Jailed editor treated like a terrorist
THE editor-in-chief of Today’s Zaman, Bülent Kenes, was transferred alongside terrorist suspects to the city’s Silivri Prison this week, for his tweets allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Speaking to Cihan News Agency, Kenes’s lawyer Hasan Günaydin said his client was taken to the prison in the same vehicle as suspects from the terrorist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front.
The editor of a leading English-language newspaper in Turkey was first taken to Istanbul’s Metris Prison after he was arrested on Saturday.
Günaydin said Kenes’s transfer to Silivri represented psychological torture as it was known that only those who were being tried on terrorism charges were transferred to Silivri and he challenged the decision to arrest his client on Monday, submitting a 14page petition to the Istanbul 7th Penal Court of Peace.
In his past two columns from the Metris Prison Bulent, Kenes explained his situation with these words: “As a journalist whose views or ideas cannot be censored and who refuses to yield to pressure or threats, I am effectively and physically censored.
“I am writing this letter from the Metris T-Type Prison. As noted by the prosecutor, I am charged with continuing to post tweets.
“I am writing this article while eating morsels of bread served by guards as breakfast on a rainy Sunday morning.
“Fortunately, I had one and a half litres of drinking water and two paper cups, given to me yesterday. I should be thankful for them.”
New York-based press advocacy group the Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Turkish authorities to immediately release Kenes, condemning the arrest as a “relentless crackdown” on the press.
Freedom House, Amnesty International, English PEN, the Liberal International British Group and the Dutch Association of Journalists are the among the media-related organisations that have already voiced their concerns. – Independent Foreign Service DELHI: India is unlikely to heed the call by the International Criminal Court to arrest Sudanese President Omar alBashir for war crimes when he arrives in Delhi to attend the Africa Summit in two weeks’ time.
India is not a signatory of the ICC and so is not obliged to respond to its demands.
Bashir was indicted by the court in 2009 for war crimes during the Darfur conflict of 2003 in which 300 000 people perished.
Thousands of women were raped and testimony of survivors suggested methodical targeting of non-Muslim people by Sudanese forces and the government-backed Islamist militia. The Sudanese government has rejected these charges.
Just as South Africa was dogged by controversy surrounding the visit of Bashir in June this year during the AU summit, India is likely to face criticism when he will be there during the 52-nation AfricaIndia summit.
In a written statement to a local India daily, The Hindu, the office of the prosecutor of the ICC said that “by arresting and surrendering ICC suspects, India can contribute to the important goal of ending impunity for the world’s worst crimes”.
“Cognisant of the fact that India is not an ICC signatory and not obliged to enforce the ICC warrant, the prosecutor cited the United Nations Security Council resolution 1593, which urges all states, including non-state parties to the ICC to co-operate with the Criminal Court.”
Some legal experts are of the view that as India is a signatory to the 1948 genocide convention of 1959, it can be pressured to take action against someone who is involved in genocide in his own country.
But despite the fear of generating unnecessary controversy, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has also been accused of genocide by his detractors when he was the chief minister of the western Indian state of Gujarat, sent his personal envoy to invite the Sudanese president.