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  • Six journalists seized in Turkish raids

    CNN.com
    March 3, 2011 Thursday 9:04 AM EST


    Six journalists seized in Turkish raids

    by From Yesim Comert, CNN
    Istanbul, Turkey


    Six Turkish journalists were among at least 11 people seized in police
    raids Thursday in a longstanding probe over an alleged plot to
    overthrow the government, Turkish media reported.

    Police in Istanbul and Ankara conducted early morning operations in
    connection with the so-called Ergenekon plot -- under investigation
    since 2007, the Anatolian Agency and CNN Turk said, and the raids
    follow a sweep of searches and detentions against journalists last
    month.

    One of the detained is Ahmet Sik, who co-authored two books on
    Ergenekon and was facing trial on charges of "violating secrecy of an
    investigation" in those books. His attorney spoke on television about
    the detention of his client, who was seen put in a car and driven away
    by authorities.

    Another is Nedim Sener, a newspaper columnist and writer, who wrote
    two books and many articles about the assassination of
    Armenian-Turkish newspaper editor Hrant Dink in 2007.

    He has been fighting in court over his work, in which he has accused
    Turkish authorities of failing to stop Dink's murder and said sources
    told him recently he's at the top of a list of reporters to be
    imprisoned.

    Asked about the searches and detentions of journalists, Interior
    Minister Besir Atalay told reporters in Ankara that this was "entirely
    the decision of the judiciary."

    While Turkey's democratic system has been seen as a political model
    for the Muslim countries undergoing change, there have been fears that
    the Islamic-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
    has been targeting reporters and dissenters.

    Over the last two years, Turkey has dropped from 102 to 138 on the
    press freedom index of Reporters Without Borders, and it now sits
    among the bottom 40 countries of the world when it comes to freedom of
    the press.

    In its review of press freedom in Turkey last year, the Committee to
    Protect Journalists said "authorities paraded journalists into court
    on anti-terror, criminal defamation, and state security charges as
    they tried to suppress critical news and commentary on issues
    involving national identity, the Kurdish minority, and an alleged
    anti-government conspiracy."

    On February 18, Turkish authorities arrested three journalists from a
    dissident news website, Oda TV, following a raid on their homes and
    offices.

    In an interview with CNN in November, Sener said journalists in Turkey
    are feeling "direct pressure from the government. They can easily
    corner the reporter they don't like for news they don't like."

    While the police continued searching Sener's house and car, his
    neighbors hung Turkish flags on their windows in solidarity with the
    journalist, one neighbor told CNN.

    In a column Tuesday in the Posta newspaper, Sener wrote that sources
    "very close to police" say his "name is written on top of the list of
    journalists to be sent to prison."

    "Those who see me treat me like a patient with a terminal disease who
    is about to die, yet doesn't know yet. Those who avoid eye contact and
    greet me with a forced smile have increased. However, I don't know
    what 'crime' I committed. If doing your job is a crime, yes I am
    guilty," he wrote.




    From: A. Papazian
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