Journalist investigated after reporting on rape, murder allegations against AKP deputy

Photos: Yeldana Kaharman/Instagram

In the last two weeks, a local newspaper's office was stormed by an armed person, an investigation was opened against a journalist for "insulting the president" and a case was filed against another for "degrading the state and the nation," according to bianet's Media Monitoring Database.

Also, the minister of interior accused a national daily newspaper of cooperating with "terrorists" and said they would give an account before the judiciary.

The website of a newspaper of Turkey's Jewish community was targeted in a cyber attack and a court blocked access to a news portal in the two-week period.

Here is a summary of interferences with the news media between May 3 and 16:

The death of Yeldana Kaharman

Yeldana Kaharman, an 18-year-old woman from Kyrgyzstan, was found dead at home in the eastern Elazığ province on March 28, 2019. She was studying at Fırat University Faculty of Communication and working as a presenter at Kanal 23, a local TV outlet.

Kanal 23 said in a statement that Kaharman was "loved by everyone" in Elazığ and her death was suspicious.

Sedat Sur, a journalist based in southeastern Turkey, claimed that she was sexually assaulted by Tolga Ağar, a ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy from elazığ and the son of former Interior Minister Mehmet Ağar.

The incident was covered up with the help of Mehmet Ağar, he claimed.

In May 2019, the Elazığ Chief Public Prosecutor's Office stated that Kaharman had killed herself by hanging and the case was closed.

Access to reports about the incident was blocked upon court orders. On March 24, a peal judgeship of peace ruled that reports about the access block orders should be blocked as well. 

Two years later, Sedat Peker, a convicted crime leader, brought up the allegations again in the video he released on YouTube on May 6. He said Kaharman filed a complaint against Tolga Ağar for sexual assault shortly before her death.

The Gendarmerie General Command refuted Peker's claim on the same day, saying that the gendarmerie hadn't received a complaint by Kaharman.

On May 9, Baransel Ağca revealed the autopsy report of Kaharman. He said on Twitter that the report contradicted itself and some findings in the report might suggest that she had been hung after being killed. 

One day later, an investigation was opened against him for "insulting the president" because of tweets he posted in 2016.

On May 12, Ağca revealed a police minute that says police received a tip-off that Kaharman had been threatened by members of a Kazakhstan-based drug ring. Also, her mobile phone was not recorded in the minutes, he said.

Interior minister threatened Cumhuriyet newspaper

After covering Sedat Peker's allegations on its front page on May 11, Cumhuriyet newspaper was threatened by Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.

The newspaper used photos of Commander of Gendarmerie Forces Arif Çetin with Justice and AKP deputy Tolga Ağar and crime group leader Selahattin Yılmaz, which angered Soylu.

Compounding the abbreviations of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), Soylu tweeted: "Casting aspersions on the most Glorious Commander of our history of counterterrorism with the delusions of a mafia scum and taking revenge for its partner HDPKK, Cumhuriyet newspaper; your history is the history of deep, dirty and dark relations. Turkey is not the old Turkey. You will be brought to account before the law."

Attempted armed assault on local newspaper

An armed person stormed the office of İstiklal Newspaper in İstanbul on May 11. 

The attacker entered the room of the newspaper's editor-in-chief and demanded 2 million lira from him.

He could be stopped thanks to the efforts of the people around and the police officers who came to the scene of the incident. When police officers searched the assaulter, they found a rifle, a gun, bullets and a magazine on him.

Cyberattack on Şalom newspaper

The website of Şalom, a Jewish weekly newspaper, was targeted in a cyber attack by a group calling itself the "IBDA-Cyber Front."

IBDA-C is an Islamist armed group founded in the late 1980s and carried out several armed and bomb attacks on mostly inanimate targets throughout the 1990s. It has been mostly inactive for the past two decades.

New indictment against Deniz Yücel

The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office lodged a new indictment against journalist Deniz Yücel, Die Welt newspaper's former representative to Turkey. Yücel is now facing 6 months to 2 years in prison on the charge of "degrading the State of the Republic of Turkey, its government, judicial bodies and the security organization of the state."

Yücel previously served more than a year in prison in Turkey and was released after efforts by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel.

(VK)