Tag Archives: Journalists

Turkey detains more journalists in clampdown on cleric’s followers

Turkish journalist Nazli Ilicak is escorted by a police officer and her relatives after being detained and brought to a hospital for a medical check in Bodrum

By Daren Butler and Orhan Coskun

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey ordered another 47 journalists detained on Wednesday, part of a large-scale crackdown on suspected supporters of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Ankara of masterminding a failed military coup.

Turkey has suspended, detained or placed under investigation more than 60,000 soldiers, judges, teachers, journalists and others suspected of ties to Gulen’s movement since the July 15-16 coup, which was staged by a faction within the military.

Turkey’s army General Staff on Wednesday put the number of soldiers belonging to the Gulen network who took part in the coup attempt at 8,651, roughly about 1.5 percent of the armed forces, broadcaster NTV reported.

Gulen has denied any involvement in the failed coup.

Turkey’s capital markets board said on Tuesday it had revoked the license of the head of research at brokerage AK Investment and called for him to face charges over a report he wrote to investors analyzing the July 15 coup.

Western governments and human rights groups, while condemning the abortive coup in which at least 246 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured, have expressed alarm over the extent of the crackdown, suggesting President Tayyip Erdogan may be using it to stifle dissent and tighten his grip on power.

The detention of journalists ordered on Wednesday involved columnists and other staff of the now defunct Zaman newspaper, a government official said. Authorities in March shut down Zaman, widely seen as the Gulen movement’s flagship media organization.

“The prosecutors aren’t interested in what individual columnists wrote or said,” said the official, who requested anonymity. “At this point, the reasoning is that prominent employees of Zaman are likely to have intimate knowledge of the Gulen network and as such could benefit the investigation.”

However, the list includes journalists, such as Sahin Alpay, known for their leftist activism who do not share the religious world view of the Gulenist movement. This has fueled concerns that the investigation may be turning into a witch-hunt of the president’s political opponents.

On Monday, media reported that arrest warrants had been issued for 42 other journalists, 16 of whom have so far been taken into custody.

Alpay is a former official of Turkey’s left-leaning, secularist main opposition CHP party. The Dogan news agency said police raided his home in Istanbul early on Wednesday and detained him after a 2-1/2 hour search of the property.

SPIRIT OF UNITY

Erdogan’s ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and opposition parties, usually bitterly divided, have demonstrated a rare spirit of unity since the abortive coup and are seeking consensus on constitutional amendments partly aimed at “cleansing” the state apparatus of Gulenist supporters.

A senior AK Party official said on Wednesday they were discussing plans to increase parliamentary control of a key state body that appoints judges and prosecutors.

Also on Wednesday a government official said Turkish special forces were still hunting in hills around the Mediterranean resort of Marmaris for a group of 11 commandos thought to have tried to capture or kill Erdogan on the night of the coup.

Erdogan was holidaying in Marmaris at the time and only narrowly avoided capture before flying to Istanbul where he rallied his supporters who helped to defeat the coup plotters.

Erdogan, a popular but polarizing figure who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, will chair an annual meeting of the Supreme Military Council (YAS) on Thursday after vowing to restructure the armed forces following the coup.

The military said 35 planes, including 24 fighter jets, 37 helicopters, 74 tanks and three ships had been used by the coup plotters, NTV reported.

In Greece, authorities on Wednesday postponed hearings for eight Turkish soldiers who sought asylum there after fleeing Turkey. The men – three majors, three captains and two sergeant majors – deny being involved in the coup but Turkey has branded them “traitors” and is demanding their extradition.

Erdogan has signaled Turkey might restore the death penalty in the wake of the failed coup, citing strong public support for such a move, though the European Union has made clear this would scupper Ankara’s decades-old bid to join the bloc.

PIVOT TO MOSCOW

Turkish officials have complained of what they perceive as a lack of support from the EU over the coup, while European leaders have urged Ankara to show restraint and a sense of proportion in bringing those responsible to justice.

The attempted coup has also tested Turkey’s ties with its NATO ally the United States, where Gulen has lived in self-imposed exile since 1999. Responding to Turkey’s request for Gulen’s swift extradition, Washington has said Ankara must first provide clear evidence of his involvement in the coup.

