Who is to give account for these aspersions and lies? (26.10.2017)

Despite the dozens of malignant and mendacious claims to appear in the pro-regime media about the meeting held on Büyükada on 5 July 2017, the release was ordered of the eight rights defenders.
 
 
At the first hearing of the trial into the meeting held on Büyükada on 5 July 2017, the release was ordered of the eight defendants held in detention pending trial.
 
The court bench in its ruling ordered the release of the detained defendants, German citizen Peter Frank Steudtner, Swiss citizen Ali Gharvi, Günal Kurşun of the Human Rights Agenda Association, Amnesty International Turkey Director İdil Eser, Özlem Dalkıran of the Citizens’ Assembly, Nalan Erkem of the Citizens’ Assembly, İlknur Üstün of the Women’s Coalition and United Nations World Food Programme Project Expert Veli Acu.
 
 
ERDOĞAN BRANDED THEM “COUPISTS”
 
The government responded with the claim: “They were making coup preparations and engaging in espionage” to reactions ensuing from democratic countries, notably the EU and Germany, following the arrest of the rights defenders.
 
President Erdoğan accused the rights defenders of coup involvement saying, “Those arrested on Büyükada had come together for a meeting that amounted to a continuation of 15 July.”
 
HATCHET JOB FROM THE PRO-REGIME MEDIA
 
For the time the rights defenders, including citizens of EU countries, were in detention, the pro-regime media ran dozens of unfounded stories about the people involved and the meeting that was held.
 
Akşam newspaper, for its part, went one step further and in the report in its 23 July 2017 edition with the headline “We will stir chaos – sure to flare up” adduced the petition that Amnesty International promoted publicly in 2015 and that was submitted to the South Korean embassy with forty thousand signatures as “proof of guilt”.
 
RACE TO PRINT THE BIGGEST LIE
 
As to Takvim newspaper, in a report undersigned by Mevlüt Yüksel with the headline “Dark meeting on Büyükada” dated 6 March 2017, a photograph was served up purporting to be of the meeting at which two US, one German and one British agent spoke on Istanbul’s Büyükada about the support they would give the “no” campaign in the referendum.
 
However, it was established by Teyit.org that that photograph was of a meeting held on 29 September at a convention centre named the New Orleans Convention Center situated in the US city of New Orleans.
 
Moreover, according to information on the convention centre’s web site, the meeting pictured in the photograph used in Takvim newspaper was held to counsel company managers wishing to enhance the effectiveness of fairs they staged.
 
With the pool media, which convicted defendants in advance through fabricated reports in conspiracy trials like Ergenekon and Sledgehammer, keeping up its “hatchet job” approach to publishing, people who had yet to appear before the judiciary and present a defence were proclaimed to be “agents”, “coupists” and “criminals”. However, despite all the politicisation of the judiciary and the regime’s duress, many defendants who have been “convicted” and subjected to aspersions and lies in the pool media are released and acquitted when they appear before the judiciary.
 
So, who is to give account for the dozens of lies and aspersions to people who have been robbed of their liberty and deprived for months of the right to defence, and their relatives?