Governor’s office lifts protection order for journalists Barış Pehlivan, Barış Terkoğlu

* Photo: Odatv

Click to read the article in Turkish

The Governor's Office of İstanbul has lifted the protection order for Odatv Editor-in-Chief Barış Pehlivan and News Director Barış Terkoğlu. The related "on-call protection order" has been reportedly in effect since 2017 to protect the journalists from extremist groups.

The journalists have announced the issue with a joint statement published on Odatv news website and shared on their social media accounts. 

"They have handed down a written notification to us. The Governor's Office of İstanbul has said that it has lifted the protection order for us," the statement of the journalists has read, adding that "the unjustified decision in question was taken on the day when Minister of Interior Süleyman Soylu called the journalists 'hobos'."

Commenting further on the decision of the Governor's Office, the journalists have said, "No one should have any doubts about this: We will keep walking behind the truth without bowing down or being intimidated."

The journalists' statement is as follows:

"We wrote books together, we received death threats together, we were imprisoned together...

"We paid all this price only because we did journalism.

"While we were walking on the path that we held rightful, our readers were a witness; we told them everything that they were supposed to know.

"It is for this very reason that we are once again sharing a common 'trouble' with our readers. We want you to know this.

"Since the year 2017, there had been an 'on-call protection order' for us. After we filed complaints about the death threats that we had received, the Governor's Office of İstanbul gave this decision. Because we were constantly being subjected to the open death threats of al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hizboullah and other radical organizations.

"İstanbul Provincial Protection Commission would convene every year, examine the threats to us and renew this decision.

"But now...

"They have handed down a written notification to us. The Governor's Office of İstanbul has said, 'We have lifted the protection order for you!'

"Do you know when they took this unjustified decision?

"On the day when Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu shouted, 'Hobos.'

"We will keep it short:

"We are journalists.

"We are people who know how journalists were sent to death in this land before the eyes of state officials.

"We always keep Abdi İpekçi, Uğur Mumcu, Ahmet Taner Kışlalı and Hrant Dink in our minds. We walk among these graves everyday.

"We now see that...

"The Governor's Office of İstanbul has decided that both of us 'do not have to be protected.' However, we want our readers to know about this decision which will make the terrorist organizations happy.

"We have always done journalism. No one should have any doubts about this: We will keep walking behind the truth without bowing down or being intimidated.

"As long as the ones who make their calculations based on dark groups will not say, 'We did not know about it' later on..." (HA/SD)