TELEPHONE TAPPING

The prosecutors dealing with the investigation into the clandestine Ergenekon terror organization added some documents to the file of the second indictment which, according to Cumhuriyet newspaper, reveal that the newspaper's empoyees "were wiretapped improperly and illegally".

Cumhuriyet, one of Turkey's biggest daily newspapers, claims that the entire contents of the telephone conversations made on duty by reporters Fırat Kozok and İlhan Taşçı have been put into the file. They have also noticed that the decisions about wiretapping Mustafa Balbay have been under examination. Balbay is the Ankara correspondent of Cumhuriyet and currently detained in connection with the Ergenekon case.

Turkey Journalists Association (TGC) chairman Orhan Erinç said that the telephone tapping of the journalist's office and the central office of the newspaper means "ignorance of freedom of the press and of freedom of expression".

"Two judges decided to wiretapp the newspaper's office"

The newspaper explained that it was decided on 14 April 2008 to wiretap now detained Balbay's mobile phone for three months. On 22 September 2008 it was decided to tap a second mobile phone. Afterwards it was announced that the Istanbul 14^th High Criminal Court judge Yakup Hakan Günay decided on 27 November 2008 to wiretap Cumhuriyet's central office in Ankara and record the conversations, although the judge was aware of the previous tapping decision.

On 18 December 2008 Istanbul 10th High Criminal Court judge Davut Bedir extended the phone tapping of the numbers and the recording of the conversations until 22 March 2009.

File contains talks with members of RTÜK and CHP

According to the statement, the file includes contents of communications concerning journalist Balbay. Furthermore, it includes the transcript of a conversation between reporter Fırat Kozok and a member of the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) and a transcript of a conversation recorded a few weeks before the local elections on 29 March between journalist İlhan Taşçı and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu from the Republican People's Party (CHP), then candidate for the head position of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

The news had it as follows: "Since these people have nothing to do with the investigation and the case, and since the contents of the conversations have no relevance to the investigation, the intention and the reason for including the transcripts into the file are incomprehensible".

"The people who have caused this illegal and unlawful phone tapping scandal for the Cumhuriyet newspaper must be hold responsible not only by the newspaper, but this will also be an important test on the rule of law and freedom of the press".

Erinç: Wiretapping abolished freedom of the press

Erinç pointed out that telephone tapping in the course of any criminal investigation can only be done on legal ways and in accordance with the law code. He continued: "It is against the fundamental human rights that people all over Turkey are worried, nervous and feel repressions of insecurity because of being telephone tapped. This contradiction in Turkey is common place and counts for the normal system, but evidently violates human rights."

"The newspaper telephone tapping violates everybody's right to learn the facts and to obtain information and it is actually a deprivation of the right for freedom of speech for everybody who lives in Turkey. This is an interference. It cannot be expected from anybody to explain such unlawfulness through the judiciary or through the excuse of a criminal investigation. For this reason nobody can be considered safe in a society where freedom of the press has been eliminated by the mentality of tapping". (EÖ/VK)