Journalist and Television presenter Sedef Kabaş and prominent journalist Mehmet Baransu were detained on Tuesday over critical tweets.
Kabaş had criticized prosecutors for dropping a Dec. 17 corruption and bribery investigation that implicated various high-raking state officials and Baransu had made critical comments on the Twitter about an advisor of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Police detained Kabaş after searching her home and seizing her computer, the Turkish media reported on Tuesday.
According to the media reports, the prosecutors who dropped corruption and bribery charges against 53 suspects — charges that forced four government ministers to step down following the exposure of a graft probe that shook the entire country when it went public on Dec. 17 of last year — filed a criminal complaint against Kabaş over her tweet.
Police raided Kabaş’s home in the Çekmeköy district of İstanbul early on Tuesday upon the complaint of the prosecutors and detained her after a search at the house.
Speaking with Radikal daily following her detention, Kabaş stated that she was detained and her home was raided on charges of “targeting individuals involved in the fight against terrorism.” Kabaş said that her iPad, computer and mobile phone were confiscated by the police officers who searched her home. Kabaş also maintained: “I believe in law. I think that there are also people who still believe in law.”
Posting successive tweets on Kabaş’s detention and the search conducted her home, Lawyer Celal Ülgen wrote that Twitter does not share its Twitter users’ IP addresses or details about users’ identities with Turkey, adding: “This is why the IT crimes units found another way to deal with Twitter users. They issue search warrants against those who post tweets and they confiscate their computers and they conduct an investigation over the evidence [found in the computer]. If the tweet that is regarded as crime is not posted via that confiscated computer, there is nothing they can do.”
Baransu detained for tweet about Varank
Journalist Baransu was also detained early Tuesday morning over a tweet he posted critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s advisor Mustafa Varank. Baransu was released pending trial after his testimony at the court that same day. Speaking with Today’s Zaman, Baransu said that he was detained after Varank filed a complaint against him over his tweet.
Baransu, whose revelations have launched massive and sometimes controversial coup trials, was detained on Tuesday morning — for the fourth time.
Baransu has been detained three times before on various charges. He is a leading outspoken journalists and represents a newspaper that has been on the forefront in criticizing the government of President Erdoğan.
Many on social media speculated that Baransu was detained to be questioned about two controversial CDs he provided to prosecutors six years ago — primary evidence of alleged coup plotting by senior Turkish Army officers, who spent years inside prison pending trial. A recent court-sanctioned report by experts concluded that the signatures on the CDs were fake, invalidating their content.
Baransu’s detention came a day after former Army Chief İlker Başbuğ spoke in length about a “plot” to jail him and his colleagues. Başbuğ was condemned to life in prison both in the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer coup trials. Most of the suspects and convicts in these trials were set free this summer after the Constitutional Court ruled that most of the defendants’ rights were violated with unnecessary arrests before conclusive court decisions.
On Monday, Başbuğ also went to an İstanbul courthouse to file a complaint for what he claimed was a “plot” to jail him and his fellow army officers.
Turkey was ranked as “not free” in Freedom House’s latest “media freedom” index, and international press advocacy bodies are increasingly critical of the authorities’ treatment of journalists. Most recently, a major crackdown on media organs critical of the government resulted in the detention of journalist and scriptwriters.
Zaman Editor-in-Chief Ekrem Dumanlı and Samanyolu Broadcasting Group General Manager Hidayet Karaca were taken into custody on Dec. 14 as part of the government-backed police operation. They were detained along with 28 others in the operation.
The detention of Kabaş and Baransu came a few days after President Erdoğan said more journalists will be taken into custody, brushing off criticisms over media freedom.
Speaking at a symposium in Ankara that critical news outlets were not allowed to cover, Erdoğan claimed that “nowhere in the world is the media as free as it is in Turkey” when responding to criticisms in the wake of a government-backed police raid on journalists on Dec. 14.
On Oct. 17, Journalist Aytekin Gezici was also detained in the same manner as Kabaş. Police raided Gezici’s home, detained him and seized various belongings in his house. His lawyer said the journalist was detained and his house searched because of certain tweets the writer had posted.
Gezici was released that same day after being questioned at the police station.
Speaking with the press on his detention, Gezici had said he was asked about 20-30 questions and they were all about the tweets he had posted. He said he was asked why he had tweeted and re-tweeted certain things and why he had starred specific tweets.