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Preso
director de jornal turco por revelar entregas de armas aos jihadistas
PÚBLICO 26/11/2015
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Notícias
põem em causa ligações dos serviços secretos com a guerra na
Síria.
O director do jornal
turco Cumhuriyet, Can Dundar, e o responsável pela delegação em
Ankara, Erdem Gül, foram presos nesta quinta-feira e acusados de
“espionagem” e “divulgação de segredos de Estado”, por
terem publicado um vídeo em que, afirmavam, os serviços secretos
turcos estavam a entregar armas aos islamistas na Síria.
Este caso aconteceu
em Maio, e o Presidente Recep Tayyip Erdogan apresentou pessoalmente
queixa contra Can Dundar. “Ele vai pagar caro”, assegurou.
O vídeo provocou
uma tempestade na vida política turca. Um comboio de camiões dos
serviços secretos turcos tinha já sido interceptado no Sul da
Turquia em Janeiro de 2014 e este novo vídeo, afirmava o jornal,
associado à oposição de esquerda, mostrava armas e munições,
escondidas sob caixas de medicamentos.
O director do
Cumhuriyet recebeu na semana passada, em Estrasburgo (França), o
prémio para a Liberdade de Imprensa dos Repórteres Sem Fronteiras
(RSF) e da TV5 Monde. Na atribuição do galardão, as duas
instituições classificaram Dundar como alvo de “perseguição
política”. “Se estes jornalistas foram presos, será uma prova
suplementar de que o poder turco está pronto a usar métodos de
outros tempos para extinguir o jornalismo independente na Turquia”,
afirmava o comunicado da RSF e da TV5 Monde.
A Turquia é
frequentemente destacada, por maus motivos, nos relatórios sobre a
liberdade de imprensa e dos jornalistas.
Neste momento, no
entanto, este país de charneira entre a Europa e a Ásia está a ser
tratado com especial cuidado pelos países ocidentais, pelo seu papel
fundamental como fronteira da guerra na Síria. A Europa quer a sua
ajuda para conter a vaga de refugiados do Médio Oriente – no
domingo, o Presidente Erdogan é esperado em Bruxelas para uma
cimeira com a União Europeia, para discutir esse tema.
Quanto aos Estados
Unidos, querem manter Ancara como um aliado cooperante no seio da
NATO para lutar contra a ameaça terrorista representada pelo Estado
Islâmico. Erdogan, no entanto, tem como besta negra o Presidente
Bashar al-Assad e receia o crescimento das autonomias curdas na
Síria, temendo alimentar o independentismo dos curdos na Turquia.
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Turkish
Authorities Jail Two Journalists, Accusing Them of Espionage
Charges
center on newspaper report suggesting Turkish intelligence ferried
weapons to extremist Syrian rebels
By DION NISSENBAUM
And AYLA ALBAYRAK
Nov. 26, 2015 5:46
p.m. ET
ISTANBUL—The
respected editor of a prominent Turkish newspaper and one of his key
reporters have been detained, jailed and accused of espionage for a
controversial story about an alleged arms shipment from Turkish
intelligence to Syrian rebels.
Turkish authorities
on Thursday imprisoned Can Dündar, editor in chief of Cumhuriyet,
and Erdem Gül, the newspaper’s capital correspondent in Ankara, on
charges of spying and aiding a terrorist organization, the
newspaper’s attorney said. If convicted, the two men would face
life in prison over the charges.
The arrests are part
of a renewed crackdown on Turkish media since the political party
founded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan regained one-party rule
earlier this month.
They come on the
heels of a warning from the European Union that Turkey’s clampdown
on free media is jeopardizing its hopes of joining the organization.
Freedom of the press
has been steadily eroding in Turkey under Mr. Erdogan. Police have
closed opposition television stations, prosecutors have accused top
journalists of writing tweets or columns insulting the president, and
reporters have been beaten by mobs. The government is one of the
world’s leading censors of Twitter, which is used widely in Turkey
to criticize the government.
The arrests came one
week after the Turkish newspaper won this year’s Press Freedom
Prize from Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based press freedom
group.
On Thursday,
Reporters Without Borders said the arrests sent “an extremely grave
signal about media freedom in Turkey.”
“For the first
time, we’ve reached the level (of pressure on media in Turkey) that
such a prominent figure in Turkey’s mainstream media and television
for over 30 years is targeted,” said Erol Önderoğlu, the group’s
Turkish representative.
The charges center
on a Cumhuriyet report in May, including photos and video, suggesting
Turkish intelligence was secretly ferrying weapons to extremist
Syrian rebels.
The article sparked
a major furor in Turkey, which has long been accused by its critics
of secretly aiding in the growth of Islamic State militants based in
neighboring Syria.
Mr. Erdogan
personally sued Mr. Dündar, accused Cumhuriyet of spying and
releasing false information, warning in a television interview that
the journalist who wrote the piece would “pay a heavy price.”
Earlier this week,
the Turkish president again lashed out at the newspaper and suggested
that it had sabotaged the country’s support for moderate Turkmen
rebels in Syria.
On Thursday, before
his arrest, Mr. Dündar rejected the allegation that he was a spy.
After three hours of testimony, Mr. Dündar said the prosecutors were
focused on the wrong people.
“Who should be
judged is who committed the crime, not who wrote about it,” he
wrote on Twitter.
The arrests come as
Mr. Erdogan is facing renewed pressure to play a larger role in
cracking down on Islamic State extremists believed to be behind a
surge in global terrorists attacks, including the coordinated Paris
attacks earlier this month that left 130 people dead.
The two Cumhuriyet
journalists were accused of “political or military spying” by
reporting “classified information” and “deliberately aiding a
terrorist organization,”
Mr. Dündar said he
and his paper were “defending press freedom” in the face of
“lies” by the government.
Tora Pekin, one of
the newspaper’s lawyers, said the government waited until after the
recent parliamentary election to act against a prominent government
critic.
“After Erdogan’s
comments, for six months we waited for the arrests,” he said. “We
were 100% certain that Dündar and Gül would be arrested.”
Write to Dion
Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com and Ayla Albayrak at
ayla.albayrak@wsj.com
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