Court blocks access to articles about Albayrak family members

Berat Albayrak (Photo: AA/File)

Click to read the article in Turkish

A judgeship has blocked access to several articles about three members of the Albayrak family, which has close ties to the government.

The banned articles concern Berat Albayrak, the former finance minister and the son-in-law of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his brother Serhat Albayrak, the CEO of the pro-government Turkuvaz Media Group, and Hafize Şule Albayrak, Serhat Albayrak's spouse and an academic at Marmara University Faculty of Theology.

Şule Albayrak applied to the İstanbul Anadolu 4th Penal Judgeship of Peace through his attorney, demanding a ban on several news reports in which one of her column articles in Star newspaper was quoted.

CLICK - 42 percent of blocked articles related to AKP, pro-government people

Her article was titled "On the similarity of the secularist missionaries and the ISIS preachers." It was also shared on Marmara University's official Facebook page but was later deleted after criticism.

In a petition to the judgeship, attorney Fatih Savaş alleged that the articles about Şule Albayrak's piece were intended to "degrade, target and humiliate," contained false information and thereby violated his attorney's personal rights.

The judgeship blocked access to articles on several websites.

Articles about Berat and Serhat Albayrak

The same judgeship also banned several news reports about Berat and Serhat Albayrak.

Among them are a report on the 200,000 lira claim for damages filed by Serhat Albayrak against Evrensel newspaper, a report on the hearing of Pelin Ünker, whom the Albayrak family sued for her reports about Paradise Papers, an article compiling column articles criticizing the media over its silence on Berat Albayrak's resignation as the finance minister and a report about the allegations that the state-run broadcaster TRT allowed the Turkuvaz group to use its data for free.

In the application to the judgeship, attorney Savaş claimed that the articles in question were intended to damage the public reputation of Serhat Albayrak and attack his commercial reputation and demand an access ban.

Accepting the request, the judgeship also ruled some of the articles should be not only banned but also deleted. (HA/VK)