International Press Institute (IPI) World Press Freedom Hero Nedim Şener and nine other Turkish journalists accused in the Oda TV case of aiding a coup plot remained in custody yesterday as their trial moved forward.
Lawyers for the defendants said they expected no ruling on requests for their clients’ release during trial until at least Friday, as the court began reading aloud the 134-page indictment against them, a process expected to last into today.
Şener and the other defendants stand charged with various crimes related to the government’s claim that they and nationalist news website Oda TV served as the media wing of the alleged “Ergenekon” plot. Accusers say their role was to use their positions to discredit a probe into the alleged plot by secularists and ultra-nationalists to use terrorism to overthrow the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP)-led government.
IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie said: “Every day that Nedim Şener spends in prison – and it’s just short of 300 right now – is an outrageous injustice. The charge that he plotted to use his position to derail investigations into the so-called ‘deep state’ within elements of the government and security services, the same deep state on which his reporting has shed light, is absurd. IPI and its subsidiary the South and East Europe Media Organisation (SEEMO) urge prosecutors and the Turkish government to drop these charges and to release him immediately.”
Yesterday’s hearing at the Çağlayan Justice Palace, which followed a 22 November hearing in which the defendants sought the recusal of presiding Judge Resul Çakır for bias, went forward without Çakır. The judge – who previously sued Oda TV News Director Barış Terkoğlu, one of Şener ’s co-defendants, over a picture posted online suggesting Çakır had a cosy relationship with prosecutors and police officers – was elected last week to an appeals court.
The hearing was also attended by Parliament members from the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). IPI last month joined a delegation from various media freedom groups that travelled to Ankara. There they met with lawmakers from all parties represented in Parliament and pressed them to send observers to hearings in the Oda TV case.
The atmosphere inside the courthouse yesterday was more orderly than at November’s hearing, as guards appeared more prepared for the crowd of would-be observers seeking one of the approximately 100 seats available in the courtroom gallery.
Prior to the hearing, an attorney for accused ringleader and Oda TV executive Soner Yalçin provided copies of a report supporting his client’s argument that documents implicating the defendants, reportedly found on a computer in a February raid of Oda TV’s office, were placed there by hackers. The report said that a forensic examiner based in the United States found that the computer became infected with a virus following email attacks, and that it therefore could not conclusively be established that any documents on the computer were placed there by an Oda TV user.
Representatives of IPI and its Turkish National Committee were able to meet briefly with Şener’s wife and they exchanged waves with Şener past gendarmes who stood between the gallery and trial participants. He seemed to have gained weight after appearing noticeably thinner at last month’s hearing following nearly nine months in detention.
Journalists present at yesterday’s hearing complained of an ongoing climate of fear they said escalated following last week’s detention of approximately 40 journalists during raids across the country targeting the Union of Kurdish Communities (KCK), an umbrella group tied to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The website Bianet reported yesterday that an Istanbul court ordered the arrests of 36 of the 49 people initially detained, most of whom are journalists working for the Dicle News Agency, the Özgür Gündem daily and other dissident publications, the website said. An Agence France Press photographer detained in the raids was released last week.
The newspaper Hürriyet yesterday cited reports that Turkish Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin defined terror as a multi-faced phenomenon that included psychology and art. The newspaper said that Şahin accused individuals who stand against those who take on terrorism of being tied to terrorism themselves, and that he commented: “Sometimes it’s on the canvas, sometimes in a poem, in daily articles, in jokes….These too legitimize and support terror.”
The arrests following last week’s raids bring the estimated number of journalists currently jailed in Turkey to nearly 100. The Freedom for Journalists Platform, an umbrella group representing 94 local and national media organizations in Turkey, including IPI’s Turkish National Committee, put the number of imprisoned journalists at 64 before last week’s raids.
Observers at yesterday’s Oda TV hearing also discussed the prospect that the government may soon propose reforms to anti-terrorism law in Turkey. The government is rumoured to be planning to unveil a proposal early next year. However, some members of the media expressed concern that the government might do so without seeking journalists’ input.
Outside the courthouse, the mood was more raucous, with those seeking journalists’ release from prison competing with members of Turkey’s Communist Party and other groups for media attention. Some journalists’ supporters complained that the other groups were hijacking the attention focused on the trial to call for a much broader release of prisoners.
They also decried some protestors’ use of banners accusing the AKP of fascism and depicting the AKP logo, a light bulb, crowned by a World War II-era German soldier’s helmet bearing a swastika. Some 30 police officers in riot gear looked on as a crowd chanted slogans, but the protest ended without incident.
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Nedim Şener remains in the Silivri Prison in Turkey following his arrest on 6 March 2011 for alleged ties to the “Ergenekon” plot. Please add your name to this petition calling for his release.
