WAN-IFRA: Closely Monitoring Situation In Turkey

Following a proliferation of statements decrying Tuesday's police raids at Koza İpek Holding's headquarters in Ankara as part of a government-led crackdown on independent media, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) has called on the government to refrain from any further media operations, especially ahead of the snap election in November.

WAN-IFRA Secretary-General Larry Kilman said in a statement to the Cihan news agency that the global press organization, which represents more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online websites and more than 3,000 companies in some 120 countries, is “closely” monitoring the situation in Turkey.

Auditors accompanied by a police escort conducted a raid on the offices of Koza İpek Holding in Ankara on Tuesday morning as simultaneous raids on subsidiaries of the group were being carried out elsewhere as part of a media crackdown initiated by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) – a situation that Twitter whistleblower Fuat Avni recently predicted.

Turkish dailies Bugün and Millet, TV stations Bugün TV and Kanaltürk and the website BGNNews.com are all subsidiaries of the İpek Media Group owned by Koza İpek Holding.

Among the locations raided at about 8 a.m. on Tuesday were İpek University and the headquarters of Koza İpek Holding. As part of the operation the police also raided a construction and engineering firm that once built a building on the campus of İpek University.

WAN-IFRA also noted the issue in its monthly newsletter published on Wednesday, which read: "With charges of terrorism leveled at journalists, and regular court cases and police raids against media houses, the Turkish state is stepping up its attacks and intimidation of the press as snap elections scheduled for November approach."

US National Press Club calls on Turkish gov't to stop persecuting journalists

Furthermore, the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., has said that the government must stop using the police and judicial system to suppress freedom of expression.

A statement by President John Hughes of the National Press Club on Wednesday also denounced the raids on Koza İpek Holding. It read: “Turkey, the world is watching -- the government must stop using the police and judicial system to suppress free expression.”

Touching on the recent arrest of two British journalists who work for Vice News on charges of “aiding a terrorist organization,” Hughes said: “Turkey must release the Vice journalists and their assistant, and show restraint in aggression against the Turkish press as an election approaches.”

The arrested journalists have said they are only journalists and have no relation to either the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or the radical terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

“Intimidation of journalists through false charges and phony raids is outrageous. Reporters must be free to do their jobs,” Hughes' statement continued.

National Association of Hungarian Journalists harshly criticizes raids

The head of the National Association of Hungarian Journalists, Gabor Komlosi, said in a statement to the Cihan news agency that they received news of the raids with “sorrow.”

Komlosi said the association condemns the operations aimed at silencing free media. “The shocking developments recently in Turkey and the raids against free media openly show that the aim of the Turkish government is to intimidate and silence the media,” he said.

Sıddıkullah Tevhidi, head of the Open Media in Afghanistan NAI, and Mujahid Andarabi, the news editor of the private Channel 1 in Afghanistan, jointly criticized the raids.

“In our age, the media and press have turned our whole world into a small village. Therefore, free media cannot and will not be silenced. To abolish the freedom of speech is to walk towards dictatorship,” they said in a joint statement.

In a further sign that the government-led raid against independent media in Turkey has appalled the world's media, the Kosovo Media Institute said in a statement on Wednesday that pressure against the media is a violation of democracy.

Fazli Veliu, the head of the institute, said that the “media has the right to report the truth even if it displeases some people.”

(Cihan/Today's Zaman)