While charges are becoming espionage

The part of the Turkish media that can protect its freedom is reliving the scenes of 10 years ago with approximately the same content and methods. Maybe it will be surprising, but while those who arrested have been changing, those who were arrested have not been changing.

It was known that those who were arrested 10 years ago were the Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FETÖ), which later attempted a military coup to seize the state completely. The main content of the accusations at that time was "to establish and manage a terrorist organization using the methods of journalism, to seize public administration." According to the 134-page indictment, the "Center for Terrorist Organization" was website www.odatv.com, and its members were scientists, police chiefs, intelligence officers, journalists, and writers.

A 134-page indictment was prepared as a result of the investigation, in which about 20 people were arrested.

Professor Yalçın Küçük, the No. 1 suspect in the terrorist organization, not only said to the TRT announcer who read the indictment at the first hearing of the court, "Madame, you read so well that I feel guilty from the beginning," but also turned his face to the prosecutor and added, "If the Republic of Turkey is a state, let it come out with an indictment written by the public prosecutor, not a police assistant,” and declared the process was biased from the beginning. The first group of suspects was released after 13 months, and another group after 20 months. The last remaining police chief, Hanefi Avcı, was imprisoned for 3.5 years in this process.

Intelligence officer Kaşif Kozinoğlu died suddenly a few days before his defense in court, and his defense speech was later published in book form. (Kaşif Kozinoğlu served in Baku with a special task force of the Turkish Armed Forces in 1992 for a while, and after being transferred to the General Intelligence Agency in 1995, he was targeted for his uncompromising struggle against the FETÖ organization in Central Asia and Afghanistan). At the end of the 74-month investigation and trial processes, all members of the "terrorist organization" consisting of scientists, police, journalists, and writers were acquitted.

It may not be convincing for those who do not follow Turkey, but some of the journalists who were detained in prison by FETÖ in 2011 for some time are now under re-investigation. This time, most of the journalists accused of "writing intelligence secret and military espionage" are again employees of www.odatv.com. Editor-in-Chief Barış Pehlivan, News Director Barış Terkoğlu, Ankara News Director Müyesser Yıldız were arrested for the second time in 10 years. Odatv's Manisa correspondent Hülya Kılıç and Yeni Çağ newspaper’s columnist Murat Ağırel are among the journalists arrested this time.

National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar filed a complaint against Müyesser Yıldız, who was imprisoned for 16 months in 2011-2012. Yıldız herself sued Minister of Internal Affairs, Süleyman Soylu, on June 5. The scheme of 10 years ago still works: despite the fact that the indictment has not been prepared, the media, which unconditionally supports the government, shares its accusations with readers every day about those who are in prison or still in police custody. According to that media, it is her fault that Müyesser Yıldız did not report the "intelligence materials" obtained in an open telephone conversation. Minister of Justice, Abdülhamid Gül, reacted by saying, "The fact that a journalist has been arrested for not writing a news will go down in the history of the world press," but neither the prosecutor nor the judge took these words into account. 10 years later, journalists are being sent back to prison in Turkey. While the content of the accusations against them was "terrorism" 10 years ago, now it is "espionage".

Look, the most frightening aspect of these processes for Turkish democracy is the accusations of "espionage" against journalists and intellectuals. These accusations make us even more concerned because the Soviet dictator Stalin destroyed 1 million intellectuals with this accusation. I remember that in March 2008, when the important journalist and writer İlhan Selçuk was taken into police custody from his home in the early morning, I wrote an article in the Russian press entitled "Turkey's 1937", hoping that that despicable year would not be experienced in Turkey.

Charges of "espionage" have reduced my hopes...