Turkey sentences journalists to prison over Charlie Hebdo cartoons

[drunkenshoe]

Turkey sentences journalists to prison over Charlie Hebdo cartoons

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/28/turkey-sentences-journalists-to-prison-over-charlie-hebdo-cartoo/

Turkey sentenced two columnists to prison for two years on Thursday for illustrating articles with cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

A court in Istanbul convicted Hikmet Cetinkaya and Ceyda Karan with fomenting "hatred and enmity in the people via means of the press.” Bulent Utku, the journalists’ lawyer, said they would be appealing the sentence.

The cartoons in Cumhuriyet, an opposition newspaper, sparked outrage in sections of Turkish society when they were published in January last year as a gesture of solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, days after a massacre at the Parisian office by Islamist gunmen.

Turkish police had stopped and searched Cumhuriyet trucks as they left the printing press  and protesters in Istanbul later burned copies of the newspaper.

The case was pressed by lawyers linked to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, and several members of his family. Mr Erdogan himself was jailed for “inciting religious hatred” in 1998, after reciting a poem attributed to the Ottoman writer Ziya Gökalp.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr Cetinkaya and Ms Karan would serve time in jail. Turkish courts frequently issue suspended sentences for such violations, meaning the convicted are free unless they repeat the offense.

But the sentencing comes amid a mushrooming crackdown on Turkish and international news media within the country. According to PEN International, some 28 writers and journalists were either detained or imprisoned in Turkey at the end of 2015 while more than 100 remained on trial, most for national security offenses.

Cumhuriyet’s editor-in-chief, Can Dündar, and the paper’s Ankara bureau chief, Erdem Gül, are currently on trial on trial behind closed doors on charges of revealing state secrets and could face multiple life sentences if found guilty.

International trial monitors and press freedom groups have condemned those proceedings, describing the case as an instance in which “journalism is on trial”.

In recent months, Turkey’s media crackdown has become increasingly intertwined with Europe’s attempts to cooperate with Ankara as part of a pact designed to prevent the mass movement of refugees into the continent.

Germany’s prime minister,  Angela Merkel, has been criticised for allowing a case to be pursued against a German comedian, after Turkey filed a formal complaint under a rarely used German law that prohibits insulting foreign leaders.

The Dutch foreign minister, Bert Koenders, also warned on Tuesday that the Netherlands could not guarantee the safety of citizens travelling to Turkey if they have been critical of Turkish leaders.

I think their sentence is two years each.

[Baruch]

Too bad they didn't arrest all the journalists ... everywhere ;-)  I really don't care for the crappy way they go about their business ... being hideous syncophants at one extreme and annoying gadflies at the other.  With the Internet, we need them less and less.

[drunkenshoe]

Honey, you are really talking out of your ass sometimes. 

[GrinningYMIR]

He's a smart ass anti everything who likes to hear himself talk and hear how people react. That's how he always was.

[drunkenshoe]

He's a smart ass anti everything who likes to hear himself talk and hear how people react. That's how he always was.

Baruch? He is not even serious half the time.


How are you, by the way?

[GrinningYMIR]

Baruch? He is not even serious half the time.


How are you, by the way?



I'm lurking mainly. Work is keeping me busy. How're you

[drunkenshoe]

I was worried about you. Dropped a line but you didn't get online or wanted to talk, so I am not pushing.

I am OK. I'll move to the summer house in a week. Counting days. At the mo, I am jobless. Waiting for a translation to be published but I don't think I'll go on with this job.

[GrinningYMIR]

I was worried about you. Dropped a line but you didn't get online or wanted to talk, so I am not pushing.

I am OK. I'll move to the summer house in a week. Counting days. At the mo, I am jobless. Waiting for a translation to be published but I don't think I'll go on with this job.

Feel free to message me whenever, I miss you.
I'm still on hangours and can Skype again
Just on work

[gentle_dissident]

Too bad they didn't arrest all the journalists

Obama has set a record in that department. Turns out he was just kidding about that whistle blower thing.

[Baruch]

Obama has set a record in that department. Turns out he was just kidding about that whistle blower thing.

They never seem to notice when a President winks, or when I end a sentence with ;-).  But really, is there anyone who can praise current journalism?  Is it like politics, where the least smell crap wins?