The International Press Institute (IPI)’s Turkish National Committee today welcomed Turkey’s release of two journalists from prison pending trial, but the group heavily criticised ongoing proceedings against journalists the government accuses of supporting terrorism.

A court in Istanbul yesterday ordered the release of Çağdaş Ulus from the daily Vatan newspaper and Cihan Ablay from Demokratik Modernite magazine. The pair is on trial, along with 42 other journalists, over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Communities Union (KÇK), a group authorities claim is the urban wing of the banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The defendants – 34 of whom now remain in prison – all face charges of membership in a terrorist organisation, but critics say they are on trial because their journalistic activities have irked Turkish authorities.

The full text of a statement by IPI’s Turkish National Committee can be found below.

Meanwhile, the chair of IPI’s Turkish National Committee, Milliyet columnist Kadri Gürsel, said in remarks delivered outside of the Çağlayan Istanbul Palace of Justice as hearings resumed in the OdaTV case that the case was “a step on the way to silence the press in Turkey”.

Gürsel, who spoke on behalf of the National Committee, which currently holds the rotating leadership of the Freedom for Journalists Platform (GÖP), an umbrella group representing local and national media organisations in Turkey, added: “We journalists know that the aim of keeping our colleagues behind iron bars is intended to threaten all journalists.”

The OdaTV case is named for a news website that has been fiercely critical of the government. Prosecutors say the website was at the centre of a purported effort to use the media to advance the alleged “Ergenekon” plot to use terrorism to sow chaos that would lead elements of the military and security services to stage a coup against Turkey’s current Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government.

The full text of Gürsel’s remarks can also be found below.

IPI Turkish National Committee statement on the release of two journalists

We are happy that Çağdaş Ulus from the daily Vatan newspaper and Cihan Ablay from Demokratik Modernite magazine have been released in the KCK Journalists case, where 36 journalists were imprisoned.

We had said that in this legal case journalism was on trial.

Bringing the journalists under suspicion because of the news reports they made, and the events they covered, is interference with peoples’ freedom to receive news.

We, the Turkish Press Institute, are happy at the release of Ulus and Ablay, but we do not think it is sufficient.

We ask that all our colleagues – charged mainly for their opinions, thoughts, expressions and what they have written – be released.

A gesture of returning imprisoned journalists back to their profession will show that freedom of expression and press freedom are guaranteed in Turkey.

IPI Turkish National Committee chair remarks outside Çağlayan Istanbul Palace of Justice

Today, not only the journalists but also journalism has been put in chains.

The OdaTV case, which has continued over two years, charges the journalists with terrorism, but has not been able to set forth even a shadow of evidence.

Meanwhile, to the contrary, all of the evidence refuting the charges which has been submitted to the court by the defendants has been ignored.

Finally, a report which was received from legal experts assigned by the court proved that a virus in [the defendants’] computers had been deleted.

We journalists know that this legal case is a step on the way to silence the press in Turkey.

We journalists know that the aim of keeping our colleagues behind iron bars is intended to threaten all journalists.

But this cannot go on like this.

Press freedom is the throat of democratic societies.

In a country where journalists are in prisons, where journalism is under reserve by the government, society has surrendered its right of learning the truth and also its freedom of decision-making.

This means that the society has lost its soul to power.

In Turkey, the reality that the ruling power can do whatever they want from education to health, security to environment without considering the public opinion is a result that stems from the fact that that press freedom has been severely violated.

The Freedom for Journalists Platform is determined to struggle until this lien is removed.

All journalists in prisons should be released immediately.

Legal changes assuring freedom of thought, speech and press should be realized immediately.

Turkey should recover from being a country where not only the journalists but also journalism is enchained and its trachea blocked.

This is a call by all of us and our people’s urgent need.