Turkish magazine raided, copies collected for ‘insulting’ Erdoğan
According the Hürriyet Daily News, Istanbul based Turkish magazine Nokta has been raided by police officers reportedly due to its latest issue, which shows President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan taking a selfie near a killed soldier’s coffin, with copies of the issue confiscated ahead of delivery upon an Istanbul prosecutor’s office decision.
The magazine’s editor-in-chief, Cevheri Güven, said on Twitter on Sept. 14 that police officers came to their office twice, once at around midnight and again in the early morning of Sept. 14.
“Police arrived at our doorstep. It’s 1:30 a.m. I think [copies of] Nokta will be confiscated,” Güven tweeted at around midnight. “Police at Nokta’s doorstep at 1:30 a.m., it’s 8:30 a.m. and police are again at the doorstep.”
The magazine’s chief news editor Murat Çapan was also detained on charges of “insulting the Turkish president” and “making terrorist propaganda.” He was sent to court with a demand to be arrested.
The copies were published and sent to delivery centers, Nokta Magazine Publication Coordinator Ertuğrul Erbaş said. “Copies [of Nokta’s 18th issue] were confiscated at delivery centers,” Erbaş said, adding that copies could not be delivered to individual stores.
The magazine’s lawyer, Kadir Kökten, said a criminal court of peace under administration of the Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office should have issued a ruling to authorize police to confiscate the copies but no ruling has yet been issued.
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, commented on the raids against Nokta.
“Ban, raids and arrest at Nokta worsen an already worrying situation [of] freedom of expression in Turkey. Authorities must keep the media free,” he tweeted via his official Twitter account on Sept. 14.
Bizim Anadolu / September 14th. 2015
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