Earlier this month, the United Nations High 
     Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said governments 
     should do more to facilitate migrant disembarkation, 
     lest ship captains be discouraged from even fishing 
     them out of the water in future. 
 
     Italy, which recently expelled a number of illegal 
     immigrants to Libya under a bilateral accord never made 
     public, has been roundly criticized by the European 
     Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament for 
     not allowing people to apply for asylum. 
 
     On September 20, thirteen European parliamentarians 
     accused Rome of emptying an immigrant holding camp on 
     Lampedusa island, just before they arrived to inspect 
     it. 
 
     They also argued that cramped conditions at the camp 
     raised concern of human rights abuse.  END TEXT. 
 
¶10.  Reported by ITAR-TASS on Friday, September 30: 
 
     TITLE:  Human trafficking business booming in 
     Tajikistan 
 
     BEGIN TEXT:  Tajikistan has tightened punishment for 
     the engagement in prostitution, but the illegal 
     business is booming just the same, Nuritdin Amirkulov 
     from the presidential administration said at the 
     Dushanbe conference on human trafficking on Friday. 
 
     He said the Tajik police had opened 59 criminal cases 
     on the human trafficking charge in 2005.  This is 
     nearly twice more than last year, he said. 
 
     This September alone the police exposed nine cases of 
     the engagement in prostitution and exposed several 
     human trafficking businesses.  The women are 
     transported to brothels in the Middle East, the United 
     Arab Emirates, Turkey, India and some other countries. 
 
     Twenty-six women were returned to Tajikistan this 
     summer as a result of lengthy negotiations with Dubai 
     authorities, a Tajik deputy interior minister said. 
 
     No fewer than 40 Tajik women are still in white slavery 
     in United Arab Emirates, according to the official 
     statistics. 
 
     Conference delegates said the problem can be resolved 
     only in cooperation with non-governmental and 
     international organizations.  END TEXT. 
 
MCELDOWNEY