IPI declares solidarity with ‘crucified’ Turkish journalists
AS IPI Executive Board members, we have observed with immense concern and sorrow the lengthy judicial process in Turkey that culminated last Wednesday with the convictions of our fellow IPI Board member Kadri Gürsel, our esteemed IPI members Murat Sabuncu and Ahmet ık, and all of our colleagues at Cumhuriyet newspaper.
For the past 18 months, since our colleagues were first imprisoned, we have collectively and repeatedly protested against the imprisonment of Cumhuriyet’s representatives on preposterous grounds, against the numerous breaches in judicial procedure that IPI’s trial monitors have reported, against the lengthy pre-trial detentions, which cannot be reasonably justifiedand have no foundation in Turkish or international law, and, finally, against greatly disturbing sentences that impose prison terms for crimes our colleagues have not committed and for which not a shred of evidence was ever presented.
The sentence against our fellow Executive Board member Kadri Gürsel is an attack on us all. It is an insult to those of us who have dedicated our professional life to the type of independent, critical, public-interest journalism that Kadri, Murat, Ahmet and their colleagues at Cumhuriyet have worked to deliver every day.
As executive board members of IPI, we will always stand side by side with those brave editors, journalists and media executives who hold their governments and institutions accountable and remind them of the commitments they have made to the international community and the people of their country.
We know that the Cumhuriyet defendants did not commit a criminal offence. All they did was journalism, of the highest quality, which makes us so proud to count Kadri as a member of our Executive Board, to count Murat and Ahmed as revered members of our community, and to count Akın Atalay, Orhan Erinç, Bülent Utku, Güray Öz, Önder Çelik, Musa Kart, Hakan Kara, Mustafa Kemal Güngör, Aydın Engin, Hikmet Çetinkaya, Emre Iper as fellow members of our cherished profession.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the injustices that we have observed in the past months, we are not willing to give up on Turkey’s justice system. We look forward to seeing the sentences handed down on Wednesday reversed on appeal.
Representing 20 countries and five continents, the IPI Executive Board will continue to monitor the decisions of Turkey’s courts in the hope that it will eventually understand that those journalists and news executives it just sentenced to prison are, in fact, the ones who truly serve the public’s interests.
Owais Aslam Ali, Chairman, Pakistan Press International (PPI), Pakistan, Mahfuz Anam, Editor & Publisher, The Daily Star, Bangladesh, Beata Balogová, Editorin-Chief, SME, Slovak Republic, Ole Kristian Bjellaanes, Managing Editor, Norwegian News Agency, Norway, Woosuk Kenneth Choi, Deputy Editor, Chosun Ilbo, South Korea, Monika Eigensperger, Director of Radio, Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), Austria, Sami El Haj, Head, Human Rights and Public Liberties Desk, Aljazeera Media Network, Qatar, Kim Fletcher, Editor, The British Journalism Review, UK Daniel Hadad, CEO, Grupo Infobae, Argentina, Johannes Hano, Bureau Chief, ZDF German Television (New York/Canada), Germany, Hiroshi Komatsu, Editor-in-Chief, The Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Daoud Kuttab, Director General, Community Media Network, Founder, AmmanNet, Jordan, Riyad Mathew, Editor, Malayala Manorama and The Week, India, Ken MacQuarrie, Director, Nations and Regions, BBC, UK, Tom Mshindi, Editor-in-Chief, Nation Media Group, Kenya, Kaius Niemi, Senior Editor-in-Chief, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland, Virginia Pérez Alonso, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Publico.es, Chair, Platform for the Defence of Free Expression (PDLI), Spain, Markus Spillmann, Founder & CEO, SPILLMANN Media Strategy Management GmbH, Switzerland, Martha Steffens, Professor, SABEW Chair in Business and Financial Reporting, University of Missouri School of Journalism, USA, Dawn Thomas, Chief Executive Officer, One Caribbean Media Ltd, Trinidad & Tobago, John Yearwood, President, Yearwood Media Group, USA, Kabiru Yusuf, Chairman, Media Trust Ltd, Nigeria.
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