Press Roundup

Radikal: “Hell at border, joy in cities,” read the headline of the daily’s top story, reporting on the observations of a Radikal journalist who has been in Turkey’s Hatay province where thousands of Syrians have fled the bloody conflict in their country. They are living in fear and have little hope for a peaceful future, the journalist reported. However, having spent the preceding few days in Damascus, the journalist said that lives of the people in the capital were nothing like the lives of the people in Hatay or in the cities where operations by the Syrian army are being carried out.

Bugün: “A joke-like defense from Bir,” was the headline of the paper’s lead story, reporting on the statements of retired Gen. Çevik Bir, who was sent to jail after a warrant was issued for him on Thursday as part of a probe into the 1997 military intervention. In his defense delivered in court, Bir said the West Study Group (BÇG) -- a clandestine group within the military that categorized politicians, intellectuals, soldiers and bureaucrats according to their religious and ideological backgrounds -- aimed to protect the government against reactionaryism.

Taraf: The main article of the daily covered the Supreme Court of Appeals’ decision to uphold a five-year prison sentence for former national police chief and politician Mehmet Ağar on Monday. Ağar was convicted on charges of establishing a criminal organization in a trial concerning a car accident in 1996 that exposed links between the Turkish state, the criminal underworld and Turkish security forces, often referred to as the Susurluk scandal. The daily underlined Ağar’s comments after the court had announced its decision, in which he said, “I have never acted in a way that would embarrass my supporters.”