Turkey: Opposition parties protest arrest of journalists
Date
11/27/2015 11:18:59 AM
(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) A group of Turkish lawmakers from opposition parties visited the daily Cumhuriyet’s headquarters in Istanbul Friday to show solidarity with its two journalists who were jailed over Syria smuggling reports.
Members of parliament from the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) protested the arrest of Can Dundar editor-in-chief of the newspaper and the daily’s Ankara bureau chief Erdem Gul who are accused of espionage and aiding an armed group.
The newspaper where both worked had published photographs and video footage purportedly showing arms-laden trucks near the border with Syria.
Speaking to press Figen Yuksekdag the co-chair of the HDP described the arrest as a “massacre of law”.
Noting that the two journalists’ arrest was an “attack against freedom of expression” Yuksekdag said. “No one is safe in a country where the truth cannot be expressed freely.”
“All media organizations that are trying to report the news on the basis of [journalism] ethics and criteria are under threat and attack” said Yuksekdag.
Along with Yuksekdag HDP’s Istanbul MP Garo Paylan Enis Berberoglu the deputy leader of the main opposition CHP and the former editor-in-chief of Hurriyet and other CHP MPs Mahmut Tanal Suleyman Celebi Gursel Tekin Sezgin Tanrikulu Safak Pavey took part in the demonstration at Cumhuriyet’s headquarters.
In January 2014 several trucks were stopped by local gendarmerie in southern Adana and Hatay provinces on the grounds that they were loaded with ammunition despite a national security law forbidding such a search. The case saw the arrests of 26 soldiers.
Turkey's Interior Ministry said at the time that the trucks which were reportedly carrying arms into northern Syria were in reality conveying humanitarian aid to the Turkmen community in the war-torn country.
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