Chief Judge Becomes Editor-in-Chief

Kayseri 6^th Assize Court ruled initially “provisional injunction” about the news story of Kayseri Deniz Postası (a local news website), which has not been published. When the news website objected the rule, the court asked for seeing the news story.

Kayseri Deniz Postası News Website announced on 19-20 November that they would publish a news story about an incident occurred in a health care organization. The story was going to be published on 24 November and there was only the announcement about that on the website.

Injunction against an unpublished news story

Azim Deniz, the executive person of Kayseri Deniz Postası, informed bianet that the health care organization initially sued for an injunction of the unpublished news story and Kayseri 6^th Assize Court ruled the provisional injunction in one day.

Chief judge’s demand for glimpse of the news story

After Kayseri Deniz Postası objected the decision, the court “requested for a copy of the new story immediately” in order to skim the story.

Deniz: We won’t send our news story

Having stated that they are not going to send the story to the court, Deniz reminded today in their press release that any newspaper and press were controlled by censors in accordance with the censor enactment passed in 1876.

“In 1908, during the time of Abdul Hamid II, at the night of 2^nd Constitution was declared, Ahmet Cevdet and Mihran Efendi, respectively the owners of Ikdam and Sabah Newspaper prevented the censors from getting the drafts of newspaper by saying “Newspapers Are Free and Censor is Forbidden”. Since 24 June 1908, removal of censor has been celebrated as press fest.

“In new Turkey model, freedom of press has come to make the parties in power glad.

“We, workers of Deniz Postası, are refusing to hand our news stories in chief judge Cemal Tayyar Sevük beforehand as Ahmet Cevdet and Mihran Efendi did in 1908.

“Chief Judge Cemal Tayyar Sevük committed a constitutional crime. 28^th article of the constitution orders that “The press is free and it cannot be censored. The government takes precautions for protection of the press and news articles.” Therefore, we wanted to share our protest with our colleagues because the unpublished news stories will start to be frequently controlled by chief judges in New Turkey model and the censor in 1876 will appear again."

Deniz stated that they will maintain their struggle. (MUY/ÇT)

* Click here to read the article in Turkish.