Press Advertising Agency’s embargo taken to court

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Yeni Asya (New Asia) newspaper has announced that the Press Advertising Agency (BİK) has not been giving it public ads for 407 days. The newspaper has taken legal action against the agency.

The BİK's public ads embargo on Cumhuriyet, BirGün and Evrensel newspapers were previously brought to the agenda.

CLICK - Five newspapers got 88 percent of ad penalties by BİK

'Our objections remained inconclusive'

While today's (March 9) headline in the print version of the newspaper reads, "We have started a legal struggle against the ads embargo," the online version of the newspaper has also published a news report sharing details about the process which has led to the legal action.

"The Press Advertising Agency stopped giving public ads to our newspaper as of January 28, 2020. In August, it decided to suspend our ad right based on the report of the Control Board. Our objections to the Directorate General and Executive Board did not give any results," the daily has said.

According to the statement of the newspaper, the agency stopped giving public ads to Yeni Asya as of January 28, 2020 on the grounds of "a violation detected in the Notification of the Books Required to be Electronically Kept." Following the executive inspection upon the objection of the newspaper, the Control Board Report agreed that the suspension of the public ads should remain in effect on the grounds of three violations.

"As our newspaper's objection against the report of the Control Board that carried out the inspection did not give any results, an objection was submitted to the Executive Board. As no results could be obtained from there either, Mustafa Özbek, the attorney of our newspaper, has filed a lawsuit against the BİK," the newspaper has said on its website.

'Injustice is obvious'

Attorney Özbek has also spoken about the lawsuit. Özbek referred to the fact that "the BİK ads have been cut for over a year, the journalists' press cards and grey passports are not given, they are constantly targeted by the aspersions of certain media outlets and investigations and lawsuits are filed against the columnists of the newspaper because they expressed their criticisms and thoughts, which do not constitute a crime, as indicated in the recently unveiled Human Rights Action Plan."

Accordingly, attorney Özbek has noted that these acts "openly show that there is an action against press freedom and there is a huge injustice."

"The conditions relaxed by the BİK General Assembly due to the pandemic do not apply to Yeni Asya for some reason," he has said further. (HA/SD)