Articles by IPS Communication Foundation – Bianet
Access to YouTube website blocked three times in January over content “disrespectful of Turkishness”
(BIANET/IFEX) – After courts in Ankara and Sivas blocked access to the international video-sharing website YouTube in mid-January 2008, a court in Izmir blocked access to the site again on 30 January. The ban was subsequently lifted. On 17 January, the Ankara Twelfth Criminal Court of Peace ordered that access to YouTube be blocked. A […]
ECHR orders government to compensate free expression activist for imprisonment over statement on conscientious objector
(BIANET/IFEX) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has sentenced Turkey to pay Sanar Yurdatapan 3,500 Euros in compensation for violating his freedom of expression. He had been sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for a statement supporting conscientious objector Osman Murat Ülke. Yurdatapan, spokesperson for the Initiative against Crimes of Thought, was awarded 2,000 […]
Nine small newspapers fined for “influencing judiciary” in case of murdered publishing house employees; journalists investigated for publishing information on same case
(BIANET/IFEX) – Nine local newspapers, none with a circulation over 4,000, have been fined for “influencing the judiciary” in the Malatya murder case. The newspapers are refusing to pay and will collaborate on appealing the decision. The newspapers, which published a news item by the Ihlas News Agency (IHA) concerning the murders at the Zirve […]
Newspapers fined heavily for reporting on detained soldiers
(BIANET/IFEX) – In November 2007, the Gendarmerie Public Order Corps Command Military Court in Van, in rsouth-eastern Turkey, ordered a ban on all broadcasting and publication of information elated to the investigation of eight soldiers taken hostage by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on 21 October 2007 and released two weeks later. They were arrested […]
CAPSULE REPORT: More violations of free expression in 2007, says BIANET report
(BIANET/IFEX) – The following is an 18 January 2008 BIANET report: BIA 2007 Media Monitoring Report: A Sad Year For Free Speech The “BIA Annual Media Monitoring Report” for the year 2007 has been published in Turkish and will soon also appear in English. The 60-page report is divided into “attacks and threats”, “detentions and […]
Two women journalists critical of militarism targeted by nationalist newspaper
(BIANET/IFEX) – The nationalist “Tercuman” newspaper has targeted journalists Perihan Magden and Ece Temelkuran for expressing their anti-militarist opinions. BIANET fears that this is a frightening repeat of what happened to Hrant Dink. The “Halka ve Olaylara Tercuman” (“Interpreter of the People and Events”) newspaper was one of the newspapers which did not cover the […]
Editor on trial for publishing article mentioning Ataturk, faces possible prison sentence
(BIANET/IFEX) – Yasin Yetisgen, managing editor of the local newspaper “Coban Atesi” (“Shepherd’s Fire”) in Gaziantep, faces up to seven and a half years in prison for publishing an article containing references to Ataturk. The article was written by a journalist, Berkant Coskun, who lives abroad, and was entitled “Mother, Don’t Send Me to Military […]
ECHR condemns censorship under emergency law, awards compensation to journalists
(BIANET/IFEX) – The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has awarded compensation to journalists who were punished under emergency law and whose newspaper was banned in the Emergency Law regions. The ECHR considered the cases of journalists from the “Evrensel” and “Günlük Evrensel” newspapers on 8 January 2008. The court decreed that the punishment of […]