In its annual report for 2008, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) criticised Article 301 and the nationalist obstruction of press freedom. The murder of Hrant Dink could have been prevented.

Two “peace mothers” were taken into custody after trying to make a press statement in Taksim. Activists have called for their release.

Cynics have remarked how quickly the ruling AKP acted on lifting the headscarf ban for university students while ignoring other, more pressing issues of rights and freedoms.

Around 400 academics have signed a statement which calls for democratisation not only around clothing rules at university.

A reaction in the Turkish press to the fire in Ludwigshafen which killed nine Turks shows how great the need for more balanced reporting is. A newspaper accusing Germany of covering up a neo-Nazi attack is perpetrating racism itself.

Publisher Mehdi Tanrikulu has been sentenced to five months imprisonment for writing a petititon in Kurdish and for speaking Kurdish in court. He will appeal against the sentence.

The Peace Parliament organised a symposium entitled “Democratisation and the Kurdish Issue during the New Constitutional Process.” Without women, peace is not achievable.

At the third hearing of the Hrant Dink murder trial yesterday, suspected instigators Tuncel and Hayal were questioned. The Hrant Dink Sensitivity Group called for justice.

On Sunday, Turks and Germans gathered to say good-bye to the nine victims of the fire in Ludwigshafen last week. The bodies were then flown to Turkey.

After attacking journalists Magden and Temelkuran who spoke out against the nationalist manipulation of children, the Tercüman newspaper is being taken to court.

The trial of the murder suspects of journalist Hrant Dink continues with the third hearing today. The hearing will be recorded and might yet be opened to the press, pending a court decision.

There is continuing reluctance to link the different trials in Trabzon, Samsun and Istanbul concerning the murder of journalist Hrant Dink. Senior police and gendarmerie officers are still not on trial.

RSF joins the International Press Institute and the Cartoonists’ Rights Network International in their condemnation of the planned prosecution of two cartoonists.

The demonstrators who had set out from Diyarbakir to Sirnak in order to protest against cross-border operations spent the night at Cudi Mountain.

The BIA² 2007 Media Monitoring Report reveals that there are still countless violations of press freedom across the country. There were also more attacks on journalists in 2007 than in the previous year, with the shocking murder of Hrant Dink still fresh in everyone's mind.

After a fire in a building in Germany killed nine Turks, five of them children, there have been suspicions that the building was set fire to deliberately.

An Istanbul court dropped the case against Hrant Dink’s lawyer Erdal Dogan for writing that nationalist lawyer Fuat Turgut should be tried for threatening Hrant Dink.

A march against cross-border operations in Northern Iraq, organised by the pro-Kurdish DTP, was sent off by some 20 thousand people in Diyarbakir. Convoy joining from Istanbul was held up after constant searches.

After questioning the expenditure of a district governor in the Devrek district of Zonguldak, journalist Ibrahim Tig faced a five-year trial. He was acquitted on 30 January.

Both the International Press Institute and the Cartoonists' Rights Network have protested against preliminary proceedings against cartoonists Kart and Temocin who stand accused of insulting the President.