Cumhuriyet Publishes Journalists’ Letters from Jail
The Cumhuriyet newspaper has published two letters of its Ankara representative Mustafa Balbay, currently in detention as a defendant in the Ergenekon investigation.
Balbay was arrested 49 days ago, and he is not allowed to continue his work as a columnist in prison.
He stands accused of participating in the clandestine ultranationalist Ergenekon organisation, which planned various murders in order to create sufficient chaos in the country to warrant a military coup.
Yesterday (22 April), the journalist said in a letter entitled “I am not alone”, “In the 29 years of my professional life, there are three things I have tried to do well: the Ankara representation of my newspaper, the writing of my column and journalism, and writing books.”
Replying to the criticism levelled at him for being too close to news sources and overstepping professional boundaries, he wrote: “I understand criticism of my journalistic style. I am open to criticism, I have to be. But those who know me well also know that I generally behave like that. When the environment is right, I can be quite close even to people whose opinions I oppose strongly. Friends of mine have criticised this tendency of mine.”
In a second letter published on the Cumhuriyet newspaper’s website, he wrote, “I am not pro-coup, I am a patriot”, he wrote:
“The ‘evidence’ from my professional life and journalism is this: around 5,000 newspaper columns, hundreds of headlines and 21 books. In order to achieve this, a journalist needs to own thousands of documents and news sources. I think I did this well. When you ask a journalist why he has notes and documents, is it not like asking a lawyer why she has so many law books at home? […] If we do not consider it like this, then it is not clear which of my colleagues will experience what I am going through next.”
Küçük opposes merging of Ergenekon and State Council cases
According to the Ntvmsnbc.com news website, retired general and prime Ergenekon suspect Veli Küçük has objected, via his lawyer, to the merging of the Ergenekon and State Council attack cases.
Küçük argued that the decision to merge the cases had been based on the statements of Osman Yıldırım, but that his statements were lies.
Yıldırım had said at the Istanbul 13th Heavy Penal Court that he had been visited in prison by prosecutors running the Ergenekon investigation after he had been convicted by the Ankara 11th Heavy Penal Court.
Saylan in hospital
As for Türkan Saylan, the president of the Association for the Support of Modern Life (ÇYDD), whose branches were raided by the police, doctors have forbidden visitors from coming to hospital, where she was taken after her blood levels dropped. (EÖ/AG)