Turkey press freedom

Using Terror Charges to Stifle Independent Reporting

anewauthor — Sat, 12 May 2012 07:18:07 +0000

May 10, 2012, J. David Goodman

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/using-terror-charges-to-stifle-independent-reporting/?ref=ethiopia

Friday 10:02 a.m. | Updated Prosecutors in the eastern African nation of Burundi are seeking a life sentence for 23 journalists, including one working for Radio France International, who have been charged with “participating in acts of terrorism,” according to Reporters Without Borders and local journalists.

The sentences were among the harshest punishments threatened during a disquieting spate of prosecutions using terror laws to quash independent reporting and stifle dissent.

In Ethiopia, a verdict was expected on Friday in the case of a prominent journalist and blogger, Eskinder Nega, who was arrested last year during a crackdown on journalists that saw broad antiterrorism laws applied to at least 11 reporters there. But the court in Addis Ababa said it would postpone the decision until next month.

Mr. Nega, who won a prestigious press freedom award this month, could face the death penalty if convicted of aiding terror groups with his reports, though his wife, speaking to The New York Times last week, said that such a severe outcome was unlikely. No journalist has been sentenced to death in Ethiopia, though several have received harsh prison terms, including two Swedish reporters sentenced to 11 years for their reports from a restive region of the country.

In Burundi, prosecutors said on Tuesday that if convicted, Hassan Ruvakuki, who works for the Swahili branch of Radio France International, and 22 others would face life sentences for charges stemming from reports on a violent rebel group.

Journalism advocates have questioned the basis of the charges and the impartiality of the judicial proceedings. “Conducting an interview is not an act of terrorism,” said Tom Rhodes, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, in a statement. “Burundian authorities are misusing the law to punish a journalist for airing material they did not like.”

A majority of the journalists, including Mr. Ruvakiki, refused to enter a plea, saying the trial was not being conducted under proper procedures. The others pleaded not guilty.

Similar charges have been brought against journalists in Turkey, as The Times reported earlier this year.

Nedim Sener, a veteran investigative journalist there who was looking into a terror network plotting against the government, found himself accused of abetting the very same terrorist organization, arrested and put on trial along with another reporter, Ahmet Sik, and several editors. The two reporters are now free on bail but still facing long prison terms if convicted.

OSCE media freedom representative calls for legal reforms after study shows 95 journalists imprisoned in Turkey

anewauthor — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:45:47 +0000

http://www.osce.org/fom/89370

The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatović, at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum, Bonn, 20 June 2011. (Deutsche Welle/K. Danetzki)

VIENNA, 2 April 2012 – Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, today presented an updated analysis on imprisoned journalists in Turkey and called for immediate reform of the nation’s media laws.

“The number of imprisoned journalists in Turkey has significantly increased in the past year,” Mijatović said. “This is worrisome and demands the immediate attention and swift action of the authorities.”

Ninety-five journalists are in prison today, up from 57 a year ago, according to the OSCE study, which is an update of a similar analysis published last year.

“The sheer number of imprisoned journalists raises fundamental questions about the law and policy on journalism and free expression in Turkey. I am concerned that the threat of imprisonment will lead to further widespread self-censorship,” Mijatović said.

“The laws need to be changed so journalists are not jailed for their work. Those who are in prison now need to be released,” Mijatović said.

The study shows journalists face extended pre-trial detention and long sentences if convicted. “Courts do not routinely grant pre-trial release to accused journalists,” she said. “I am aware of only seven recent occasions when journalists were released pending trial, a development which I publicly welcomed. I hope others will be released soon and their trials finalized swiftly.”

The study shows that the laws most commonly used to jail journalists are Article 5 and 7 of the Anti-Terror Law (relating to articles of the Criminal Code on terrorist offences and organizations or assisting members of or making propaganda in connection with such organizations, as well as the lengthening of sentences), and Article 314 of the Criminal Code (on establishing, commanding or becoming member of an armed organization with the aim of committing certain offences).

Mijatović said that she recognized the legitimate right of governments to fight terrorism and protect national security and their citizens. “However, objective reporting about all issues, including sensitive topics such as terrorism, is a fundamental part of democratic societies and journalists play an indispensable role by providing information to the public.”

Ahead of publication, Mijatović sent the study and shared her concerns with the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, offering her Office’s full assistance in reforming the media laws in Turkey.

The main findings of the study and a detailed table of all imprisoned journalists can be accessed at http://www.osce.org/fom/89371

Turkey: The Powerful And The Paranoid

anewauthor — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:28:10 +0000

http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/turkey-the-powerful-and-the-paranoid/152/

Photo by ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images

By Jess Hill

POLITICS | March 27, 2012

Respond to Feature

Turkey: The Powerful And The Paranoid

Turkey is powerful, prosperous and stable. So why is it locking up so many of its intellectuals?

“ We know that terrorist cells might include a university chair, an association or a NGO.”

Young Turks hitch a ride. |Photo by Jess Hill

“ I think the word for them is ‘hubris’. They think nobody can touch them.”

Dr Mehmet Karli (right) and Gülşah Kurt, lecturers at Galatasaray University. Both are actively involved in campaigning for fellow academics and students jailed under what they say are unjust terror laws. |Photo by Jess Hill

“ Terror laws are so broad, people don’t even know what a crime is anymore.”

Turkey: booming economy, regional peacemaker, thriving democracy — a model for fledgling Arab democracies.

A familiar line, and one that makes many Turkish intellectuals bristle. “We are sick to death of people saying we are a model,” one Istanbul-based journalist told me. “It’s a lie.”

Nobody denies Turkey’s success at an economic level — and most welcome it. But liberal intellectuals are furious that at a time of such prosperity, Turkey is at war with free speech.

They have good reason to be angry: for the past three years, the state has been locking them up at an alarming rate. According to Ece Temelkuran, a journalist and political commentator, an estimated 3,500 Turkish and Kurdish politicians, professors and publishers are in prison for “terror-related” crimes, and Turkey has more journalists in prison — almost 100 — than any other nation.

These arrests all have been made under Turkey’s tough new terror laws, introduced in 2006. In the year before they were introduced, Turkey made 273 terror-related arrests. In 2009, there made 6,345.

