Press freedom

The trial of four journalists continued this week, apart from court cases brought against our six colleagues the other week on grounds of "trying to influence the judicial process" and "insulting state judicial organs." 

Of course, we are in no way saying journalists should be given some sort of immunity, like parliamentarians and top civilian and military bureaucrats. We have no such demand, but putting them behind bars just because they wrote something incompatible with the official position of this country on an issue or commenting on a taboo subject or even keeping certain sections of the penal code hanging over the heads of journalists like a dangling sword to persuade them not to write on issues not found appropriate by the authorities cannot be an understanding or policy compatible with modern Turkey, much less the norms of the club of democracy we have been aspiring to join.

Free society, an open Turkey and a free press -- were these not the aims to be achieved with all those reforms we have undergone over the past decade, all the more so within the last three years? Perhaps our, including the Turkish press, failure to understand the “free press” and “freedom of press” terminology is why we all attacked Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen when he objected to our prime minister's demand to kick out from a press conference room representatives of Roj TV -- the TV station of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party operating in Denmark though Copenhagen, along with other EU capitals, has outlawed the gang, with Rasmussen stressing that such a thing was none of the business of a prime minister and that only independent courts should decide on such issues.

For the Danish prime minister, to all our dismay, it was just out of the question to restrict access to a press conference for members of a “press institution” unless there was a court decision establishing organic links between that establishment and an outlawed gang. Now, as far as we were informed, a judicial investigation is underway in Denmark to prove connections between the PKK and Roj TV and, perhaps by the time Rasmussen visits Turkey or our Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visits Copenhagen again, this problem might be resolved by a Danish court.

We, however, while sensitive to the presence of some terror-tainted individuals posing as newspeople at a news conference, appear totally indifferent when some real news people face persecution not because they were involved in separatist propaganda or instigated terrorism, but just by expressing opinions that did not conform with the established official perceptions or just because they wrote about a court case involving some “deep” elements of the state.

The charges filed under the controversial Penal Code Article 301 against five journalists, Radikal's Editor in Chief İsmet Berkan and writers Haluk Şahin, Murat Belge and Erol Katırcıoğlu along with Milliyet columnist Hasan Cemal, for comments they made about the incredible court decision banning the so-called Armenian genocide conference -- the conference was later held by changing venues -- is nothing but a manifestation of the insistence on a mentality of dictating to the press. Therefore, it must be opposed by the entire Turkish media.

This week, the trial of two other colleagues continued. Who are they? Well, Ertuğrul Mavioğlu and Ali Kırca are facing charges under the anti-terror law because of what they said at Kırca's famous “Political Arena” program on the “justice” of the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup administration. Kırca and Mavioğlu are facing charges on grounds that they “insulted” and “pinpointed as a target” public personnel involved in fighting terrorism.

Of course, talking about the Sept. 12, 1980 coup and the understanding of justice during the post-coup period requires courage. If sentenced, Kırca and Mavioğlu will become heroes. Who cares? We do not need heroes behind bars; we need free discussion, free press.

There was as well this week the trial of Dicle News Agency “correspondent” Birol Duru and Ülkede Özgür Gündem (Free Agenda in the Country) “correspondent” Birgül Özbarış. While to what extent either Ülkede Özgür Gündem or Diçle News Agency are news establishments or terrorist propaganda outlets is something the courts will have to establish. But, as long as the courts have yet to make such a decision, Duru and Özbarış have to be considered as among the newspeople facing persecution.