Media Ban on Ergenekon Gang “Violates ECHR Law”
The Ergenekon case started with the discovery of a weapons arsenal in Ümraniye, Istanbul, in 2007. At the beginning of this year, there were 39 arrests of suspected members of an ultra-nationalist gang of that name. Those arrested include several retired army officers, academics and writers.
A publishing and broadcasting ban had been declared as soon as the weapons arsenal was found, and it was reiterated when the arrests took place.
There are currently investigations and prosecutions of journalists who were accused of “violating the secrecy” of the operation by reporting on the court proceedings preceeding the arrests and writing about Ergenekon, the ultra-nationalist organisation, and the operation against it.
The Cumhuriyet newspaper is facing numerous investigations and preliminary fines for its publications on Ergenekon. An article published on 29 January 2008, which reported that “there has been an arrest warrant for nine people in the Ümraniye case, including Hayal’s lawyer (Fuat Turgut, the defense lawyer of Yasin Hayal, a suspect in the Hrant Dink murder case) and Kömürcü” led to a further investigation.
Investigation dropped
However, the Sisli Chief Public Prosecution in Istanbul decided on 25 February not to open a trial against newspaper representatives Ibrahim Yildiz and Güray Tekin Öz, arguing that the article had limited itself to reporting on court proceedings.
Prosecutor Muhittin Ayata added that the printing and broadcasting ban handed out by the Istanbul 9th Heavy Penal Court had not shown any justification. Citing a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decree in the “Gaweda-Poland” case in 2002, the prosecutor argued that “the court has to specify the limitations.”
“Because it is a current issue concerning the public, it is within the freedom of the press to inform, i.e. to report on the day of arrest, those detained for statements, transfers to court, the release of those detained, and the names of those arrested.”
bianet and Günlük Evrensel still under investigation
The same prosecutor had also started an investigation into the bianet news website for an article by Serdar Degirmencioglu, who had written about the Ergenekon operation in a text entitled “What are these arrests in the face of the real dangers?”. Degirmencioglu had criticised the fact that the Yenicag newspapper had “really followed the ban” by totally ignoring the arrests of ultra-nationalists and instead focusing on the “dangers of the foreign powers besieging the country”.
As the same article was later printed in the Günlük Evrensel newspaper, the newspaper was also included in the investigation. (EÖ/GG/AG)