Journalists Arrested Over Corruption Reports Explain

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Journalists who had been on trial due to their reports on corruption have attended the second session of the Conference held by International Transparency Foundation under the title “Report Card of 2015 from Journalists’ Perspective and Open Data Use in Struggle Against Corruption”.

Canan Coşkun from Cumhuriyet daily, Rıfat Doğan from İleri Haber (Progressive News) and Hüseyin Şimşek from BirGün daily have told about their experiences regarding their reports on corruption.

Coşkun: Journalists’ position in the courthouse changed

“I am a courthouse journalist at Cumhuriyet daily. The period of December 17-25 operations was the time in which I had newly started to go to the courthouse. Already at that time, we had been talking about where the prosecutor would be relegated as an investigation was being conducted in which also children of ministers and a child of the Prime Minister was involved, we had no other expectation.

“Yet this process was a very educative one for me. With December 17-25 operations, I learned how cases were being closed and criminal charges being immediately dropped. Today only the Fatih Municipality Case file has remained from that investigation. Yet the one who actually are fraud can not be put on trial. They have all been cleaned up by the Prosecution.

“Rıza Sarraf and children of some Ministers have later left the courthouse with suitcases filled with bribe money including the interest.

“While we were witnessing these, the position of journalists has also started to change in the courthouse. Now we know that we will be judged when we report on corruption. Also my position in the courthouse has changed. I recently have been sitting mostly on the seat for suspects.”

Doğan: Engaged in lawsuit with Bilal Erdoğan

“I have been threatened by some persons on the phone in the evening due to a report we issued yesterday. They were very relaxed but we are not, our friends are not. The new Turkey is such a place.

“I am also among those who had the honour to face Bilal Erdoğan. We engaged in a lawsuit for reporting Sezgin Tanrıkulu’s parliamentary question concerning the reasons for receiving a bequest in the amount of 30,000,000 euro (99,000,000 TL) from Saudi Arabia. I was acquitted.

“This is only a small example for practices against reports on corruption. Yet alone this reveals what journalism and media has turned into today.”

Şimşek: Turkey of 2016 is no different than in 1950

“Today’s Turkey is not that different than in 1950. One of the most significant practices during the 10-year governance of Democrat Party was obstruction of ‘right to prove’. In this period, even though journalists have documents, these documents couldn’t be presented to court as evidence when they were tried over their reports.

“This has changed with gaining the right to prove in 1960. However, when we look at the practice today, even though we submit the document as evidence to court, we cannot get rid of these trials and most probably receive punishment”.

The conference ended following Use of Open Information for Journalists workshop. (EA/DG)