Two election offices of the Labour, Democracy and Freedom Block were demolished in Mersin; the police did not take any action. One office in Istanbul was damaged. Istanbul Candidate Önder was personally attacked.

The Istanbul 12th High Criminal Court decided to release Atılım newspaper executive Çiçek and three other defendants pending trial. Özgür Radio employee Erdoğan remains in prison. The defendants are charged with membership in the underground MLKP organization.

The publication of bianet.org was interrupted yesterday between 3.30 and 11.30 pm as a result of a cyber attack. We would like to thank our readers and colleagues who evinced their solidarity with us.

Access to the birgün.net website of the left-wing Birgün daily was rendered almost impossible after the website was flooded with hits on 16 May. The cyber attack was carried out via a minimum of 200 IP addresses, it was announced.

Thousands of people in south-eastern Turkey demonstrated against military operations that left 12 PKK members and 5 soldiers dead. Shops in the region remained closed, schools were boycotted. Demonstrators clashed with the police.

Journalist Ersin Çelik received a ten-month prison sentence because of a news item about police officers who allegedly killed student Aydın Erdem. Çelık was convicted of "disclosing the identity of a public official on anti-terror duties".

Tens of Thousands of people took the streets in 31 Turkish provinces on 15 May to demonstrate against the "Draft Bill on Rules and Procedures of the Safety of Internet Use". The draft law will be enforced on 22 August.

Journalists Ahmet Şık and Ertuğrul Mavioğlu were acquitted of charges of "violation of confidentiality" based on their two volumes on the Ergenekon investigation. The case was in the focus of national and international trial observers.

4 students in Van who were active in recent student protests were taken into custody by the Anti-Terror Police on 11 May. They were allowed to talk to their lawyers only after 24 hours. The lawyers are barred from seeing the file because of a decision of confidentiality.

The Yüksekova 1st Criminal Court of First Instance sentenced journalist Erkan Çapraz to imprisonment of ten months for publishing a certain article on the Yüksekova Haber newspaper's website. The pronouncement of the judgement was postponed.

Throughout the whole year of 2009, a total of 7718 people were taken into police custody. 2500 people were taken into custody only within the past 50 days.400 of them were arrested.

The Ankara Chief Prosecution decided that there was no need for a further prosecution regarding the assassination of journalists Mumcu 18 years ago. Mumcu's family had complaint about negligence of public officials during the investigation and the trial.

Upon the application filed by former International Automobile Federation Mosely, the ECHR ruled that newspapers do not have the legal duty to notify the subjects of intended publications in advance.

The first issue of the "16 Pages" newspaper will be published on coming Friday. The "weekly opposition" newspaper aims at financial and political independence. It will be sold at major bookstores and news agents in Istanbul and Ankara.

Two journalists were attacked after an event of the Republican People's Party Youth Division in Malatya on 6 May. On the same day, three journalists were assaulted by unidentified individuals in Edirne. Journalists associations condemned the attacks.

Because of new information on deaths under torture that increased after the military coup of 12 September 1980 the independent communication network BIA (Bianet) published reports from 1986 again. The DTF has made a summarized translation of them.

Female T.A. from Çorlu was first harassed and then threatened by the police after she had reported the harassment to the Dicle News Agency. She initially went to the police to complain about her violent husband.

Censorship of humour was the topic of the panel discussion entitled "Press Freedom in the Light of Humour and Comics" organized by the Turkish Journalists Association and the Association of Caricaturists. Caricatures have been censored since the Ottoman Empire.

The Dink family lawyers requested the prosecution of ten officials of the Trabzon Police who were on duty at the time of the murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. The lawyers' latest petition is based on the statements of former Trabzon Police executives.

17-year-old Murat Polat died of an explosive he found on a piece of grazing land when he herded animals in the south-eastern province of Van on 5 May.