These capricious new terror laws mean people can be charged with terrorism for “crimes” as innocuous as researching a “controversial” topic, signing a petition or wearing a keffiyeh (the black-and-white headscarf associated with Palestinians and Kurds).

These crimes might look innocuous, says the government, but terrorists in Turkey are cunning. They don’t just attack the state with guns – they fight with paintbrushes and pens. “Terror is a multifaceted phenomenon that includes psychology and art,” said Turkey’s interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin, last December. “Sometimes it is on canvas,

sometimes in a poem, in daily articles, or even jokes. We know that terrorist cells might include a university chair, an association or a NGO.”

Such paranoia bewilders Dr Mehmet Karli, a lecturer at Galatasaray University’s law faculty in Istanbul. “For the first time in a long time, there is a hegemony in the system,” he says, as we chat during his lunch hour on campus. “The [governing] AK Party controls the army, the judiciary, the police — controls everything! What is the point of having all these repressive policies?”

The military, which has overthrown four governments since the 1960s, has now been brought under the control of the Prime

Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Despite this, Erdogan is still doggedly pursuing what he regards as threats to his primacy – namely hardline secular nationalists and the Kurds. Journalists, academics and publishers are being jailed simply for writing about them.

As Karli explains, an article in Turkey’s Anti-Terror Law dictates that anyone researching or writing about subjects even vaguely connected to terrorism can be charged with supporting or being a member of a terrorist organisation. Once arrested, they can then be detained for up to three years without trial. “They first detain you, and then they start writing the indictment,” says Karli. “That’s the way it goes in Turkey.”

Once a person has been targeted, says Karli, they know the judiciary won’t help them — no matter how weak the charge is. “The AK Party has lost the notion of the separation of powers,” says Karli’s colleague, Eren Paydaş. “The state now consists of one thing — the AK Party. It isn’t accountable to any institution or civil norm.

That’s why Erdogan thinks he can act so arbitrarily.”

Inside Turkey, Erdogan has been widely criticised for replacing secular officials with judges and prosecutors friendly to the party. But Karli says that criticism has had little effect. “I think the word for them is hubris,” he says. “They think nobody can touch them.”

NESRIN UÇARLAR’S APARTMENT is at the top of one of Istanbul’s many steep hills, just a few minutes’ walk from several of its universities. If you look out her living-room window, past the local Persian cats lounging in her courtyard and through dense rows of apartment blocks, you can glimpse the Bosphorus.

Uçarlar has been researching Kurdish issues for most of her academic career. Recently she has spent most Fridays at the Bakirköy Women’s Prison, visiting her friend and colleague, Professor Büşra Ersanli.

Ersanli, a highly respected academic from Istanbul’s Marmara University, is a member of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), a political group with seats in the Turkish parliament. She was jailed in October for alleged connections to the Union of Kurdish Communities (KCK), said to have its roots in the banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In a recent interview, Professor Ersanli said she didn’t even know what the KCK was.

From 2009, a government campaign in 2009 has used anti-terror laws to arrest thousands of Kurds and Kurdish sympathisers in what it calls its “KCK operations”. Many of those arrested, like Professor Ersanli, have been in jail for months without trial.

At a recent panel at Bogazici University titled Fear, Control and Punishment, Turkish attorney Deniz Gedik said the terror laws were so broad that people didn’t even know what a crime was anymore. “In the old days it was not a crime to put up posters in public. Nowadays those who put up posters are listed by the police and later interrogated,” he said. “The AKP government has been using the legal system as its punitive body, and terrorism as a tool for marginalization.”

Ersanli has spent the last five months in “pre-trial detention”, passing the time by teaching her fellow inmates political science. On March 19, the prosecutor finally indicted her: Ersanli now faces between 15 and 22.5 years in jail for “leading an illegal organization”.

Her friend and colleague, Nesrin Uçarlar, says Ersanli’s arrest was a wake-up call for Turkish academics. More than 400 academics from 50 universities, in Turkey and abroad, formed the GIT Initiative, which is raising awareness of academics who are punished for their research. “These injustices are not new, and they will not be the last ones,” she says. Since the 1970s, academics studying Kurdish issues have been considered dangerous.

To people unfamiliar with Turkish politics, it may sound shocking that with more than 10 million Kurds in Turkey, official Turkish policy says they don’t exist. “The constitution of the Turkish Republic says there is only one nation, one language, one culture,” she says. “But for decades, academics have been saying ‘No, Kurdish people are different from Turkish people — they have a different language, they have a different culture, and they want to rule themselves’,” says Ucarlar.

Uçarlar never has been imprisoned for studying Kurdish issues, but her academic career has been severely hampered. In 2008, upon completing a PhD thesis on Kurdish linguistic rights in Turkey, she was declined a diploma by the institute she was studying at, which accused her instead of breaching the constitution and “inventing a minority”.

In this way, she says, the problem is not just Erdogan and the government, but rather the way this nationalist ideology has infiltrated the academic institutions themselves. “The problem in my case was the head of the institute. He was obsessive about defending the state. He was told the Kurdish issue is dangerous, that Kurdish people are used by external forces to divide Turkey — all these stories. He considers himself one of the guardians of the state.”

Uçarlar has just been dismissed from a university she’s been working at for 11 years because of a study she did on Kurdish mother-tongue education in Turkey. If she could get another posting, I ask, would she study Kurdish issues again? She nods. “They cannot understand this. If you want to study Kurdish issues from the beginning, you know that it is a controversial issue. You were born in Turkey! But when you start to study it, nobody or nothing can change your mind. These injustices just encourage you to go further.”

Despite the growing sense of tension within the academic community, Uçarlar is optimistic. “I still don’t think Erdogan is becoming anti-democratic,” she insists. “They’ve done something we could not imagine a decade ago. But AK Party should go further. Now we are asking, ‘What kind of democracy are you talking about?’”

