European Commission to call on Turkey to stop attacking journalists

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Commission in its annual enlargement report will tell Turkey to stop attacking investigative journalists and to back off on Cyprus gas exploration, according to EUobserver.

The report, due to be published on Wednesday (October 12), singles out Turkey in a general complaint about attempts to gag independent reporting in the Western Balkans, saying: "In Turkey, the legal framework does not yet sufficiently safeguard freedom of expression. A very high number of cases are brought against journalists and the number of journalists in detention is a concern."

Turkish reporters writing about sensitive issues, such as state links to underground Islamist movements, Kurdish minority rights and the 1915 Armenian Genocide, face prosecution and jail sentences under anti-terrorism laws in actions that undermine the country's image as a model Islamic democracy.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based NGO, in a survey earlier this year noted that 60 journalists are in prison while 62 were tried in media freedom cases in the first three months of this year.

Reporters Vedat Yildiz and Lokman Dayan in March received eight-year suspended sentences for covering a pro-Kurdish demonstration in southeast Turkey. Meanwhile, the decision in September to wrap up the investigation into the 2007 murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink is widely seen as an attempt to portray his young killer, Ogun Samast, as a 'lone wolf' extremist while making sure suspected links to government officials are not explored.