 |
EU concerned about verdicts on Tayyar and Baransu
In an answer to a question from Today's Zaman's, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's spokesperson underlined that the media investigation was part of the necessary democratic debate and should be strongly defended. Spokesperson Amadeu Altafaj Tardio noted that the latest progress report, made public last October, had already covered a broad range of issues related to freedom of expression. Tardio said: “The commission is indeed concerned by these two cases, as it is concerned in general by the various pressures on the media which occurred in the recent past and affected freedom of the press in practice in Turkey.
This issue unfortunately featured quite prominently in our last Progress Report. It shows the urgency to amend the legal framework in Turkey in order to better protect freedom of the press, including media investigation which is part of the necessary democratic debate, while ensuring due respect of the presumption of innocence and the rights of the accused.”
Star daily columnist Şamil Tayyar received a 20-month suspended prison sentence in the waning days of 2009 over his book on Ergenekon, titled “Operasyon Ergenekon” (Operation Ergenekon). The sentence will be dropped if Tayyar does not commit a crime in the next five years. On the same day, Mehmet Baransu, a reporter from the Taraf daily who exposed a suspected military plot named the “Cage Operation Action Plan,” which aimed to assassinate non-Muslim community leaders, testified to prosecutors at the Kadıköy courthouse on charges of violating the principle of confidentiality of an ongoing judicial process and was transferred to the İstanbul 5th Criminal Court of Peace for arrest. The reporter was later released by the court.
Tayyar and Baransu are not the only journalists facing charges for covering stories like Ergenekon; Justice Ministry data show that around 3,000 journalists face charges for covering the Ergenekon case.
In the progress report that was released on Oct. 14, the EU had already referred to the harassment of journalists for breaches of confidentiality of investigations or attempts to influence a fair trial. The report also mentioned problems of accreditation by the military and the Doğan Media Group tax case. The following is the portion of the report on freedom of the press:
“There are two tax-related procedures opened against the leading national media group Doğan Media Holding. The high fines imposed by the revenue authority potentially undermine the economic viability of the group and therefore affect freedom of the press in practice. There is a need to uphold the principles of proportionality and of fairness in these tax-related procedures. Several civil procedures have been filed by politicians for violations of their personal rights by publishers, journalists, writers or other politicians. The General Staff initiated cases on disclosure of prohibited information with regard to the incidents which took place in the Southeast. Journalists face frequent prosecutions for breaches of the confidentiality of investigations or attempts to influence a fair trial [respectively Articles 285 and 288 of the TCC]. Certain media outlets requesting journalist accreditations were discriminated against. Senior political leaders called for a boycott of newspapers and television channels owned by the Doğan Media Holding.
Frequent Web site bans continue to be a cause for concern. Judicial and administrative decisions block the entire Web site instead of filtering out unwanted content. YouTube has been banned since May 2008. Court cases are pending against Facebook, Google Sites and other sites.”
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| AMANDA PAUL |  |
||
| Ukraine: a lost country | |||
| MÜMTAZER TÜRKÖNE |  |
||
| The 52nd anniversary of May 27 | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ARZU KAYA URANLI |  |
||
| On Memorial Day a few words to make your day memorable | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| CUMALİ ÖNAL |  |
||
| Critical months for Egypt | |||
| DOĞU ERGİL |  |
||
| Qualities of power | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| JOOST LAGENDIJK |  |
||
| Europe can’t have it all. Or can it? | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| MELİH ARAT |  |
||
| Handmade | |||
| KLAUS JURGENS |  |
||
| Back to the ’80s | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
