Besikci, Ismail

(1939- )

   Ismail Besikci is an independent Turkish sociologist who, since 1971, has spent many years off and on in Turkish prisons for his academic writings on the Kurds. Probably his best known work is Dogu Anadolu'mm Duzeni: Sosyo-Ekonomik ve Etnik Temeller (The Order of Eastern Anatolia: Socio-Economic and Ethnic Foundations), first published in 1969. Since he has never advocated violence, Amnesty International has adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. He has also become a cause celebre among the many cases dealing with the legal suppression of the Kurds in Turkey. In recent years he was released from jail, but he continues to live in a lowly economic situation as he has been unable to obtain an academic position.