FOR DECADES, TURKEY’S LEADERS HAVE dealt with the Kurdish issue largely by pursuing a harsh program of assimilation. The Kurds, most of whom live in the country’s southeast, have resisted fiercely – a savage civil war between the PKK and the Turkish army in the 1980s and 90s killed more than 37,000 people. “The 1990s were the years of civil war – nobody dared to say one word about the Kurdish issue,” says Karli.

But after Erdogan came to power in 2003, it began to look as if the Kurdish issue might finally be resolved. Erdogan’s government was doggedly pursuing membership in the European Union, and the parliament was passing bold domestic reforms. Then in 2005, Prime Minister Erdogan made a

historic visit to Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast, and said, “The Kurdish issue does not belong to a part of our nation but to us all. It is also my problem…. We are ready to listen to anyone who has something to say, and ready to consult anyone who has a sense of justice.”

Dr Karli says academics and writers then began to breathe a little easier. “We got a shortly gained sense of freedom,” he says. “We thought we had started going down a good way.”

In the years since, however, the EU process has stalled. Turkey’s membership bid is being blocked by a handful of countries, led by Turkey’s old enemy, the Republic of Cyprus. Karli says that as a result, Turkey is slipping back into old, repressive habits. “We’re starting to lose hope again.”

Ziya Meral, a London-based Turkish analyst, says the link between the stalled EU talks and Turkey’s curbs on freedom do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. He believes

Turkey, now regarded as a model government for the Muslim world, has a new, self-imposed pressure on itself to behave justly.

However, where the Kurdish issue is concerned, he believes Erdogan is on a slippery slope. “Clearly, they are retreating back into a Turkish security understanding of the problem,” he says. Just this month, the government banned celebrations of Newroz, the Kurdish New Year, and confronted Kurds in Diyarbakir with riot police, water cannons and tear gas. “I think the arrests of Kurdish activists and the ongoing military response is taking us back to a play we have seen the end of already,” says Meral.

AT GALATASARAY UNIVERSITY’S WATERFRONT campus, three female students join our table. They, together with Dr Mehmet Karli and his colleagues, are members of TODI, a group that defends students wrongly accused of terrorism. “We can’t defend all of them,” says Karli, who estimates that about 500 students are in

prison on terror charges.

Derya Er, 21, says she’s afraid that so long as the Kurdish issue stays unresolved, nationalism in the country will just increase – and the counter-terror crackdowns will get worse. “The more we talk about these issues without solving them, the more people develop those reactionary, defensive attitudes,” she says.

But Muge Altinoklu, 24, believes this may be just what is needed to inspire her generation to stand up. “Perhaps as this nationalism increases, more and more people will be affected directly, and hence more people will understand what is taking place,” she says. “That might take us to a common understanding, a common sorrow, and we may try to change things together.

“But for such a result,” she says, “it seems that many people will suffer.”

FOUR JOURNALISTS RELEASED BUT FIGHT GOES ON FOR DOZENS STILL HELD

anewauthor — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 09:00:22 +0000

PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY 13 MARCH 2012. UPDATED ON WEDNESDAY 14 MARCH 2012.

http://en.rsf.org/turquie-four-journalists-released-but-13-03-2012,42106.html

Reporters Without Borders warmly welcomes the release on bail of the investigative journalists Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener and the OdaTV news website columnists Muhammet Sait Cakir and Coskun Musluk. However, their release should not hide the fact that dozens more media workers are still held.

“Naturally, our thoughts are with those journalists and their friends and families, who can finally see an end to their absurd nightmare after more than a year,” the press freedom organization said.

“However, they have not yet been acquitted and the others in the OdaTV trial are still in custody, as are dozens of other journalists involved in other cases.”

“Thanks to their fame, Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener have helped remind the world how difficult the job of a journalist can be in Turkey. But their release does not mean we should tone down our campaign.The vagueness and severity of anti-terrorist legislation and some sections of the penal code, as well as the regular use of pre-trial detention, are issues that are as pressing as ever. Things have worsened considerably in recent months. We call once again on the courts and the authorities to demonstrate their goodwill by carrying out a mass release of detainees and undertaking basic reforms.”

At the end of the 11th hearing in the OdaTV trial yesterday, the 16th chamber of the Istanbul Assize Court ordered the release on bail of the four journalists, detained since 6 March 2011. Against the prosecution’s advice, the president of the court took account of the length of time they had already spent in detention and raised the possibility of lesser charges.

The journalists were released yesterday evening from the high security prison at Silivri, north of Istanbul. They were greeted by friends and family, Reporters Without borders correspondent Erol Önderoglu and representatives of other Turkish organizations and media outlets.

“Some day those who hatched this plot, as well as the police officers, prosecutors and judges who implemented it, will in their turn be incarcerated in this prison,” Sik said. “Make no mistake, all the pressure and persecution will lead us into a future where we shall continue to fight and to hope.”

Sener added: “You cannot put reality in prison. My first article will be about Hrant Dink and I shall surprise you.” Three people were jailed in January for the 2007 murder of Dink, a Turkish-Armenian journalist.

Next hearing 18 June

Their colleagues still in detention include the owner of the OdaTV website, Soner Yalçin, the writer Professor Yalçin Küçük, managing editor Baris Pehlivan, columnist Müyesser Ugur. The next hearing in the trial will be held on 18 June.

News editor Dogan Yurdakul, freed on bail on 22 February for health reasons, did not attend this most recent hearing, nor did fellow accused Mümtaz Idil and Iklim Ayfer Kaleli.

Digital files seized from computers at the OdaTV head office in Istanbul have been handed over to the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey for analysis. Several independent experts have reported that the files were planted on the computers using viruses.

In evidence at the hearing, Sik’s lawyer Fikret Ilkiz once again emphasized the weakness of the case against his client and said the practices of the court were contrary to the principles of the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe.

“We have waited for a year to be told of your accusations,” he told the court. “It is now our turn to point the finger. The allegations against my client today are practically the same as those made when he was arrested on 3 March 2011. The questions and accusations directed at my client relate entirely to his contacts, his sources and his private life, and are based on the fact that he is a journalist. How do you think he might be able to destabilize the government by means of his book? This was published with the support of several journalists well after the election. Did it have such a terrible effect on the AKP?”

