The Van criteria in journalism

The 1990’s was the era of “murders by unknown perpetrators,” including many murders of journalists.

Today, by contrast, self-congratulation is the order of the day now that people are not being thrown into acid pits. But, at the same time, this is an era in which four journalists find themselves detained due to reports of the throwing of people from a helicopter. The journalists arrested following this report, Adnan Bilen, Cemil Uğur, Şehriban Abi and Nazan Sala, were detained on “organization membership” charges.

Included within Van Penal Judgeship of the Peace No 3’s detention order are such phrases as “By reporting social events detrimental to the state” and “The suspects’ having given coverage in a manner that displays continuity, variety and intensity.” What these criteria tell us is that the duty of journalists is to report news favourable to the state “in a manner that displays continuity, variety and intensity” and the reverse is a crime!

Subsequently, the court bench presents us with another deranged journalistic criterion: “The press cards the suspects alleged to possess had no official validity and a valid press card can only be given to persons who satisfy the conditions that the Directorate of Communications of the Presidency lays down and, naturally enough, since they did not satisfy the prevailing conditions, the suspects were not ascertained to be members of the press…”

This means that hundreds of journalists, including press organization chairs who have yellow press cards but whose cards could not be renewed, are not in fact journalists. The others are simply not. Hundreds of journalists, including our colleagues who work for foreign press outlets, are not journalists despite carrying internationally valid press cards. Had this cropped up among coffee shop chatter, we would have laughed and moved on, but in this country journalists are being detained on these criteria.

I have known our colleagues who were detained in Van for many years and I spoke to Murat Timur, lawyer of twenty-year journalist Adnan Bilen. He said, “I’ve completed nineteen years in this profession. And this is an exceptional case from my standpoint.” Attorney Murat Timur, who also put in three terms as Van Bar Association Chair, noted, “The determinations of the counterterrorism directorate are identical to those contained in the indictment,” and went on to say he believed this investigation was being conducted from higher up, and his detailed findings relating to journalism also provided examples.

Saying, “It is clearly apparent from the law enforcement agencies’ manner that this case has to do with the report on the throwing of people from a helicopter,” attorney Timur, noting that his client Bilen had been prosecuted for the offence of “propaganda” in 2018 whereby he was awarded a deferred sentence, and his social media posts had also been presented as evidence of organization membership in this case, added, “We said there can be no double jeopardy, but were told, ‘Such a ruling may have been passed at that time, but we can rule in conjunction with today’s evidence deeming continuity to have been exhibited’.”

Can the investigating prosecutor conducting such a case be expected to care whether he has fulfilled the obligation imposed on republic prosecutors under the provision of Article 160/2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure number 5271 to (also) gather evidence which is favourable to the suspect and to protect the suspects’ rights?

The unheeded evidentiary component in the investigation is in any case a total calamity. Bilen only posted the report about people being thrown from a helicopter on his social media account. He was asked why he made such a report despite the existence of a reporting ban. And he said that he made the post on 20 September, one day before the reporting ban, and the ban was imposed a day later. But no regard was even paid to this.

Bilen was asked about two phone calls he had made in the past three months. One was the call he had with lawyer Gülizar Tuncer to do with a report. Indicating that Gülizar Tuncer was also a colleague of his acquaintance, Timur reiterated that it was peculiar to ask about this as if it were a crime. As to the other phone call, this had to do with the Van-Hakkari Medical Chamber Chair being summoned to make statement in connection with a comment he had made and Adnan Bilen phoning him once more for reporting purposes. So, if the power holders are piqued by their comments and medical chambers’ chairs are summoned to make statement, journalists should also not call them to get the story. How is that for a criterion?

Let us tie in the following with the news of throwing people from a helicopter featuring in the investigation. The first provincial governate comment on Kemal Kurkut, the university student killed by police at the entry to the Newroz rally venue in Diyarbakır in 2017, was, “Intervention was made with him treated as a potential suicide bomber since he was running into the venue knife in hand saying there was a bomb in his bag and he would kill everyone.” However, Dicle News Agency Reporter Abdurrahman Gök documented with photographs relating to the moment of the incident that this was anything but the truth. Subsequently, Diyarbakır Governor Hüseyin Aksoy announced, “We would not have wished for it to end this way.”

Hence, in short, “reporting bans” are wrong and the correct thing is for the event to be discussed and for all ensuing conclusions to be implemented. And: release our colleagues; journalism is not a crime! Full stop.

(Translated by Tim Drayton)