Country of origin information report Turkey March 2007

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15.11 As reported on 28 February 2006 by Reporters without Borders (RSF):
“Reporters Without Borders said today it was very concerned about two women journalists of the pro-Kurdish news agency DIHA, Evrim Dengiz and Nesrin Yazar, accused by police of making fire-bombs allegedly found in their car. They face life imprisonment. Their car was stopped by anti-terrorist police in Mersin (300 km south of Ankara) on 15 February after they had covered a demonstration marking the seventh anniversary of the detention of Kurdish separatist leader Abdullah Öcalan, head of the of PKK/Kongra-Gel party. They were taken away from the car while it was searched, after which a policeman said he had found fire-bombs in it and accused them of making them for the demonstration. They were arrested and a judge later declared the case secret and the Mersin prosecutor called for life imprisonment under article 302-1 of the criminal code for ‘undermining the unity or independence of the state and nation.’ The article excludes any possibility of amnesty.” [11b]
15.12 Reporters without Borders (RSF) in their 2007 annual report further noted that:
“Amendments to the country’s anti-terrorist law that were approved by parliament on 29 June also threatened freedom of expression by allowing imprisonment for printing news about ‘terrorist organisations’ and raised fears of unjustified prosecution of journalists who dared to mention the subject. Rüstu Demirkaya, of the pro-Kurdish news agency Diha, was jailed on 14 June in the eastern town of Tunceli for ‘collaborating with the PKK/Kongra-Gel’ after a former militant reportedly accused him of giving the PKK a laptop and 10 blank CDs and telling the party about an ongoing military operation. He faces up to 12 years in prison.” [11c]
15.13 As reported by BBC News on 19 January 2007:
“A prominent Turkish-Armenian editor, convicted in 2005 of insulting Turkish identity, has been shot dead outside his newspaper's office in Istanbul… Dink, the editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish and Armenian weekly Agos newspaper, was one of Turkey's most prominent Armenian voices… Dink, 53, was found guilty more than a year ago of insulting Turkish identity after he wrote an article which addressed the mass killings of Ottoman Armenians nine decades ago.” [66f]
15.14 As reported by BIA News Center on 11 July 2006:
“The 2006 2nd Quarterly Report prepared by the ‘Network in Turkey for Monitoring and Covering Media Freedom and Independent Journalism’ - BIA² Media Monitoring Desk and covering the months of April, May and June discloses factual details on the situation of the media in relation to rights and freedoms. The 12-page BIA² report discloses that 56 new ‘Freedom of Expression’ have been launched against 67 individuals from April through June as the government still seeks to impose new restrictions. While the reforms on the road to European Union membership were important steps for freedom of expression the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has not only ignored the grave consequences created by the Criminal Code in just a year but has even passed a new form of the Anti-Terror Law (TMY) knowing it only brought more sentences at the ECHR in the past and does so today too says the report.” [102a]