Turkey's spy agency files complaint against journalists for critical interview

Turkey's intelligence agency has filed complaints against a number of people, including journalists working with Rotahaber, a news website, a reporter linked with a local news portal in the southern province of Adana and an individual affiliated with Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, Halit Esendir, over alleged insults and slander against the intelligence organization and its chief.

The National Intelligence Organization (MİT) filed a complaint against journalists and the individual at the office of Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor on April 7, the Turkish media reported.

MİT said in its complaint that Halit Esendir, one of the three founders of the faith-based Hizmet (Service) movement along with Gülen, allegedly insulted the spy agency in its interview with Ahmet Memiş and Umut Yavuz from Rotahaber on March 25 ahead of local polls.

The wording Esendir used against Turkey's spy agency, MİT claimed, goes beyond the boundaries of free expression and criticism and constitutes a crime due to Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) designed by the Law No: 5237, which defines crimes concerning insulting state institutions and bodies.

The legal move by MİT is the latest in a series of steps by the government and state institutions to stifle any critical voice in the media, and reflects a new pattern in state practices that leaves no room for dissent.

In a similar move, this time by the Interior Ministry, an indictment sent to a Turkish court on Thursday is seeking a prison sentence between one and four years for prominent Taraf journalist Mehmet Baransu on charges that he uttered slanderous remarks against Interior Minister Efkan Ala.

The Anadolu Chief Public Prosecutor's Office Press Bureau submitted the indictment to the Second Anadolu Court of First Instance. If the court accepts the indictment, Baransu will be prosecuted in the coming days, Taraf daily said on Thursday. Baransu also faces other criminal complaints and proceedings from MİT after he published minutes of the 2004 meeting of the National Security Council (MGK) in December last year.

In his interview, which prompted MİT to file the complaint, Esendir argued that MİT has been beyond any legal oversight and jurisdiction over the past 30 years and involved in some clandestine missions and dirty practices during that time.

The immunity shield provided by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to MİT, according to Esendir, will only encourage the agency to carry out any operation outside the boundaries of the law.

Erdoğan is misled by MİT and its allegedly pro-Iranian head Hakan Fidan, Esendir argued, in many major political issues plunging the country into political turmoil.(

Published on Cihan, 13 April 2014, Sunday