JUDICIAL SYSTEM PRESSES ON WITH ABSURD TRIAL OF ODA TV JOURNALISTS

PUBLISHED ON FRIDAY 6 JANUARY 2012, http://en.rsf.org/turkey-judicial-system-presses-on-with-06-01-2012,41639.html

This week’s hearings in the Istanbul trial of investigative journalists Ahmet Sik and Nedim Sener and eight journalists employed by the Oda TV news website – Soner Yalçin, Dogan Yurdakul, Baris Pehlivan, Baris Terkoglu, Muhammet Sait Cakir, Coskun Musluk, Yalçin Küçük and Müyesser Ugur – have confirmed that the prosecution has no case against them.

“By pressing on with this absurd prosecution and keeping the defendants in detention, the Turkish judicial system is just discrediting itself,” Reporters Without Borders said.

By Arresting a Top Military Man, Turkey’s Government Throws Down the Gauntlet

By Pelin Turgut / Istanbul Friday, Jan. 06, 2012

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2103913,00.html

This picture taken on December 26, 2009 shows Turkish Chief of the General staff Ilker Basbug speaking at the army headquarters in Ankara.

Adem Altan / AFP / Getty Images

Turkey’s democratically-elected government has broken a decades-old taboo on holding generals accountable to the law by detaining the former head of the country’s armed forces in the course of investigating an alleged coup plot. General Ilker Basbug, who stepped down in 2010, was taken in for questioning on Thursday, making him the highest-ranking officer to be detained over an alleged plot to overthrow the moderate Islamist-oriented government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Basbug is accused of giving his approval, while serving as army chief, for several anonymous websites run by military staff that published anti-government propaganda. This, prosecutors say, links him to Ergenekon, an alleged shadowy illegal and armed network of military men, lawyers and businesspeople under investigation since 2007, which had sought to destabilize Turkey to create a pretext for the military to oust Erdogan from power.

Turkish Journalist Sends Message from Prison

World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Şener Extends Wish for ‘A World of Freedom’

Turkish journalist Nedim Sener receives the IPI World Press Freedom Hero Award from IPI Director Alison Bethel McKenzie at the IPI World Congress 2010

VIENNA, 21 Dec. 2011 – International Press Institute (IPI) World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Şener, a Turkish investigative journalist and writer and winner of the Freedom of Expression Award, last week sent holiday greetings to colleagues and supporters from the Silivri prison.

Piden por un periodista preso en Turquía

04.11.2011, http://america.infobae.com/notas/37266-Piden-por-un-periodista-preso-en-Turquia

El International Press Institute reclama la liberación del turco Nedim Sener, arrestado en marzo en represalia por sus investigaciones sobre abusos del poder político

Crédito foto: AP

Tras recibir una carta de Sener desde la prisión de Silivri, en la cual éste ratifica su compromiso con el ejercicio de un periodismo independiente, el buró del Instituto Internacional de Prensa (IPI, por sus siglas en inglés) denuncia nuevamente la arbitrariedad de esta detención.