Press Advertisement Institution Cuts Ads of Daily Evrensel for 10 Days

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The Press Advertisement Institution has cut the ads of daily Evrensel over a news report published on the daily on November 13, 2019.

The news article entitled "Press Advertisement Institution has sounded the death knell for publishing in Kurdish" was originally reported by the Mezopotamya News Agency.

The article was about the "Action Plan Report" prepared by Gaziantep University based on interviews with the journalists working in the region.

Penalty as per Resolution on Press Code

The ads of the newspaper have been cut for 10 days as a penalty as per the Article 1 of the General Assembly Resolution on Press Code as well as the clauses (ı) and (L) of the same article.

"In the event that the accuracy of a news could raise suspicions and it is within the possibilities of journalism to investigate its accuracy, the news in question cannot be published without carrying out an investigation and making sure of its accuracy", says the Article 1 of the Resolution.

As for the other two clauses of the same article, they stipulate that "derogatory words that exceed the limits of criticism, insults, swearwords, slanders and wrongful accusations cannot be used in publications about persons, institutions and segments of the society."

'We are not optimistic in the slightest that...'

In her written defense to the Press Advertisement Institution, Devrim Avcı, an attorney for Evrensel, has indicated that the news report in question does not fall within the scope of the aforementioned articles, the source of the news was Mezopotamya News Agency and the title of the news was put in quotes:

"We cannot be requested to destroy a piece of information reported based on a study of a university. It should be guaranteed by the Constitution that we fulfill our duty of journalism freely and institutions should respect it. We do not feel that we are faced with an impartial addressee.

"While our ads used to be cut for 2-3 days the most following the defenses requested from us, our ads are now being cut for 10-15 days as a penalty. We do not have the slightest doubt that this defense of ours will also be subjected to the maximum penalty.

"We now have nothing to do, but to bring this situation that we face before the professional press organizations, to bring it into Parliamentary agenda and to call on all national and international platforms to take action about the unlawful practices that we are subjected to. We are not optimistic in the slightest that our defense will have a fair return." (EK/EMK/SD)