End this lawlessness – freedom for journalists

CANAN ÇOŞKUN
 
The trial in which our newspaper’s Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu, our Executive Board Chair Akın Atalay, our Publishing Consultant and columnist Kadri Gürsel, our reporter Ahmet Şık and our accounting employee Emre İper are still being held in jail on unfounded and irrational charges will continue today at Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 27 in Çağlayan.
Charges of aiding an organisation were raised in the indictment drafted under an investigation launched by prosecutor Murat İnam, a defendant in the 31 October 2016 FETO trial, with columns, news reports and headlines that appeared in our paper stated as grounds. Until today, absolutely no evidence has been adduced to substantiate the charge of aiding an organisation in the trial in which eighteen Cumhuriyet staffers are cited as defendants. On the contrary, the questions posed by Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 27’s bench at the hearings which commenced on 24 July and continued on 11 August made clear that what was basically on trial was journalism and our paper’s editorial policy.
The court mimicked the rationale of the indictment in many of its questions and, by pronouncing on the principles set out in Cumhuriyet Foundation’s founding deed, questioned our newspaper’s editorial policy. As a consequence, reports and articles in which press prosecutors saw no element of crime at the time they were published have given rise to charges classified under “editorial policy” years after the time limit for bringing action had elapsed. Presiding judge Abdurrahman Orkun Dağ confirmed this with the comments he made before he started his questioning. Dağ stated, “In wishing to question Mr Sabuncu first, given that a main argument about the change in newspaper’s general editorial policy is addressed at him, maybe he would be able to explain this to us more clearly.” Here are some of the court bench’s questions that caused uproar among the journalists thronged into the courtroom and the replies given to them:
Violence and terrorism have no place in my book
Presiding judge Dağ asked Executive Board Chair Akın Atalay, “Cumhuriyet newspaper is a paper that has a pretty well firmly rooted body of readership. When an important medium, headline or report is to be prioritised, does it (the Foundation) have the right to express a reservation as to whether it complies with the foundation deed?”
Akın Atalay gave the following reply, “There is certainly no such thing. The foundation executive board members read the paper as you do. The foundation executive board members are empowered to appoint the editor-in-chief. There is an entity at certain periods called the publishing board, and it, in conjunction with other mechanisms, assesses the editor-in-chief’s performance at the newspaper after a certain time. This includes editorial policy, and includes the news it has reported and includes circulation. This is what the relationship boils down to.”
A member judge asked Atalay how far editorial independence went. Atalay, stating that editorial independence was an absolute principle at Cumhuriyet, said, “This existed in the way Abdi İpekçi went about journalism, and also on the old papers. There are examples of this in the world. You remove the editor-in-chief from his post if you find him to be unsuccessful. We do not interfere in the way the news is conveyed.” The same judge asked Atalay if he saw the PKK, FETO and DHKP-C as being terrorist organisations. Atalay replied to the question that also provoked the ire of observers, “It would demean me to answer that. I see that as a provocative question and a question that will be spun differently to the public. But, let them make do with the following answer: ‘I am a person who for my entire life has opposed violent actions even if for political purposes. Violence and terrorism have no place in my book. I am opposed to every organisation that employs violence and terrorism’.”
Professional and conscientious
Presiding judge Dağ also addressed the following question about the foundation deed to our Editor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu: “Considering the capacity vested in you in terms both of the period in which Can Dündar was absent but for which you have assumed responsibility, and for the period following 1 September 2016 on which you were arrested, what was your determinant for placing a boundary against terrorism or terrorist organisations? What were the criteria? I mean, could every story be picked up and put in, or was an assessment made as to how it should enter Cumhuriyet as it passed through the filter? Was the foundation deed in particular the determinant?” Sabuncu replied as follows:
 “Your honour, both as a journalist and as an individual, the Cumhuriyet foundation and Cumhuriyet newspaper basically have very fundamental points. I wish once more to clearly address this section concerning terrorism and terrorist organisations from a point that emanates from our paper’s tradition and foundation. Within the main framework and basic principle set down by the foundation executive board, all acts of political violence are referred to without distinction as terrorism in Cumhuriyet newspaper. Be it the PKK, be it the DHKP-C, be it FETO, be it IS or be it another organisation, all manner of coercive or violent action that they engage in to further their political strategies and ends is described as an act of terrorism and condemned in this paper, your honour. Every organisation that engages in acts of terror is a terrorist organisation. All Cumhuriyet newspaper’s reporting is within this framework. Sometimes, if there is initially doubt or ignorance as to why an act was conducted or by whom, at that moment there may be a reference to an act or an assailant. But, the overall and principled approach is as above.”
Sabuncu was also asked whether there had been debate inside the paper over the words activist and assailant. Sabuncu replied, “Professional, humane and conscientious criteria are involved in all Cumhuriyet newspaper’s reporting. Cumhuriyet newspaper always conducts its reporting in line with these criteria. This matter has not been debated in any setting where I was present. We have conducted journalism in conformity with journalistic values.”
 

The foundation does not interfere
Presiding judge Dağ posed the question, “At the foundation, is there talk of whether there has been a blunder over editorial policy?” to our columnist Hakan Kara, who was released after spending nine months in detention. Kara replied, “This is not the foundation’s approach. The foundation views editorial policy from within the context of the Foundation Deed. A foundation member does not come and say, ‘Why did you run this news? What are the details of this.’ If they did so I would have to resign. It would not conform to Cumhuriyet’s traditions.”
Headlines queried
A member judge on the court bench asked our readers’ representative Güray Öz, who was released after spending nine months in detention, if reactions had come in over the three reports and interviews over which the prosecution has raised charges. Öz stressed that he received absolutely no reactions about these reports and there was no interference with columnists and the opinions of those conducting interviews.
No connection with terrorism
At the hearing conducted in Silivri on 11 September, some of the people nominated by the prosecution were present in the courtroom as witnesses. One of these figures, the former Cumhuriyet Foundation management board member İnan Kıraç, noting at the hearing that he did not read Cumhuriyet, said, “This is categorically not something to do with contact with various terrorist organisations or having relations with organisations. What I am getting at is that I do not read it because Cumhuriyet has departed step by step from Nadir Nadi, İlhan Selçuk and Uğur Mumcu’s path. That is why I said that.” With this testimony, Kıraç, even if he was one of the prosecution’s witnesses, demolished the charge of aiding organisations raised against our columnists and managers, but the court ordered the continuation of detention on abstract grounds.
Where is the suspicion?
The court, in copying the first interim decision on 28 July when it ordered the continuation of detention on 11 September, said once more that, “There exists strong suspicion of guilt.” It was asserted in the decision, from which there was a total absence of any indication as to what this suspicion was, that our five columnists and managers might intimidate the unheard witnesses. However, the witnesses who are among our paper’s current staff gave testimony at the 11 September session and, moreover, stated that the prosecution had cherry-picked from their statements. As the seven columnists and managers who were released on 28 July also have active duties on our paper, this makes nonsense of the possibility of witnesses being intimidated.
Non-appearance in court
The court ruled in its interim decision at the first session that Aydınlık columnist Alev Coşkun be heard as a witness at the hearing. On 1 November, the day after the operation against our paper was launched on 31 October 2016, he went to the police and made accusations about the paper’s editorial policy. However, Coşkun made an excuse and did not attend the hearing on 11 September. Should Coşkun fail to attend today’s hearing, to which the court has ordered he be brought forcibly, an order for his apprehension may be issued.