Vice President Oktay: We closed 119 media outlets by statutory decrees

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Vice President Fuat Oktay has answered the Parliamentary question of Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Van MP Muazzez Orhan six months later.

On the occasion of January 10 Working Journalists Day in Turkey, HDP MP Ersoy asked the Vice President "how many newspapers, magazines, television and radio channels and news agencies were closed by statutory decrees" following the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.

In his response to this question, Vice President Oktay has said, "53 newspapers, 20 magazines, 24 radio channels and six news agencies were closed by statutory decrees over their belonging or adherence to the structures, entities or groups or terrorist organizations detected to threaten national security after the heinous coup attempt on July 15."

Commenting on the response of Oktay, Muazzez Orhan has noted that while the law stipulates that Parliamentary questions shall be validly answered on time, her question was responded six months later.

"The pressures exerted have been briefly announced in numbers, as it was something good," Ersoy has said and added, "This indicates the approach of the government to press freedom quite clearly." (RT/SD)