More arrests of journalists

Besides the dozens of journalists held in pre-trial detention, more are being arrested every month, particularly among the pro-Kurdish media. At a press conference in the south-eastern city of Diyarbakir yesterday, the DIHA (Dicle Haber Ajansi) news agency recalled that 27 of its staff were currently in prison.

DIHA correspondent Gülsen Aslan was jailed on 21 February in Batman in the south-east of the country and reporter Özlem Agus was taken into custody on 9 March in Karatas prison in the southern city of Adana.

Many other media workers are regularly detained for questioning. Zeynep Kuris, a DIHAcorrespondent in the southern city of Mersin was picked up on 14 February before being released three days later. Ismet Mikailogullari was released on 16 February after being held in police custody in Diyarbakir. Ali Bulus was also questioned with Agus in Mersin and was released. On 26 December last year, he was freed after serving seven and half years’ imprisonment for alleged membership of the PKK, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party.

Turkey’s enlightenment languishes, like the journalists in its prisons

anewauthor — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:54:33 +0000

Fiachra Gibbons, March 13, 2012

The record number of reporters imprisoned in Turkey threatens to extinguish the flame of democratic reform.

Turkish journalist Ahmet Sik (C) hugs his friends after he being released from prison in Istanbul. Photograph: Sinan Gul/Anadolu Agency/EPA

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2012/mar/13/turkey-enlightenment-journalists-prisons?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+theguardian%2Fmedia%2Frss+%28Media%29

A year ago, police burst into the homes of two of Turkey’s best investigative journalists, Nedim Sener and Ahmet Sik, and carted them off to prison where they remained until last night, charged with crimes so nebulous even prosecutors can’t explain them.

They are not alone. Turkey now holds the world record for locking up journalists, leaving Iran and China scrabbling in the dust, with by most reckonings 103 reporters behind bars, as opposed to 42 in Tehran and 27 in China. More journalists were arrested in Istanbul in one morning over Christmas than the Chinese managed all year – who says Europe can no longer compete?

Sik and Sener’s dramatic release on bail yesterday after an international outcry hopefully shows the Turkish authorities are finally coming to their senses. Both men are nevertheless still looking at up to 15 years in prison for basically doing their job.

The exact number of journalists in prison awaiting trial is hard to pin down – estimates range from eight to 122, with 103 being the most generally accepted – because the charges against them can be kept secret under Turkey’s draconian anti-terrorist laws. The lowest figure is a provisional one from the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists, which believes its final verified count may top 90. Another 30 press workers are in jail, rounded up under laws drafted by the country’s former military rulers and enforced by a judiciary cut from the same cloth.

Two columnists from the website Oda TV, who had also been held in solitary confinement in the same prison as Sik and Sener, were also bailed last night. But as they were hugged and cheered by their families and supporters, other journalists were still being arrested.

On Saturday night, Ozlem Agus became the 106th journalist to be jailed, accused of “spreading terrorist propaganda” by breaking the story of therape and sexual abuse of minors charged with terrorist offences held in an adult prison near Adana. Having ignored his reporting for months, the government was forced to react to the scandal last week. The price was Agus’s freedom. The following day, another Kurdish reporter was remanded in custody accused of the same crime.

This has all come amid a blizzard of prosecutions of journalists that now tops 4,000, the latest brought this weekend by the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who claims the independent daily Taraf injured his dignity by imputing in an editorial that he had become increasingly “arrogant, uninformed and uninterested” in reform.

So how could a country that is held up as a poster boy for democratic reform and economic success, the model Muslim democracy for the Arab spring to follow, go quite so horribly wrong?

The answer, or much of it, lies in that police raid last March on the homes of Sik and Sener, and shows how Turkey’s once reformist government has succumbed to the same old repressive paranoia of the military-nationalist establishment it was elected to clear away nearly 10 years ago.

Sik and Sener have spent years winning international awards for excavating the Turkish “deep state”, the shadowy cabals within the military and civil service who staged four coups in as many decades in the name of protecting Ataturk’s secular legacy, and shackled Turkey with its present constitution, the most authoritarian this side of Pyongyang.

Yet they ended up in prison as a part of the 18th wave of arrests into another putative coup, the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy to overthrow Erdogan’s moderately Islamic AK party government – a plot revealed by none other than Sik and his colleagues at the Nokta magazine. Sener had meanwhile exposed staggering official negligence, if not connivance, in the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and was in the process of linking the killing to Ergenekon. (To give you an idea of how surreally skewed press freedom in Turkey is, prosecutors initially demanded Sener serve a longer sentence for revealing the scandal than the one they demanded for Dink’s killers.)

It would be funny if the circumstances of the Dink case were not so horribly tragic. And then it got even worse. The police began bugging the two journalists’ phones, hoping to piggy-back on their inquiries, having arrested 700 military figures and other government opponents over four years with little or nothing to show for it investigating Ergenekon and another alleged coup plot.

In so doing, they discovered Sik was writing a book on a “second deep state”, one run in opposition to the Kemalist military by police officers, business leaders and AK party politicians loyal to the exiled theologian Fethullah Gulen, often hailed as the visionary behind Turkey’s democratic Islamic enlightenment.

The Gulen movement – a kind of sufi freemasons where secrecy and jobs for the boys are squared by good works and the common goal of a Turkey guided by a revived, scientific Islam – owns the country’s biggest selling newspaper, Zaman, controls hundreds of Jesuit-style schools turning out its new, religiously minded elite and various charities and TV channels.

Suddenly, Sik the man who stymied the nascent military coup against the government was accused of being part of it. Police not only seized his unfinished manuscript on the Gulen movement, The Army of the Imam, they destroyed it, and began a paperchase to destroy any other copies that might exist.

Gulen may preach openness and tolerance of other faiths, but the movement run in his name is a model of opacity – understandably so given the history of repression of similar dervish orders by the old, rigidly Kemalist elite. Sadly, however, the new observant elite appear to have inherited their secular predecessors’ love of conspiracy, as well as their fearsome arsenal of repressive laws. None of which bodes well for justice and transparency in the new Turkey Gulen and his millions of followers want to create, particularly when the prime minister and AK party luminaries brand journalists who criticise them as “criminals and terrorists”.

