Turkish police have detained 10 people, many of them journalists, in the latest crackdown on an alleged secularist network, which is accused of conspiring to overthrow the government. This follows February’s high profile raid on the Oda TV news portal. On Monday blog publishing service blogspot.com was banned inside Turkey.
Journalist Ahmet Topcu has been sentenced to 11 months in jail for denouncing a proposal put forward by the Mayor of Rize, in north east Turkey. The mayor, Halil Bakirci, is currently a member of the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP). Topcu had published an article criticising the mayor’s suggestion that “Kurds should have co-wives” and that this would answer the “Kurdish question”. Bakirci was widely condemned at the time and has offered a public apology.
Two Kurdish journalists have been sentenced to ten months of imprisonment each, after attending a demonstration in 2008. Vedat Yilidiz, Dicle News Agency, and Lokman Dayan, Güneydoğu Ekspres, have been convicted of “spreading propaganda for an illegal organisation”. They were among 25 defendants charged with “membership of an illegal organisation”. Both journalists attended the protests in their professional capacities, they said. The demonstration, at which the journalists were beaten by police, concerned the alleged violence against Abdullah Öcalan, the detained leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu has dismissed remarks made by the US ambassador in Ankara. Diplomat Francis J Ricciardone expressed concerns about press freedom in the country. His comments came in response to the detention of four journalists following a raid on opposition news portal Oda TV. The foreign minister said that he did not think it was right for “ambassador to pass judgment on an ongoing criminal investigation”, and claimed press freedom was not the issue.