Justice is banished, law is suspended!

Erhan Başyurt

They have banished “justice” from the country to avoid being called to account. They have handcuffed police officers who had caught criminals red-handed.

Unlawful acts come one after another now.

We begin each day with a new example of “decline” that makes us say “This is way too much!”

Media groups are raided.

Club-swinging and stone-pelting mobs carry out organized attacks.

Journalists are beaten by “organized crime gangs.”

A police officer holds a gun to the head of a reporter.

Journalists are jailed for the script of a TV series or a column.

First, the media was forced to apply “self-censorship” through pressure and intimidation.

Now it is forced into blatant “censorship” by using violence and law as a stick.

Publicly controlled digital platforms Tivibu and Turkcell switched off independent TV channels.

And now Digiturk, which was secretly sold by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) to a Qatar-based company, removed 7 channels from its platform.

A prosecutor is said to have sent a written request to Digiturk, while there was no court decision, as part of an ongoing investigation.

Digiturk regarded the request as an “order”, though the prosecutor had no such power.

As I noted above, they banished justice. It’s no use looking for logic and legality anymore.

A crime against the Constitution is committed through a prosecutor at the Bureau for Crimes against the Constitutional Order.

Besides, one of the removed channels is Yumurcak TV. In other words, the prosecutor appears to have feared cartoon characters and worried about pre-school kids “establishing an armed terrorist organization.”

The prosecutor sent a written request to Digiturk, and the unknown Qatari financers deemed it an “order.”

I warn you; that Gültekin Avcı was charged with “establishing and managing an armed terrorist organization, plotting to topple the government, and military espionage” for 7 columns and eventually arrested without presenting any evidence makes it possible to arrest every journalist on the ground of “terrorism.”

I warn you; that a prosecutor had independent channels removed and a private enterprise obeyed his order makes it possible to switch off all channels. Currently there are channels and media groups facing similar investigations.

I warn you; evidences and grounds offered in recently accepted bills of indictment (Arrested Judges, Tahşiye and Dec. 25) are terrible. Anyone can be accused through HTS (telephone signal) records, without evidence, just because he was within the range of the same base station. You may face terrorism charges due to not only the person you talked to but also to the persons with whom your interlocutor talked to. Moreover, “automatic shopping messages” coming from abroad are presented as your foreign connections.

As I said before, they banished justice and suspended the law.

There is no need for law or evidence anymore. When “the wolf is determined to devour the lamb”, he finds a pretext easily.

Actually, this is not surprising.

What needs to be answered is: Why isn’t there a deterrent and joint democratic reaction while people’s freedoms are taken away one by one, while justice is banished and law is turned into the government’s stick, while the media through which the opposition can reach people are narrowed in a planned way, while oppression and persecution expand in waves?

Published on BGNNews, 8 October 2015, Thursday