Turkey is a much freer country today than the day the AK party came to power, and much of that is also due to the Gulen movement. But it is a funny kind of freedom, one where the internet is tracked and restricted and where freedom of speech comes at a price. Turkey stands proud again on the world stage as a major player and model to the Muslim world, yet at home no one risks being entirely open, nor entirely honest.

In this atmosphere, with renewed violence and repression in the Kurdish south-east, chest-beating nationalism, and such public tension between the devout and the secular that MPs cannot debate an education bill without two mass brawls in a week, a new constitution to replace the old military one is finally being broached. Erdogan, the rock on which hopes of reform once rested, has entered his third term in power ill and ill-tempered, his absolute majority in parliament fighting yesterday’s sectarian battles. The Turkish enlightenment may not yet be completely dead, but its flame is fading, locked away in the jails where so many journalists are now being held.

Let’s hope for all our sakes it gets a second chance of life.

Press-ganging the Turkish Media

anewauthor — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:48:44 +0000

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/turkeys-media-are-a-poor-champion-of-free-expression-thanks-to-government-control/#postComment

Andrew Finkel, March 13, 2012

ISTANBUL — The British say it about the police force, but the same may be true of the press: that a country gets the one it deserves. Woe is Turkey.

Turkey recently marked the 15th anniversary of what pundits call the “postmodern coup”: the military’s success at pushing out the Islamist-led coalition that was in power back then. The generals managed that in large part by press-ganging the print media, even forcing newspaper owners to fire prominent columnists who did not support their campaign to discredit the government.

The tables have since turned. Now the politicians have the military in retreat. Some 15 percent of senior officers are on trial for participating in the Ergenekon conspiracy, an alleged campaign of really dirty tricks intended to force the ruling AK Party out of office.

Previous government coalitions depended on the press for support because they were politically weak. But the AK Party came to power, in 2002, with a strong working majority. Just as it was able to tame the military, it has shown the old press barons the door and created its own media empire. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s son-in-law is the C.E.O. of a holding company that owns the Sabah-ATV television and newspaper conglomerate, which was purchased in 2008 for $1.25 billion with financing from state banks.

The incentives to play ball are great. The government continues to allow press groups to gain unfair advantage in other business sectors — never mind anticompetition laws. And it leans on potentially dissenting voices, sending in auditors and tax inspectors to keep opposition media outlets in line.

One lamentable result of all this is that some of Turkey’s best known commentators and television presenters have been fired for trying to raise issues the government would prefer to keep under the carpet.

That the media in Turkey are a poor champion of freedom of expression, I discovered for myself back in the old era of 1999, when, after reporting from the southeastern and Kurdish part of the country, I was charged with causing the Turkish military to be held in contempt. (Penalty: up to six years in jail.) My quarrel then was less with the courts — I was eventually acquitted — than with my Turkish newspaper, which failed to rally to my defense.

Reporters here still face jail terms for crossing red lines. The exact number of journalists in prison in Turkey is a unknown. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently cited the latest annual report of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which said there were only eight, convicted or awaiting trial. This had the New York-based NGO hopping mad. “Prime Minister Erdogan should take no solace” from these findings, C.P.J. director Joel Simon said. There may be only eight confirmed cases, but the group is investigating scores of others.

The Turkish Journalists Union claims that over 95 journalists are in prison in Turkey — more than there are in either Russia or China, according to C.P.J. tallies. The Turkish government disputes this, of course, arguing that many of the detainees are being held, not for how they report the news, but for being members of seditious gangs or terrorist conspiracies.

The problem is that the Turkish penal code defines terrorism very broadly. Many of the journalists who are detained work on politically committed Kurdish newspapers. Some are standing trial for being propagandists for the Ergenekon conspiracy.

Most international attention has focused on the very weak cases against Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, two investigative journalists with honorable track records. Sik appears to have been indicted for writing an unpublished book in which he challenged the integrity of a large religious movement.

Sik and Sener were released yesterday after spending 375 days in custody. A senior minister, somewhat piously, welcomed the decision as overdue. But Sik and Sener were not acquitted; they face another hearing in June. They won’t need to do much mulling to solve this peculiarly Turkish riddle: “When is a journalist not a journalist?” (Answer: “When he is in prison.”)

Turkey’s Jailed Journalists

anewauthor — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 08:43:21 +0000

Dexter Filkins,March 9, 2012

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/03/turkeys-jailed-journalists.html

Quick: What country jails the most journalists?

If you guessed China, you were close, but no cigar. Twenty-seven reporters are in prison there, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. If you guessed Iran, you’re getting warmer—forty-two in prison there—but you’re still off.

How many of you guessed Turkey?

Measuring strictly in terms of imprisonments, Turkey—a longtime American ally, member of NATO, and showcase Muslim democracy—appears to be the most repressive country in the world.

According to the Journalists Union of Turkey, ninety-four reporters are currently imprisoned for doing their jobs. More than half are members of the Kurdish minority, which has been seeking greater freedoms since the Turkish republic was founded, in 1923. Many counts of arrested journalists go higher; the Friends of Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener, a group of reporters named for two imprisoned colleagues, has compiled a detailed list of a hundred and four journalists currently in prison there.

The arrests have created an extraordinary climate of fear among journalists in Turkey, or, for that matter, for anyone contemplating criticizing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government. During my recent visit there, many Turkish reporters told me that their editors have told them not to criticize Erdogan. As I detail in my piece in the magazine this week, the arrests of journalists are part of a larger campaign by Erdogan to crush domestic opposition to his rule. Since 2007, more than seven hundred people have been arrested, including members of parliament, army officers, university rectors, the heads of aid organizations, and the owners of television networks.

Mind you, Turkey is a democracy, or at least, it’s supposed to be. Erdogan’s triumph, and that of his party, in 2002, represented an epochal shift in Turkey’s political history. The election threw out an entrenched secular minority that had governed the country since its founding, often suppressing the majority of moderately religious Turks. In his nine years in power, Erdogan has transformed Turkish society in many positive ways. But, more and more, Erdogan’s Turkey is coming to resembled Putin’s Russia—a kind of one-party democracy.

