Turkish journalist slams the courts and media
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Faruk Can euronews:“We are joined by veteran journalist Yavuz Baydar. On the night of July 15, many Turks took to the streets to defend democracy. One year on… what is the state of of democracy in Turkey?”
Yavuz Baydar, Journalist:’‘The coup attempt has turned this year into a nightmare. I mean, what was left of Turkish democracy went down the drain in one night. It was like a collective suicide mission launched by a group of rogue military officers. However, everything continued with a counter-coup. The main question, which remains, is whether this coup attempt and military insurgence could have been stopped even before it started. We can still not get an answer to this key question?”
Faruk Can euronews: “What was the media’ reaction to the coup… in the immediate aftermath?”
Yavuz Baydar, Journalist:“The live coverage that night was dynamic and reactive enough, in terms of coovering the actual developments. However, when take a look with a wider perspective at the following days, weeks and months, because we have to do this. It is important to understand the media’s work in the long term. The media failed to address all the necessary questions from all sides of the story. Think,.. the coup attempt was not questioned in the build up nor after the event in any detail.”
Unfortunately Turkey’s outdated judicial system has always created problems. It was like that in the 1980’s and 90’s and it remains the same.
The trials that the now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan went through and his conviction and imprisonment for reading a provocative poem at a party gathering is just pointless, like the Ergenekon, Sledgehammer cases and now the ongoing coup cases. None of them deliver justice.
The fundamental principal is individual criminal responsibility, if a serious crime has been committed then the police and judiciary have to find those guilty one by one backed by convincing evidence and place those suspects in the dock and let them face trial.
Otherwise if they class people as belonging to a group and then put the people they hope are affiliated with them into the same basket and then detain them, mocking all European human rights treaties, for months, even years. It is no way to implement justice.”