Int’l Groups Slam Turkey Over Detainings of Journalists

Turkey slammed by int’l groups over detaining of journalists

International media watchdog groups called Friday for the immediate release of several Turkish journalists detained Thursday as part of a controversial coup probe, saying Turkey is “intimidating and threatening” the press.

“Actions like this have a strong chilling effect on media freedom. It clearly illustrates the need for Turkey to reform its media laws,” Dunja Mijatovic, media representative of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, said in a statement.

“The detained journalists should be immediately released without any conditions,” she said, according to an Agence France-Presse report.

The European Commission is following the recent police actions against journalists with concern, commissioner Stefan Fule said Thursday.

“The commission has, in its progress report [on Turkey], highlighted the high number of court cases against journalists and undue pressure on the media, which undermine freedom of the press in practice. Turkish law does not sufficiently guarantee freedom of expression in line with the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights,” Fule said.

Freedom of expression and freedom of the media are fundamental principles that should be upheld in all modern democracies, Fule said. “As a candidate country, we expect Turkey to implement such core democratic principles and enable varied, pluralistic debate in public space,” he added. “Turkey urgently needs to amend its legal framework to improve the exercise of freedom of the press in practice and in a significant manner.’”

Journalists Nedim Şener and Ahmet Şık were among a group of people detained Thursday after having their homes raided in connection with the alleged Ergenekon coup plot. The incidents following on the heels of the arrests of Soner Yalçın, Barış Terkoğlu and Barış Pehlivan from the dissident online news portal Oda TV.

Media watchdogs

The raids have fueled accusations of a campaign to bully government opponents, drawn U.S. criticism and sparked an outcry over press freedom in EU-aspirant Turkey.

“I call on the Turkish authorities to stop intimidating and threatening journalists,” the OSCE’s Mijatovic said in her statement.

“This unprecedented conduct by the authorities violates basic OSCE media freedom commitments. It targets and suppresses differing and critical voices,” she said.

The International Press Institute, another Vienna-based media watchdog, also expressed its concern about the arrests.

“No journalist should face arrest, charges, imprisonment or any other form of harassment or intimidation for doing their job – which can include expressing critical views,” IPI director Alison Bethel McKenzie said in a statement.

“We urge the authorities to release all of the journalists imprisoned because of their work. A flourishing, diverse, critical media is a cornerstone of any healthy democracy,” she said.

Şener, one of the journalists detained Thursday, is an investigative reporter for daily Milliyet and was named a “World Press Freedom Hero” by IPI last year.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday that the United States had concerns about trends in Turkey and would monitor ongoing arrests of journalists there, the Associated Press reported. He urged for “any investigations or prosecutions proceed in a transparent manner.”

“We will continue to engage Turkey and encourage an independent, pluralistic media,” Crowley told reporters. “It is critical to a healthy democracy.”

Reporters Without Borders also condemned the arrests, saying on its website it is appalled by the wave of searches, detentions and arrests of investigative journalists in Istanbul and Ankara, and called for the immediate and unconditional release of the detained journalists in accordance with international law.

“Journalists who have helped to shed light on this [Ergenekon] case are being made to pay for the tension between the government and the secularist and ultra-nationalist opposition,” it said. “We deplore the repeated use of the charge of ‘membership in a terrorist organization’ to go after reporters who are just doing their work at a difficult time of political and ideological rivalry. After a period of reduced tension, we are disturbed to see renewed heavy-handed treatment of journalists who reported facts that do not suit the government.”

March 4, 2011
SOURCE: HURRIYET DAILY NEWS