If you bring this up with Turkish authorities, you won’t get very far. When I raised the issue of domestic repression with Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, last month, he told me in an irritated voice that his government wasn’t responsible. Ibrahim Kalin, an Erdogan adviser, told me that most of the arrested journalists were not journalists at all, but terrorists or criminals. “Just because you have a press card doesn’t mean you’re a journalist,” Kalin said.

In December, Joel Simon, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote to Erdogan to ask to him to stop citing C.P.J.’s annual report as evidence of press freedom in Turkey, which Simon called “perverse.” The report, compiled last year, confirmed that eight journalists were in jail in Turkey because of their work. (No number to be proud of, to be sure; as Simon pointed out to Erdogan, it put Turkey “just behind Burma.”) But Simon has since said that the report was incomplete, and hampered by, among other things, the extreme difficulty of verifying arrests in Turkey, and that eight was a starting point, a “minimum.” In recent weeks, Simon has sent a team to Turkey to review more than a hundred cases to determine the real number of journalists in prison. He told me he expects the number to climb significantly, probably closer to the figure of ninety-four released by the Journalists Union of Turkey. In late December, for instance, Simon sent a letter to Erdogan condemning the arrests of some thirty journalists in raids around the country. (Most of those reporters are still in prison, he said.)

“It’s incredibly cynical of Erdogan to cite C.P.J. as proof of press freedom,” Simon said. “Turkey is a highly repressive country.”

Remember, too, that when you start arresting journalists, the freedom for those not in jail shrinks, too. One of the journalists I interviewed while I was in Turkey was Nuray Mert, a brave and outspoken columnist for Milliyet, a daily newspaper. Last year, after Erdogan publicly criticized Mert, her public-affairs television show was cancelled. Two weeks ago, she told me that her editors at Milliyet had fired her.

Photograph by Abbas/Magnum.

One year already behind bars: The absurd trial of Turkish journalists continue

anewauthor — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 07:00:22 +0000

Almost a year ago 13 journalists and writers were put behind bars because of the ODA TV case, which was about an alleged shadowy pro-military conspiracy called Ergenekon allegedly plotted to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Investigative journalists Ahmet Şık and Nedim Şener were among them. While the absurd trial continued, the number of prisoned Turkish journalists was up to 104, thanks to the ‘advanced democracy’ of the ruling party AKP (Justice and Development Party). Since March 2011, ODA TV case became one of the most symbolic cases about freedom of press in Turkey.

Accordingly, 13 defendants of the case were charged with having made critical news about AKP and Fethullah Gulen movement! In addition, these journalists were accused of being involved in a plot to overthrow the government, being member of a terrorist organisation, etc… Now it has already been one year, and there is still no proof or evidence pertaining to these accusations!

The new hearing of the case will be held on 12^thof March 2012 (Monday) in İstanbul.

We, the journalists asking freedom for our friends, will be in the court house again on 12^thof March 2012.

THEY CAN NOT SILENCE JOURNALISTS BY PUTTING US BEHIND BARS!

AHMET AND NEDIM WILL COME OUT AND WRITE AGAIN!

EVEN IF WE BURN WE WILL TOUCH!

For more information:

Our blog page in English: http://turkeypressfreedom.wordpress.com/

Our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/groups/ahmehnedimonurumuzdur/

Our twitter account: ahmet_nedim

List of Journalists in Jail in Turkey

anewauthor — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:02:29 +0000

http://www.theglobetimes.com/2012/03/07/list-of-journalists-in-jail-in-turkey/

March 7, 2012

Below you will find the whole list of detained/arrested/convicted journalists based on their opinion, writings or publications (although in some cases even pre-publication.) This is the list of disgrace of democracy in Turkey. As of March 7, 2012 there are 104 (one hundred and four) journalists, writers or publishers arrested for their opinion in Turkish jails.

The list includes their position as a journalist/writer, the accusations (or convictions if any) and the last line is the name of the jail they are being held and their date of arrest.

Translated from Turkish original by ANGA (Journalist Friends of Ahmet and Nedim)

THE LIST

1- Abdulcabbar Karabeğ,
Azadiya Welat Mersin Rep,
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Mersin, Since 26 09 2010

2- Abdullah Çetin,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Kurtalan Rep.
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Diyarbakır, 16 12 2011

3- Ahmet Akyol,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Adana
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Batman, 19 04 2011

4- Ahmet Birsin,
Gün TV (Diyarbakır), Chief Editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Diyarbakır, 14 04 2009

5- Ahmet Şık,
Habervesaire editor, Bilgi University Teacher
Allegation: Aiding and abetting an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri, 6 03 2011

6- Ali Buluş,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Mersin Rep
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Karaman-Ermenek

7- Ali Konar,
Azadiya Welat, Elazığ Rep
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Malatya, 27 05 2010

8- Aydın Yıldız,
Dicle Haber Ajansı DIHA Mersin Rep
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Gaziantep, 01 10 2011

9- Ayşe Oyman,
Özgür Gündem Editor,
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Bakırköy ,24 12 2011

10- Baha Okar,
Bilim ve Gelecek Journal editor
Allegation: Being member of a terrorist organization (Devrimci Karargâh)
Tekirdağ, 25 09 2010

11- Bahar Kurt,
Tavır Magazine Publisher
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (DHKP/C)
Bakırköy, April 2011

12- Barış Pehlivan,
Odatv, Chief Editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization; destroying, using not in its purpose, stealing and obtaining with deceit of documents pertaining to state security(Ergenekon)
Silivri, 18 02 2011

13- Barış Terkoğlu,
Odatv, News Editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization; destroying, using not in its purpose, stealing and obtaining with deceit of documents pertaining to state security(Ergenekon)
Silivri, 18 02 2011

14- Bayram Namaz,
Atılım gazetesi, writer,
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization, propaganda of terrorist organization(MLKP)
Edirne, 12 09 2006

15- Bayram Parlak,
Gündem gazetesi, Mersin Rep,
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization(PKK),
Ermenek-Karaman, 6 07 2007

