Cumhuriyet Archives

Terrorist State of Turkey 7/24 non stop Arrest: Another Nine arrested in probe on daily Cumhuriyet

November 5, 2016 by administrator

Nine people were arrested on Nov. 5 in a probe that targeted Cumhuriyet, one of Turkey’s oldest and most-respected newspapers.

Those arrested were Murat Sabuncu, the daily’s editor in chief, IPI Board Member Kadri Gürsel, caricature artist Musa Kart, and Cumhuriyet Foundation board members Güraz Tekin Öz, Mustafa Kemal Güngör, Turhan Günay, Hakan Kara, Önder Çelik and Bülent Utku.

Columnists Hikmet Çetinkaya and Aydın Engin were relased on probation and were banned from traveling abroad.

Executives and columnists of Cumhuriyet were detained in a series of raids on their homes early on Oct. 31, after prosecutors initiated a probe against them on “terrorism” charges.
The Istanbul Chief Prosecutor’s Office said the operation was based on accusations that the suspects were “committing crimes on behalf of the Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ) and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).”

The arrests came a day after three more prosecutors were assigned to the probe, amid official confirmation that the original prosecutor of the investigation is currently under trial over links to the Gülen movement, widely believed to be behind July 15 coup attempt.

Turkish legal authorities have appointed Istanbul deputy chief prosecutors Hasan Yılmaz and Zafer Koç, along with terror bureau prosecutor Özgür Metin, to the investigation probing the Cumhuriyet journalists.

The three newly appointed prosecutors will reportedly help the dossier’s main prosecutor, Murat İnam, take the suspects’ testimonies.

İnam was one of the 54 suspects charged with carrying out the Selam-ı Tevhid probe against military personnel, civil servants and politicians in 2011. That probe is believed to have been carried out by prosecutors linked to the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, and İnam faces charges over Gülen links, though he is still assigned to the Cumhuriyet case for now.

Yılmaz previously handled the case of Uğur Kurt, who was hit by a stray bullet fired by police officer Sezgin Korkmaz as he was attending a funeral service at a Cemevi, an Alevi house of worship, in the restive Okmeydanı neighborhood on May 22, 2014.

Koç, meanwhile, is currently carrying out the investigation into the bogus Ergenekon coup plot case, while Metin was working in the Tokat Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office before being assigned to Istanbul.

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/nine-arrested-in-probe-on-daily-cumhuriyet-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=105743&NewsCatID=339

Terrorist State of Turkey takes editor Murat Sabuncu of opposition newspaper ‘Cumhuriyet’ into custody

October 31, 2016 by administrator

Turkish police have detained the editor-in-chief of the opposition newspaper “Cumhuriyet” following a series of raids. The government launched a wide-reaching crackdown on its critics in the wake of a July coup attempt.

The “Cumhuriyet” newspaper said on Monday that its editor, Murat Sabuncu, was detained along with columnist Guray Oz after raids on their homes.

The paper also said police were searching for the head of its executive board, Akin Atalay. In total, 13 arrest warrants were issued for journalists and executives from the daily, according to CNN Turk.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said Sabuncu was being held as part of “an investigation,” without providing details.

The detentions come as opposition parties and human rights groups allege that Turkey is using a state of emergency to clamp down on all dissenting voices. The state of emergency was introduced after a failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by a rogue section of the military in July. Since then, more than 100 media outlets have been shut down and dozens of journalists detained as part of a massive crackdown on opposition elements.

Opposition targeted

Ankara accuses those targeted of being affiliated with US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom it blames for the attempted putsch. Gulen has denied any involvement.

In a statement, the government said the operation against Cumhuriyet was launched over its alleged “activities on behalf of” the Gulen movement and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

“Cumhuriyet”‘s former editor-in-chef Can Dundar was sentenced to five years in prison earlier this year for revealing state secrets after publishing reports about alleged Turkish arms shipments to Syrian rebels. Dundar, who now lives in Germany, was sentenced along with the paper’s Ankara correspendent, Erdem Gul.

The left-leaning secular publication, one of Turkey’s oldest newspapers, is often highly critical of the ruling conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP). It was awarded this year’s Right Livelihood Award.

rc,nm/tj (AFP, AP, dpa)

Grasping Straws: New Accusation May ‘Acquit’ Turkey’s Cumhuriyet Journalist

April 1, 2016 by administrator

New allegations against Turkey’s Cumhuriyet journalists in a controversial secret trial could only further unravel the case, one of the defendants, Can Dundar, told Sputnik Turkiye.

Journalist Can Dundar, who is on trial in Turkey for “espionage,” told Sputnik that the case against him is starting to collapse, as prosecutors are beginning to grasp for leads that could lead to his acquittal.

