Ferhat Tepe, a correspondent for the daily newspaper Ozgur Gundem, was abducted in Bitlis on 28 July 1993 in circumstances similar to previous cases where involvement of the security forces is alleged. The following morning his father received a telephone call allegedly from the Ottoman- Turkish Revenge Brigade demanding the closure of the Bitlis branch of Democracy Party (DEP) of which Ferhat Tepe’s father is the provincial president; one billion Turkish Lira; and the release of four French tourists taken hostage by guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). The caller threatened that if these demands were not met, Ferhat Tepe and the children of all DEP officials in the area would be killed. The police are apparently making no serious efforts to investigate the incident.
