Repeal of Accreditation Ban in April?

The 10th Chamber of the State Council told diplomacy reporter Sultan Özer now to "wait for another month" regarding her accreditation which was banned by the Prime Ministry Press Centre more than one year ago on 10 November 2008. Thus, Özer will still not be able to follow up on developments around Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The State Council informed Özer about the temporary decision 17 months after she started her legal struggle at the Administrative Court to repeal the ban.

State Council Prosecutor: Accredited journalist is not the Prime Ministry's journalist

The State Council decided on 26 February 2010 to acquire information about the legal basis for the ban from the Prime Ministry Press Centre within one month. The final decision was to be announced after having reviewed the acquired information.

State Council prosecutor Yalçın Şahin acknowledges Özer to be right and lectures the Press Centre: "The accredited journalist is not a journalist of the Prime Ministry. It is up to the personal evaluation and that of the connected press or publication institute which meetings he or she is going to attend and which activities are going to be followed up".

Özer expects positive answer in April

Özer spoke to bianet and expressed her appreciation about the prosecutor's opinion and said that is was in line with previous discussions related to the case of lifting the implementation. "We still do not know what the State Council is going to decide after having waited for 17 months. The prosecutor's opinion is important for me. We expect a positive development in the middle of April", Özer indicated.

Regarding a general application for the cancellation of the Prime Ministry accreditation procedure, the Ankara 9th Administrative Court decided for a lack of authorization and sent the file to the State Council.

Özer had previously talked to bianet about the slow procedures of the judiciary, "The judiciary works very slowly. If I worked for a different institution I might have been made redundant in the meantime since I cannot do my work. I cannot enter the AKP Headquarters or the Prime Ministry"

Accreditation ban lifted for journalist Karakuş

In the meantime, the same court decided to cancel the repeal of Milliyet newspaper journalist Abdullah Karakuş's Prime Ministry accreditation.

In the unanimous decision it was said that a repeal of the accreditation was against press freedom and unlawful. It was emphasized that the Prime Ministry's application would have an "intimidating" effect on the journalists' will to make news. In the decision it was also mentioned that Karakuş's accreditation was repealed because of two news articles which supposedly opposed the principles of the press-related profession.

Accreditation ban for at least six journalists

Besides Sultan Özer and Abdullah Karakuş, the accreditations of Hasan Tüfekçi and Turan Yılmaz from Hürriyet newspaper, Fatma Çözen from Star Television and Ali Ekber Ertürk from Akşam newspaper had been repealed as well in November 2008. (EÖ/VK)