A Turkish court ruled on Tuesday for the continuation of imprisonment of Turkish journalist Mehmet Gündem, who was arrested in November 2017 on terror charges over his alleged links to the Gülen movement.
Journalist Gündem appeared before İstanbul’s 35th High Criminal Court for the first time in the nine months of his imprisonment. The court ruled to continue the trial on October 30, 2018.
In his defense in the court journalist said that he is a journalist for 23 years and he has made weekly interviews along this period.
“Every newspaper has an interviewer. I was doing this job for 7 years in Zaman daily. Thus, I was publicly renowned. I interviewed with Fethullah Gülen in the United States on the request of Milliyet daily I worked for at that time in 2005. I was also an administrator at the Yeni Şafak daily. Upon a proposal that I received in 2011, I started Çankaya Publishing at the Presidential Palace. We have published nearly 70 prestigious books there. ”
Journalist Gündem stated that he became a member to the Journalists and Writers Foundation (JWF) in 2015 upon an invitation, but because of a dispute, he said, he resigned on November 30, 2015. JWF, which was a Turkish civil society organization registered to the United Nations, was closed by a government decree under the state of emergency declared in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
Gündem also said that the phone number on the file which was claimed that he downloaded mobile phone messaging application ByLock, does not belong to himself. He also stated that he has used the same mobile phone number since 1995.
Gündem continued to say that his personal accounts in Bank Asya were not opened over any instructions or any organizational motivation. “If I had this kind of motivation or instruction, I would have been able to call on my 54,000 followers on the social media or readers of Milliyet daily to do the same thing.”
At the end of his defense, Gündem demanded his acquittal from the court and stated that he had lost his father while he is in prison and added that “Since I did not get permission, I could not attend the funeral of my father. The past 9 months have been a very long process for me. My imprisonment went beyond measure and turned to be a punishment.”
Gündem, who used to work as a columnist for the Milliyet daily, was detained on Nov. 1, 2017 along with 44 colleagues as part of an operation against the Journalists and Writers’ Foundation (JWF), which was closed down in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016 over alleged affiliation with the faith-based Gülen movement.
Gündem was subsequently arrested by a court on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization” as the Turkish government labels the Gülen movement as such.
An indictment against the journalists seeks a prison sentence for him of between seven-and-a-half and 15 years on terror charges.
Gündem, who is currently jailed in İstanbul’s notorious Silivri Prison, was recently visited by lawyers from the P24 Independent Journalism Foundation and completed a questionnaire that aims to expose the problems faced by jailed journalists in the country.
To a question asking whether he was ever visited by a member of parliament, Gündem said “No.” He also said a ban on writing and receiving letters imposed on him by the prison administration was recently lifted.
Turkey is ranked 157th among 180 countries in the 2018 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RSF). If Turkey falls two more places, it will make it to the list of countries on the blacklist, which have the poorest record in press freedom.
Turkey is the biggest jailer of journalists in the world. The most recent figures documented by SCF show that 237 journalists and media workers were in jail as of August 6, 2018, most in pretrial detention. Of those in prison 170 were under arrest pending trial while only 67 journalists have been convicted and are serving their time. Detention warrants are outstanding for 144 journalists who are living in exile or remain at large in Turkey.
Detaining tens of thousands of people over alleged links to the Gülen movement, the government also closed down some 200 media outlets, including Kurdish news agencies and newspapers, after a coup attempt in Turkey on July 15, 2016.
The post Turkish court rules for continuation of journalist Gündem’s imprisonment over Gülen links appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-court-rules-for-continuation-of-journalist-gundems-imprisonment-over-gulen-links/
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder