Opposition Press Prosecuted Differently
Ragıp Zarakolu, chief editor of the newspaper “Alternatif” and Cevat Düşün, owner and manager in-charge of the same newspaper, were at the first hearing of their trial at the 9th High Criminal Court of Istanbul today. They are accused of “doing propaganda of a terrorist organization”, “alienating people from the military service” and “praising the crime and the criminal”.
Nurettin Ak, head of the court gave Berna Altay, prosecutor for the case, until March 12, 2009 to submit its opinion for the essence of the case.
Reminding that the changes in the Anti-Terror Law were taken to the Constitutional Court by the previous president, Necdet Sezer, Zarakolu said it was not fair to be tried this way.
“One of the traps in the new media law revealed itself with this. They started prosecuting the chief editors, too.”
In the past only the reporters, the newspaper owners and the managers in-charge were being prosecuted, now they added, according to Zarakolu, the chief editors to this list, too and this point out to a different approach towards the opposition press.
“For example, they do not prosecute “Hurriyet”s chief editor Ertuğrul Özkök for news that appear in this newspaper, but when it is the opposition press then the treatment changes. I told this to the prosecutor during the trial. This is a clear discrimination against the opposition press.”
The publisher says that this practice looks out for the privileges general media and “Alternatif” cannot find the opportunity to express itself under these conditions.
“The goal of the newspaper is to work towards ending the 25 year old war and to establish a democratic environment. But it was banned after its first issue and because of this it could not explain itself.”
“Alternatif” is accused of the following items that appeared in the indictment of prosecutor Bilal Bayraktar as regards to the issue of the newspaper dated August 16/17:
- Conscientious objector Bilal Bayraktar’s article titled “I refuse to be a Turkish soldier”.
- Characterizing the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) as “an organization struggling for the liberation of the Kurdish people” and calling Abdullah Öcalan, PKK’s imprisoned leader, as “the leader of the Kurdish people” in the article titled “The first bullet should be discussed”.
- A news report about the August 15 celebration in the southeastern Turkey, titled “There are fireworks everywhere”.
- A news report about the speech of a Democratic Society Party deputy in the Ağrı province, titled “If the political solution cannot be realized then the Kurds will turn their faces to the mountain.”
Tarık Günersel, President of the Turkish PEN, Eugene Schoulgin, President of the International PEN, translator Atilla Tuygan, and Şanar Yurdatapan, Spokesperson for the Initiative Against the Thought Crime, were at the hearing of Zarakolu and Düşün. (BÇ/TB)