64 Turkish Journalists Now Under Arrest
By Countercurrents.org
24 July, 2013
Countercurrents.org
In Turkey , 64 journalists are now under arrest and another 123 are facing trial on charges of terrorism, informed the Republican People's Party (CHP). The party's leader also mentioned that Turkey ranks 154th out of 179 countries in media freedom.
A report * by Nisan Su Aras said:
CHP leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu released the outcome of the party's research into all journalists that have been facing prosecution, presenting the “Report on Imprisoned Journalists” today at a press conference at the party's headquarters.
Kiliçdaroglu also referred to the Turkey Journalists' Labor Union's (TGS) July 22 assessment that 59 journalists had been removed from post for their news reports on the Gezi Park unrest.
“We are experiencing a process in which the government and the police audits together, [in which] the media bosses are under the rule of political authority and publish the news that the political authority accepts,” he said, adding that those in power, as well as media bosses, were also instituting censorship or driving journalists to engage in self-censorship. “We have gone 105 years back in time.”
Even during the aftermath of the Sept. 12, 1980, coup, only 31 journalists were arrested, Kiliçdaroglu said, calling the government's current attitude on the matter a “police state mentality.”
“Mr. Prime Minister [Erdogan] has turned the country into a half-open penitentiary and made it impossible to live for journalists,” Kiliçdaroglu said, while noting the approach of Journalism Day, which is marked on July 24 in Turkey.
“Journalism is a public duty. Only in a country in which a journalist can work freely can we talk about democracy,” he said. “I call out to media bosses: Leave the kitchen of the newspaper alone, when you apply censorship on them, when you lay them off from work, someday we will bring you to account,” Kiliçdaroglu said.
The CHP took up the matter following a joint press conference between Erdogan and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February in which the former responded to a German correspondent's question about arrested journalists by saying: “The number of arrested journalists is not more than the number of fingers on one's hand. Those journalists were not arrested for their journalism.”
CHP deputies Veli Agbaba, Özgür Özel and Nurettin Demir, who conducted the survey, also attended today's press conference.
* Hürriyet Daily News, July 23, 2013 , “64 journalists under arrest, Turkish main opposition announces”, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/64-journalists-under-arrest-turkish-main-opposition-announces.aspx?pageID=238&nID=51241&NewsCatID=338
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