Newspaper Journalist Seeks Justice for Telephone Tapping

Taraf daily newspaper journalist Mehmet Baransu announced that his phone has been wiretapped for more than a year by the Gendarmerie General Command Intelligence Presidency and the Gendarmerie Regiment Command of Van in the pre-dominantly Kurdish region in the south-east of Turkey. Baransu had written several news items about the raid on the Aktütün police station by the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the "Anti-Reactionary Plan", which lays out strategies to defame the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the religious Fethullah Gülen movement.

Baransu claimed that a number of illegal activities were involved in order to conceal the phone tapping. In particular, the name and phone number was hidden from the judge under the pretence that the gendarmerie did not confirm the data. Furthermore, the IMEI (international mobile equipment identifier) number or the journalist's mobile phone was presented to the court.

Green light for phone tapping under a fake name

"The tapping decision was issued to a fake name in order to conceal that it was me who was going to be eavesdropped on. The gendarmerie hid the name 'Mehmet Baransu' and my phone number from the court. They showed the judge on duty the IMEI number of the phone I was using and said they were going to eavesdrop on the IMEI number of a person called Şükrü Özkan, code name "Serdar", in the scope of the struggle against the PKK/Kongra-Gel terror organization. This is how they started with tapping my phone", Baransu explained.

According to the journalist's claims, the phone number was not checked before the Van 3^rd High Criminal Court issued the authorization to tap Baransu's phone, assuming that the permission had been issued for PKK member Şükrü Özkan.

Taking the tapping decision to court

Journalist Baransu described the tapping decision as "a scandal in the history of law". He declared, "I am going to figure out the extent of this decision before the court. It was reached by presenting false evidence, by concealing my number and on top of everything by pretending to eavesdrop on a PKK member".

Baransu indicated that he started to expect being phone tapped soon after his news item on the "Anti-Reactionary Plan" had been published on 12 June. The journalist said he heard a beeping sound in the beginning of every phone call, which presumably indicated that somebody started to record the conversation.

"Tapping request was unlawful"

The first tapping decision was given on 24 September 2008. Baransu stated that Gendarmerie General Staff Colonel Vecihi Halil İyigün from the Gendarmerie Provincial Command in Van applied for the phone tapping when the journalist was doing his military service. Apparently, İyigün demanded the decision to wiretap 2 GSM phone numbers 4 IMEI numbers, 2 of which belonged to the journalist.

Baransu put forward that Colonel İyigün, who voiced this unlawful demand, kept record of the tappings and reported to higher authorities, namely Gendarmerie Senior Sergeant Major Yusuf Ataman, on a daily basis.

The journalist pointed out that the technical equipment and the tapping decision continued to be in force for the same reasons and under the same forged documents. Starting from January 2009, the Van High Criminal Court has taken a decision of technical tapping every 3 months. (EÖ/VK)