Publication Ban for Özgür Gündem Newspaper
The front page of the Özgür Gündem issue on Saturday 24 March with a headline about the Kurdish question.
The Özgür Gündem ('Free Agenda') newspaper was closed for one month on Saturday (24 March). The police raided the Gün Printing Company which is printing the pro-Kurdish Özgür Gündem daily and confiscated the Sunday (25 March) issues.
As reported by the Fırat News Agency (ANF), the Istanbul 14th High Criminal Court decided for a one-month publication ban under allegations of "propaganda for an illegal organization". The punishment is based on news, comments and photographs on pages 1, 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the Saturday issue. The court also decided to confiscate the complete issues of 24 and 25 March.
Özgür Gündem started publishing on 30 May 1992. 76 employees of the daily were killed, among them 30 journalists. Özgür Gündem was closed down on 14 April 1994.
Subsequently, the Özgür Ülke ('Free Country') newspaper started publishing on 28 April 1994. Three of the newspaper's offices were bombed on 3 December 1994. Özgür Ülke employee Ersin Yıldız died in one of the attacks; 21 employees were wounded.
The Özgür Gündem newspaper resumed publishing on 4 April 2011 after 17 years.
According to the Media Monitoring Report released by bianet, 12 out of a total of 104 journalists who are being detained in Turkish prisons are current or former employees of the Özgür Gündem newspaper. (NV)