OSCE MEDIA FREEDOM REPRESENTATIVE URGES TURKEY TO STOP PROSECUTION OF A JOURNALIST FOR HIS INVESTIGATIVE BOOK ON THE MURDER OF FELLOW JOURNALIST HRANT DINK
ArmInfo
2009-06-18 18:41:00
ArmInfo. Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of
the Media, asked Turkish authorities today to drop charges against
journalist Nedim Sener for his investigative book on the murder of
fellow journalist Hrant Dink, and called for urgent reform of laws that
restrict freedom of expression, the OSCE ress-service reports. "Sener
is prosecuted in defiance of freedoms that both OSCE commitments and
Council of Europe standards grant to critical publications," wrote
Haraszti in a letter to Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "What he did
was critically assess the events leading up to Hrant Dink’s murder,
and the deficiencies afterwards in the handling of the case and in
the prosecution of the perpetrators."
"Justice must not be degraded into an act of revenge by the criticized
authorities," said Haraszti.
Sener, a journalist for newspaper Milliyet, faces up to 28 years
of imprisonment for writing a book, entitled The Dink Murder and
Intelligence Lies. The book alleges that security forces failed to
stop the murder of the well-known Turkish-Armenian writer in 2007,
and cites alleged incidents of negligence by gendarmerie, police and
national intelligence officers working on the case.
Hrant Dink had publicly discussed the killing of Armenians in 1915
in terms that went against the official Turkish interpretations of
history. For this, he was convicted in 2005 based on Article 301 of
the Criminal Code, "denigrating Turkishness’, and murdered in January
2007 by radical activists. The trial of the persons accused in his
murder still continues.