Can Dundar, the chief editor of the newspaper Cumhuriyet and Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul were put on trial for releasing footage of the Turkish intelligence agency MIT smuggling arms into Syria. After Dundar said that he got the footage on a thumb drive from a “left-wing legislator friend,” a Turkish pro-government newspaper proposed that the man is Enis Berberoglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

“I think they have tried everything. We have been called both agents and supporters of the Gulen movement. They’ve searched our apartments. They said that I was interviewed on air on a Kurdish TV channel. They are trying to use any clue to find anything that could put us behind bars. It is strange that this time they began to spin the story with speculations about Enis Berberoglu. After all, in fact, that can provide us with an acquittal,” Dundar told Sputnik Turkiye.

Fethullah Gulen is a Turkish preacher living in exile in the United States, who initially sided with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but broke with him after the 2013 corruption scandal.

Dundar added that he would not disclose his source out of journalistic principle, although the source told him that he could be named and brought as a witness.

“Is it not they who were accused of releasing information on the corruption scandal. I am a journalist, whose business is it, where I get the information? My source is not related to Gulenists,” Dundar told Sputnik Turkiye.

Although Turkey’s Supreme Court ruled that Dundar be freed, the case against him was still pursued. It was originally put on hold and ordered to proceed behind closed doors on March 25.

The Cumhuriyet newspaper’s website was also blocked by a Turkish court order, after it released information about the indictment of a Turkish businessman with links to Bilal Erdogan, son of the Turkish President. The businessman was jailed in the United States on a case linked to the 2013 Turkish corruption scandal.

Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet: Expose Turkish border officers cooperate with ISIL

February 22, 2016 by administrator

Wiretapped telephone calls between a leading figure from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and several members of the Turkish military reveal cooperation between ISIL and the Turkish military in letting smugglers cross the Turkey–Syria border, a report by a Turkish daily has alleged.

Documents prepared by a prosecutor’s office contain a large number of transcripts of “friendly” telephone communications between military officers and Mustafa Demir, the ISIL member in charge of Turkey’s Syria border, the Cumhuriyet daily said on Monday.

The prosecutor’s documents reportedly say Turkish military officers also met with Demir on the border. The ISIL leader is indicated in the documents as the person behind the transportation of bombs from Syria to Turkey.

“The transcripts and the documents in the investigation revealed that Demir received money — purportedly for zakat [alms] — from smugglers at the border and cooperated with the officers as far as [border] crossings are concerned,” the report stated.

The Turkish government has long been accused by the opposition of turning a blind eye to ISIL’s activities in Turkey as well as of having helped ISIL in fighting against the Syrian government.

According to the report, the documents in question are from a file in an ongoing court case on ISIL at the Ankara 3rd High Criminal Court.

The issues alleged in the case came to light because of an investigation launched following information given by six Turkish citizens whose relatives joined ISIL, the report said.

Upon the application by the relatives, monitoring of the communications of 19 people started, and a prosecutor named Derda Gökmen reportedly filed a claim against 27 suspects.

Demir, who is currently in Syria, and İlhami Balı, another leading ISIL figure, are among the suspects, the daily said.

Noting Balı is the person who gave the order for Turkey’s deadliest ever suicide bomb attack in Ankara in October of last year, the report said Demir had also previously come to public attention due to his close links to Balı.

According to the report, the prosecutor, on the grounds that the transcripts also indicated a crime other than the one he was pursuing, launched yet another investigation on the link between ISIL terrorists and the Turkish military.

The prosecutor then reportedly, due to legal incompetence, referred the new investigation file to the prosecutor’s office of the Gaziantep 5th Armored Brigade Command.

The report also said the Ankara Chief Prosecutor’s Office had previously claimed, after some reports appeared in media outlets such as Cumhuriyet, that the phone calls are between military officers and smugglers, not ISIL members.

Below are transcripts of some phone calls Demir reportedly had with members of the Turkish military based on the investigation file.

Date: Nov. 25, 2014; 8:26 p.m.

A.A.: Was that you, the ones with a torch?

Mustafa: Well, with a little torch, where are you big brother? At the place where I told you to be?

A.A.: Yeah. We also saw you, your men…

Mustafa: Is it possible for you to arrange that I talk with the commander here, regarding the business here? What if we could establish a contact here as we helped you…

A.A.: Okay. If there are any needs [as far as your request is concerned], [tell them] to inform me here.

Mustafa: If it will be enough to contact you [to settle the issue], no problem.

A.A.: I’ll pass this now. I have two military posts [at the border] there. If worse comes to worst, I’ll tell that to the commander of the station and have him take a look…

**** ****
Time: 7:12 p.m.

Communication made by the telephone registered in the name of A.B.

A.B.: We’re where you gave [him] the vehicle, we are in the mine [field]. We’ve put on a light. We have stuff; come here from that side, the men are here…

Mustafa: Okay, big brother, [I’m] coming.

A.B.: Come urgently; I’m in the mine [field] with a torch. Come running.

Mustafa: Well, big brother, is it the place where I gave First Lieutenant Burak a car?

A.B.: Yeah, just a little further down from that place. Our two vehicles are on the Turkish side [of the border].

Mustafa: Okay.

A.B.: We are also in the mine.

Mustafa: I’ll right be there, big brother.

