{"id":29067,"date":"2017-07-29T14:32:25","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T14:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=29067"},"modified":"2017-07-29T14:32:25","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T14:32:25","slug":"journalism-is-still-a-crime-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/journalism-is-still-a-crime-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism is still a crime in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been called \u201cKafkaesque<\/a>\u201d, \u201csurreal even by Turkey\u2019s own standards<\/a>\u201d, “utterly absurd<\/a>\u201d and \u201ctragicomic<\/a>\u201d. Some described it as an unprecedented attack to intimidate the independent media.<\/p>\n

The five-day long trial of seventeen journalists and executives of Cumhuriyet newspaper in Istanbul was widely seen as a \u201ctest for Turkey\u201d. A joint statement<\/a> by international observers said that its outcome would signal \u2018the place human rights and the rule of law would hold in the country\u2019s future\u2019.<\/p>\n

After nine months in pre-trial detention, the indictment against 17 journalists and board members turned out to be hastily gathered, baseless accusations, relying on flimsy evidence and factual errors.<\/p>\n

Defense lawyer Alp Selek has said in his 60 years of professional life he had never seen an indictment that \u201cinvented crimes from scratch\u201d.<\/p>\n

Faced with a blatant abuse of due process and a perversion of justice, in a politically motivated trial, some of the accused chose to defend themselves with powerful counter-indictments.<\/p>\n

Columnist Kadri G\u00fcrsel, an executive board member of the International Press Institute and its Turkey National Committee Chair, delivered a blistering defence<\/a> of media freedoms. \u201cThe reason that I am here in front of you is not because I \u201chelped a terror organization while not being a member.\u201d It\u2019s because I was an independent, critical, questioning journalist and because I have never compromised my work as a journalist and always insisted on doing my job correctly\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ahmet \u015e\u0131k, the investigative journalist that was jailed in 2011 after writing a book<\/a> exposing the Gulenist infiltration of state institutions but now being accused of helping the Gulenists and the banned Kurdish PKK , used his testimony<\/a> to question the government\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a statement for my defence, because I consider doing so as an insult to journalism and to the ethical values of my profession. Because journalism is not a crime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Istanbul 27th<\/sup> Heavy Criminal Court , where the bulk of the evidence was journalists\u2019 writings, ruled that five of the defendants, including journalists Kadri G\u00fcrsel, Ahmet \u015e\u0131k and Murat Sabuncu, be returned to prison and the trial to be continued on 11 September. Additional criminal charges would be brought against Ahmet \u015e\u0131k for his testimony. 7 of the accused were released with judicial supervision. According to the court\u2019s interim decision, the next hearing will be held in Silivri Prison, away from the prying eyes of the international and domestic observers and supporters.<\/p>\n

The release from prison of lawyers Mustafa Kemal G\u00fcng\u00f6r,B\u00fclent Utku, cartoonist Musa Kart, literary supplement editor Turhan G\u00fcnay, columnists G\u00fcray \u00d6z and Hakan Kara, printing adminstrator \u00d6nder \u00c7elik, was welcomed but the mood among families and supporters was subdued.<\/p>\n

Rights groups and opposition politicians called for the release of all of the 17 defendants and Turkey has come under further criticsm.<\/p>\n

There were appeals to keep up the international solidarity and intense media interest in the cases, but as one veteran \u00a0independent Turkish journalist, Ru\u015fen \u00c7akir pointed out<\/a>, the higher the profile, the less likely it seems for a journalist to be freed in today\u2019s Turkey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been called \u201cKafkaesque\u201d, \u201csurreal even by Turkey\u2019s own standards\u201d, “utterly absurd\u201d and \u201ctragicomic\u201d. Some described it as an unprecedented attack to intimidate the independent media. The five-day long trial of seventeen journalists and executives of Cumhuriyet newspaper in Istanbul was widely seen as a \u201ctest for Turkey\u201d. A joint statement by international observers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29067"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29070,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29067\/revisions\/29070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}