Journalists at Court after Eight Months in Detention

On Monday (28 June), the Istanbul 13^th High Criminal Court started the prosecution of Deniz Yıldırım, official of the weekly Aydınlık magazine, and Ufuk Akkaya from the National Channel. The journalists were taken to court for the first time after eight months of detention.

Yıldırım and Akkaya were detained on 9 November 2009 because they had reported about illegally recorded telephone conversations between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the former President of Northern Cyprus, Mehmet Ali Talat, in 2004.

"We published the talks for the public benefit"

The homes and offices of both defendants were searched on 19 October 2009; 20 days later they were taken in detention. They were accused of "membership of the Ergenekon terror organization and engaging in activities on behalf of the organization".

The Ergenekon organisation is said to have planned to overthrow the government by creating chaos in the country with murders and attacks.

Ergenekon prosecutor Zekeriya Öz had requested to detain both journalists under charges of "disclosing pictures and audio material of private life", "recording non-public conversations" and "illegally obtaining or publishing personal data".

Yıldırım and Akkaya stated in the hearing that they made the news because it was relevant for the public interest. They put forward that they had been detained upon the directive of the Prime Ministry.

"We followed the daily coverage of the wiretapping of members of the Supreme Court and generals published in the papers and in supportive newspapers and TV channels in particular. Has any investigation been launched into one of those?", the defendants argued.

Güreli: Balbay, Özkan and Perinçek should be released

The General Publications Director of the National Channel, Turhan Özlü, told journalist Nail Güreli, "Voice records of Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ and manipulated documents of state secrets were delivered almost with flying colours by people in their capacity as journalists. At the same time, publishing telephone conversations denied by Erdoğan results in 'membership of a terror organization'. The news made them guilty".

In the same article, Güreli reminded the fact that Mustafa Balbay, Ankara correspondent of the Cumhuriyet newspaper, has been in detention for 482 days now. He demanded the release of many journalists being detained in the context of "Ergenekon" such as Tuncay Özkan and Doğu Perinçek. (EÖ/VK)