Gunmen Seriously Wound Rights Leader in Turkey

Two unidentified gunmen seriously wounded this nation’s most prominent human rights campaigner in his office here Tuesday, provoking a storm of protest against the Turkish government for failing to protect him.

Akin Birdal, 50, president of the Human Rights Assn. and a critic of the government’s bloody crackdown on Kurdish separatists, was listed in critical condition with six bullet wounds--including three in the chest--from 9-millimeter automatic pistols.

Anonymous callers to local media claiming to be with the Turkish Revenge Brigade took responsibility for the attack. The obscure ultranationalist group has said it is responsible for the killings of several Kurdish and left-wing activists.

Human rights advocates blamed the shooting on government leaks that had accused Birdal of taking orders from Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish guerrilla commander based in Syria. That accusation, published last month by Turkish newspapers, was based on the purported confessions of a captured rebel field commander. “Birdal was portrayed as a target before the whole world,” said Aydin Erdogan, a lawyer who works with the rights group. “It was an invitation to murder.”

Other colleagues said Birdal had appealed in vain for police protection after receiving several death threats after the press reports. The Interior Ministry denied getting such a request.

Birdal’s secretary said two men in their 20s gained admission to the rights group’s national headquarters in an upscale shopping district in the capital on the pretext of inquiring about missing relatives. When Birdal directed them to another branch, they left but soon returned, the secretary said. Both men opened fire and left quickly, the police said. Turkey’s private NTV channel showed film of Birdal lying on the floor in a pool of blood whimpering, “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” He was rushed to a hospital for surgery.

Hundreds of rights advocates, journalists and others gathered outside the hospital and chanted anti-government slogans for hours. They jeered angrily when Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and Interior Minister Murat Basesgioglu arrived to check on Birdal’s condition.

Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz blamed the attack on “forces opposed to peace and stability in Turkey” and vowed to bring the assailants to justice.

Turkey is a strategic U.S. ally and North Atlantic Treaty Organization member, but its police methods and human rights record are often cited by European leaders when they continually refuse to consider Turkey for European Union membership.

Birdal has been an outspoken critic of what he calls the government’s “dirty war” against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party and its sympathizers in the mainly Kurdish provinces of southeastern Turkey. The rebel group is waging a 14-year-old armed insurgency seeking self-rule for Turkey’s 12 million ethnic Kurds. Nearly 30,000 people have died in the fighting.

Birdal’s group documents and publicizes abuses by Turkish security forces against Kurdish civilians. It says these have included the forced displacement of almost 3 million Kurds accused of providing food and shelter for the rebels.

The government says the figures are inflated and that villagers were moved for their own safety.

The rights group has documented what it says are state-sponsored slayings of hundreds of Kurdish activists and 13 of its own members since 1991. Although his group calls itself independent, Birdal is openly partisan. He has been reluctant to condemn Kurdish rebels for killing Kurdish civilians who side with the government.