Source: zaman

The daily Cumhuriyet distinguished for its coverage of the Kurdish question and the Armenian Genocide

November 19, 2015 by administrator

Syrian journalist Erhaim Zaina, 30, who worked for the city of Aleppo, ravaged by more than four years of war, is the winner of the 2015 Reporters Without Borders (RSF), presented Tuesday evening in Strasbourg.

The young woman, whose country is considered the most dangerous in the world for journalists, was chosen for its “ethics, determination and courage” and ability to “emphasize the human dimension behind the scenes of war “, said the organizers.

His award was presented to her uncle, at a ceremony held on the sidelines of the “World Forum of Democracy”, attended by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland.

For two years, Zaina Erhaim has trained a hundred people, a third of women in television journalism and print media, contributing to the emergence of new newspapers and magazines in Syria.

The organization of press freedom also awarded the prize of “Media of the Year” in Turkish daily Cumhuriyet of opposition, which “pays the price for his courageous and independent journalism” in a country where ” a growing crackdown on critical voices. “

In May, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had filed a complaint against Cumhuriyet, which published photos of interception, in January 2014, a convoy loaded with weapons to Syria belonging to the intelligence services (MIT). Its editor, Can Dündar, came Tuesday in Strasbourg to get her award, faces a heavy prison sentence.

RSF also notes that the opposition daily -which stood out for its coverage of the Kurdish question and the Armenian Genocide undergoes “cascade process”, the “repeated blockages of its Internet site” and “slander campaigns “.

It was also the only daily in the Muslim world to be reproduced in its print edition number two reduced versions published by Charlie Hebdo after the attack in January in Paris – with a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad – which earned him prosecuted court.

RSF awarded its prize for “citizen journalist of the year” in a group of Ethiopian bloggers Zone9 who “regularly denounce the draconian regime” in power in Addis Ababa.

Six of these bloggers have recently increased from 15 to 18 months in prison on charges of planning terrorist attacks. Victims of “constant harassment from the authorities,” then arrested in April 2014, they were released in July and October.

None could be present in Strasbourg on Tuesday to seek its price.

See more at: http://lematin.ma/express/2015/une-jeune-syrienne-designee—journaliste-de-l-annee-/235722.html#sthash.dWOV9iXJ.dpuf

Turkey Cumhuriyet journalists draw front page battle line against Erdoğan

June 2, 2015 by administrator

he front page of Cumhuriyet published on Tuesday. (Photo Today’s Zaman)

With their names and photographs accompanying a headline that reads “We are responsible [for the story],” journalists at the Cumhuriyet daily have responded to a threat made by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan against the paper’s editor-in-chief for running a story and photos that provided proof of illegal arms shipments to Syria. report ZAMAN

Speaking during a live broadcast on the state-run TRT Haber news channel on Sunday night, Erdoğan said: “I have filed a lawsuit [against the editor-in-chief]. … And the person who did the exclusive report about it will pay a heavy price for it. I won’t let him go [unpunished].”

The Cumhuriyet article said “We employees at Cumhuriyet assume responsibility along with our editor-in-chief for the story revealing the truth about an incident that was denied by state officials for months.” It is a journalist’s duty to inform the public about the dangers and threats of an arms smuggling incident whose political, legal and diplomatic remifications the public is not aware of, the article added.

In a headline story on Friday, Cumhuriyet published images from a video in the investigation file proving that National Intelligence Organization (MİT) trucks had carried weapons, contradicting the government’s earlier claim that they were only carrying humanitarian aid to Turkmens in war-torn Syria.

Erdoğan, who claimed the daily’s sole aim in publishing the report on the trucks operated by MİT was to tarnish Turkey’s image, accused the daily of being involved in spying by having published the report.

Dündar also challenged Erdoğan in a message on Twitter on Monday, saying: “The person who committed this crime will pay a heavy price for that. We will not let him go [unpunished],” also maintaining that Erdoğan is the one who is involved in crime by arranging arms-laden trucks to be sent to rebel groups in Syria.

On Jan. 19 of last year, three trucks bound for Syria — which the government admitted were operated by MİT — were intercepted by gendarmes in the southern province of Adana after prosecutors received tip-offs that they were illegally carrying arms to Syria. Shortly after top officials gave statements about the trucks, Syrian Turkmens denied that any such truck had arrived from Turkey.

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Turkish Press 4 pages of Charlie in Cumhuriyet

January 14, 2015 by administrator

The opposition daily to the AKP, Cumhuriyet, published today 4 pages in Turkish version of the latest issue of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

The original writing was to publish the whole in an integrated central section to the newspaper. It was only after she has auto-censored and endorsement of an attorney that authorization has been given.

The editor Utku Cakirözer said “preparing this publication in respect for religious sensibilities of society and religious freedom.”

The Charlie Hebdo editor justifies this partnership, saying, “If there was a media with which I wanted to work, it was that one, because Turkey is having problems and secularism is attacked. “

Several ministers at the time of the Erdogan government had denounced the “provocation” by Charlie. One of them had even called a “rag”. It is in these circumstances that the Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu came to Paris show empathy and compassion for the victims of Charlie Hebdo …

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