A new coalition of 14 journalists’ unions and associations has said it will support every media member on trial for reporting regardless of ideology, countering accusations brought by colleagues who chose not to join the group.
The “Freedom for Journalists Platform” held its first meeting in Istanbul on Wednesday with the Press Council as host and elected Orhan Erinç, also the chairman of the Turkish Journalists Association, or TGC, as its first term president, to serve for two months.
The unions and associations say they first came together to discuss the “undesirable articles” of the Turkish Penal Code in terms of its effect on freedom of the press and communication. The meeting resulted in the founding of the platform and an “acting commission.”
Atilla Sertel, chairman for the Turkish Journalists Federation, said the platform wants to see all arrested journalists immediately released pending trial. “We are calling on other professional press organizations that did not attend this meeting to take their places in this platform,” Sertel said.
Oktay Ekşi, chairman for the Press Council and a columnist for daily Hürriyet, said some members of the platform first met Aug. 18 and noted that they had visited Silivri Prison in support of journalist Mustafa Balbay and Tuncay Özkan. Both are suspects in the Ergenekon case, an ongoing investigation into an alleged ultranationalist, shadowy gang accused of planning to topple the government by staging a coup, initially by spreading chaos and mayhem.
Deniz Ergürel, the general secretary of the Media Association, one of the groups that did not accept the invitation to join the new platform, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Friday that although the association agrees with the cause, it did not feel the platform would be impartial because of its strong stance on the Ergenekon suspects.
He added that he personally thinks it is not right for the journalists to be tried under arrest when the accused soldiers are not.
Erinç, the platform’s new president, also spoke to the Daily News and said the group would support every journalist, regardless of ideology.
When asked whether the platform would support Mehmet Baransu, a reporter for daily Taraf and the journalist with the most ongoing legal cases against him, as he is ideologically opposite to Balbay and Özkan, Erinç replied: “Is it possible that we would not?”
Erinç noted that Baransu was given an award by the TGC this year and said Balbay and Özkan were on the platform’s agenda because they are symbolic names in terms of their cause, but he emphasized that the group would support all journalists.
Currently there are 47 members of the press in Turkey who are under arrest and being tried, while more than 700 criminal and civil cases involving journalists are also ongoing. There are 27 articles in the Turkish Penal Code that limit the freedom of the press in addition to two in the Anti-Terror Law.