16- Bedri Adanır,
Aram Publishing Owner; Kurdish paper Hawar Chief editor,
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization(PKK),
Diyarbakır, 08 01 2010

17- Behdin Tunç,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Şırnak Rep
Convicted
Allegation: Aiding and abetting terrorist organization (PKK),
Diyarbakır 5 04 2007

18- Cengiz Dogan
Azadiya Welat Nusaybin Rep,
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK) Also convicted for terrorist organization propaganda as “Mavi ve Kent” magazine chief editor for 1 year 22 days jail time.
Mardin E Tipi Cezaevi

19- Cengiz Kapmaz,
Özgür Gündem Op-Ed
Allegation: Detained on 22.11.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 25.11.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 25 11 2011

20- Cihan Gün,
Yürüyüş Magazine
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (DHKP-C)
Ankara 28 12 2010

21- Coşkun Musluk,
Odatv, Writer
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 6 03 2011

22- Çağdaş Kaplan,
Dicle Haber Ajansı, (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 24 12 2011

23- Çağdaş Ulus,
Vatan (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 24 12 2011

24- Davut Uçar,
Etik Ajans, Director
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 24 12 2011

25- Deniz Kılıç,
Azadiya Welat, Batman Rep
Convicted
Allegation: Propaganda of a terrorist organization (PKK)
Batman 4 04 2011

26- Deniz Yıldırım,
Aydınlık Magazine, Chief Editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 9 11 2009

27- Dilek Demirel,
Dicle Haber Ajansı, (İzmir)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 24 12 2011

28-Fatih Özgür Aydın,
Artı İvme Mag. Chief Editor
Allegation: Being a part of unofficial demonstration
Tekirdağ

29- Doğan Can Baran,
Odak Mag. Writer
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (THKP-C Resistance Movement)
Kandıra 10 12 2011

30- Ensar Tunca
Azadiya Welat Iğdır Rep,
Allegation: Helping unofficial organization (KCK),
Iğdır 15 02 2011

31- Erdal Süsem,
Eylül Mag. Editor
Convicted
Allegation: Attempting to change the constitutional order by force
Edirne 5 02 2003

32- Erdoğan Altan,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (Batman)
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK),
Batman 19 04 2011

33- Erol Zavar,
Odak Mag, Owner and Chief Editor
Convicted
Allegation: Attempting to change the constitutional order by force
Ankara-Sincan
Being treated for bladder cancer

34- Ertuş Bozkurt
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) Editor
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 24 12 2011

35- Fatma Koçak,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) Chief Editor (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

36- Faysal Tunç,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Şırnak Rep
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Kalkandere 5 04 2007

37- Ferhat Çiftçi
Azadiya Welat Gaziantep Rep,
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK), propaganda of the same
Gaziantep 16 02 2011

38- Feyyaz Deniz,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Ankara Rep,
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK),
Bolu 7 06 2011)

39- Füsun Erdoğan,
Özgür Radio, Chief Editor
Allegation: To form an illegal organization or being a member of such (MLKP)
Kocaeli 12 09 2006

40- Hakan Soytemiz,
RED Mag, writer
Allegation: Aiding and abetting illegal organization members (Devrimci Karargâh)
Tekirdağ 25 09 2010

41- Halit Güdenoğlu,
Yürüyüş Mag, owner and chief editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (DHKP-C)
Ankara 28 12 2010

42- Hamdiye Çiftçi,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) (Hakkari)
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Bitlis 14 06 2010

43- Hamit Dilbahar,
Azadiya Welat writer
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Erzurum 15 02 2010

44- Hatice Duman,
Atılım Paper,Owner and chief editor
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (MLKP)
Verdict: Life in prison (4.5.2011) Appealed. File on line in Supreme Court.
Kocaeli-Gebze 2002

45- Hikmet Çiçek,
Aydınlık Mag, Ankara Rep
Allegation: Destroying, using not in its purpose, stealing and obtaining with deceit of documents pertaining to state security(Ergenekon)
Silivri 29 03 2008

46- Hüseyin Deniz,
Evrensel Daily
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

47- İsmail Yıldız,
Dersim Paper editor
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

48- Kaan Ünsal,
Yürüyüş Mag
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (DHKP-C)
Ankara 28 12 2010

49- Kadri Kaya,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Diyarbakır Rep
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Batman 19 04 2011

50- Kazım Şeker,
Özgür Gündem Daily, editor
Allegation: Detained on 22.11.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 25.11.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra 25 11 2011

51- Kenan Karavil,
Radio Dünya (Adana), Producer
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK), committing crimes in behalf of that organization, propaganda
Term: 6 years 3 months (TMK 7/2)
Adana 11 12 2009

52- Kenan Kırkaya,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DUHA) Ankara Rep
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

53- Mazlum Özdemir,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) (Diyarbakır)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

54- Mehmet Emin Yıldırım,
Azadiya Welat Chief Editor
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

55- Mehmet Güneş,
Türkiye Gerçeği Mag. Op-ed
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Devrimci Karargah),no indictment yet.
Tekirdağ 10 12 2011

56- Mehmet Karaaslan,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) Mersin
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK) and propaganda.
Birecik 21 04 2007

57- Mehmet Yeşiltepe,
Devrimci Hareket Mag writer
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Devrimci Karargâh)
Tekirdağ

58- Miktat Algül,
Mezitli FM, Chief Editor
Allegation: Forming and leading a crime organization.
Adana

59- Murat Aydın
Dicle Haber Ajansi (DIHA) Muş
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Bayburt 22 10 2011

60- Murat Çiftçi
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA) (Ankara)
Allegation: Detained & under arrest since 24.01.2012 KCK operation. No indictment yet.
Şanlıurfa 24 01 2012

61- Musa Kurt,
Kamu Emekçileri Cephesi Mag, Chief Editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (DHKP-C)
Ankara 28 12 2010

62- Mustafa Balbay
Cumhuriyet Daiy, Ankara Rep / Writer
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 6 03 2009
In solitary confinement since 28 02 2011

63- Mustafa Gök,
Ekmek ve Adalet Mag, Ankara Rep
Convicted /
Allegation: Attempting to change constitutional order by force. (DHKP/C)
Serving life term
Ankara-Sincan February 2004

64- Müyesser Yıldız,
Odatv
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 6 03 2011

65 – Naciye Yavuz,
Yürüyüş Mag (İstanbul)
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (DHKP-C)
Ankara 28 12 2010

66- Nahide Ermiş,
Özgür Halk Mag. and Demokratik Modernite Mag, Publishing Council
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

67- Nedim Şener,
Milliyet Daily
Allegation: Aiding and abetting an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 6 March 2011

68- Nevin Erdemir,
Özgür Gündem Daily, Editor
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

69- Nilgün Yıldız,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), (Mardin)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

70- Nurettin Fırat,
Özgür Gündem Daily, Writer
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

71- Nuri Yeşil,
Azadiya Welat Dersim Rep,
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK),
Elbistan 27 05 2010

72- Oktay Candemir,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) ex-journalist
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

73- Ozan Kılınç,
Azadiya Welat gazetesi Chief Editor
Allegation: Terrorist organization propaganda (PKK)
Diyarbakır 22 07 2010

74- Ömer Çelik,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

75- Ömer Çiftçi,
Demokratik Modernite Mag, License Holder
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

76- Ömer Faruk Çalışkan
Özgür Halk Chief Editor
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Kandıra 19 07 2008

77- Pervin Yerlikaya,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

78- Ragıp Zarakolu,
Evrensel Daily, Op-Ed / Writer / Publisher
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK), no indictment.
Kocaeli 1 11 2011

79- Ramazan Pekgöz,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) Editor (Diyarbakır)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

80- Rohat Emekçi,
Gün Radio (Diyarbakır), Anchor
Allegation: Terrorist organization propaganda (PKK)
Mardin

81- Ruken Ergün,
Azadiya Welat Daily Chief Editor,
Allegation: Terrorist organization propaganda (PKK)
Adana-Karataş

82- Sadık Topaloğlu,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) (Şanlıurfa)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

83- Sait Çakır,
Odatv, Op-Ed
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 6 03 2011

84- Sebahattin Sumeli,
Özgür Halk Mag. Editor,
Convicted
Allegation: To have explosives present, commiting crimes in the name of an organization (PKK), being a member of an organization, using false ID’s, propaganda.
Tekirdağ

85- Sedat Şenoğlu,
Atılım Daily, Chief Editor
Allegation: To have dangerous items present or to exchange, to attempt to change constitutional order, to have unlicenced firearms or ammunition present or to purchase aforementioned, forgery. (MLKP)
Edirne 12 09 2006

86- Semiha Alankuş,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), Editor (Diyarbakır)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

87- Sevcan Atak
Özgür Halk editor
Convicted
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK)
Karataş 18 06 2010

88- Seyithan Akyüz,
Azadiya Welat Newspaper Adana Rep
Allegation: Terrorist organization propaganda (KCK)
İskenderun 11 12 2009

89-Sibel Güler,
Özgür Gündem Daily, ex-editor
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

90- Sinan Aygül,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) (Bitlis)
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (PKK)
Muş 23 01 2011

91- Soner Yalçın,
Odatv, Owner / Journalist
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization; destroying, abusing, stealing or posessing national security documents (Ergenekon)
Silivri 18 02 2011

92- Songül Karatagna,
Özgür Gündem Daily, Op-Ed
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK), no indictment.
Bakırköy 1 11 2011

93- Şahabettin Demir
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DIHA) Van
Convicted
Allegation: Terrorist organization propaganda
Bitlis

94- Tuncay Özkan
Kanal Biz Tv Licence Holder / Journalist
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 27 09 2008
In solitary confinement since 28 02 2011

95- Turabi Kişin
Özgür Gündem Daily editor
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (KCK), no indictment.
Kandıra 2 01 2012

96- Turan Özlü,
Ulusal Channel, Chief Editor
Allegation: Broadcasting phone conversations of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan; being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 23 08 2001

97- Vedat Kurşun,
Azadiya Welat Newspaper, Chief Editor
Convicted
Allegation: Propaganda of the organization or its purpose (PKK)
Conviction: 166 years 6 months in prison. Cancelled by the supreme court. Court convicted 10 years in prison. He also has two other cases that he was convicted for 3 years and 4.5 years in prison.
Diyarbakır

98- Yalçın Küçük,
Journalist / Writer
Allegation: Being member of an armed terrorist organization (Ergenekon)
Silivri 6 03 2011

99- Yüksel Genç,
Özgür Gündem Daily Op-Ed
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

100- Zeynep Kuray,
BirGün Daily (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

101- Ziya Çiçekçi,
Özgür Gündem Daily Licence Holder and Chief Editor
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Kandıra

102- Zuhal Tekiner,
Dicle Haber Ajansı (DİHA), License Holder (İstanbul)
Allegation: Detained on 20.12.2011 KCK operation, under arrest since 24.12.2011. No indictment yet.
Bakırköy

103- Serdar Engin
Özgür Gündem editor
Convicted
Allegation: To write in favor of crime or criminals
Silivri

104- Tayyip Temel
Azadiya Welat ex-Chief Editor
No allegations yet.
Diyarbakır 4 10 2011

Turkish prime minister distorts state of press freedom – CPJ

anewauthor — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 23:58:23 +0000

https://www.cpj.org/2012/03/turkish-prime-minister-distorts-state-of-press-fre.php

New York, March 7, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists is dismayed by the Turkish prime minister’s repeated use of CPJ statistics to misrepresent and undermine the serious repression faced by journalists in Turkey.

“Prime Minister Erdoğan should take no solace from our 2011 finding that eight journalists are in jail for their work,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Turkey is among the democratic countries with the highest number of journalists in prison. Our review of the charges and indictments in more than 100 outstanding cases of imprisoned journalists in Turkey is ongoing, and we will issue a comprehensive report later this year.”

In a speech today, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan cited CPJ’s 2011 imprisoned list to portray general alarm about press freedom as an exaggeration. In a letter to Prime Minister Erdoğan in December, CPJ made clear that his effort to downplay media repression in Turkey was misguided. To date, there has been no response.