The strains with the EU and the United States have coincided with Turkey’s renewed push to repair ties with Russia, badly hurt last November by the Turkish downing of a Russian jet near Syria and Moscow’s subsequent imposition of trade sanctions.

On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said his talks with Russian officials this week on improving bilateral relations had taken place “in a very positive atmosphere”.

Simsek, respected by Western investors as a safe pair of hands in guiding the Turkish economy, also said he saw no reason to downgrade Turkey’s credit rating following the coup. Standard & Poor’s recently downgraded the sovereign debt outlook to negative from stable and Moody’s has said it will review the rating for a possible downgrade.

(Additional reporting by Ercan Gurses in Ankara and Ayla Jean Yackley and Nick Tattersall in Istanbul; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by David Dolan and Peter Millership)

Document spells out FBI rules to get journalists’ phone records: article

FBI headquarters

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation is allowed to seek journalists’ phone records with the approval of two government officials through a secretive surveillance process that does not require a warrant, The Intercept website reported on Thursday, citing a classified document.

The document, which The Intercept published without citing sources, was described as a classified appendix of the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG) and was dated Oct. 16, 2013. The related document is at http://bit.ly/295HIpY.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the document.

FBI spokesman Christopher Allen said in an emailed reply to a Reuters request for comment, “We post a redacted version of the DIOG on our website. I am not in a position to comment or authenticate any other version.” Allen referred to an FBI website regarding the agency’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide. http://1.usa.gov/1QleO9n

“Because the DIOG governs sensitive operations and investigations, not all of its contents can be released,” Allen wrote.

“As a result I am not able to comment on how, or whether, the DIOG is updated as laws, Guidelines, or technology change. However, the FBI periodically reviews and updates the DIOG as needed,” he said.

Allen said the FBI’s DIOG remained consistent with guidelines from the U.S. attorney general.

The Intercept is an online publication launched in 2014 by First Look Media, which was created and funded by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. The editors are Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill, who were all involved in breaking the Edward Snowden story.

The Intercept reported that, according to the document, pursuing a journalist’s call data with a national security letter requires the consent of the FBI’s general counsel and the executive assistant director of its national security branch, in addition to normal chain-of-command approval.

A national security letter is a type of government order for communications data sent to service providers. It is usually issued with a gag order, meaning the target is often unaware that records are being accessed.

There are several proposals in Congress to broaden the scope of national security letters, or NSLs. Privacy advocates, however, have said the authority is used too often, circumvents judicial oversight and lacks adequate transparency safeguards.

The Intercept reported that an added layer of review by the U.S. Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for national security is necessary to use an NSL to seek a journalist’s records if they are being sought “to identify confidential news media sources.”

National security letters have been available as a law enforcement tool since the 1970s. But their frequency and breadth expanded under the USA Patriot Act enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The FBI made 48,642 requests for data via NSLs in 2015, according to a Justice Department memo seen by Reuters in May.

Currently, national security letters can only compel sharing of phone billing records, according to a 2008 legal memo written by the U.S. Justice Department. Still, the FBI has used the letters since then to request internet records during national security investigations.

The U.S. Senate last week fell two votes short of advancing legislation that would broaden the type of records the FBI can compel a company to hand over under an NSL to include email metadata and some browsing history.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Dan Grebler, Toni Reinhold)

Embed quickly turns deadly for NPR team in Afghanistan

NPR photojournalist David Gilkey is pictured at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan in this handout photo

By Zainullah Stanekzai

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – The NPR photojournalist and his Afghan colleague killed in Afghanistan on Sunday died on the first day of an embed with local troops, highlighting the risks for reporters in a country where increasing amounts of territory are off-limits.

Photographer David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna, an Afghan journalist working as a translator, were killed in a Taliban ambush shortly after joining Afghan troops in Helmand province, one of the most volatile areas in the country.

The NPR team, including Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva, had just spent several days with coalition troops, including U.S. special forces, before they went over to an Afghan unit, said Colonel Michael Lawhorn, a spokesman for the NATO-led military coalition.

The team spent Sunday morning in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah interviewing local officials, according to Shakil Ahmad Tasal, a public affairs officer for the 205th Corps who accompanied the NPR team during the drive.

The team carried a letter from the Afghan Ministry of Defence, directing the soldiers to escort them to the town of Marjah, roughly 30 km (18 miles) away, he said.

While Lashkar Gah has remained in government control, some surrounding areas of Helmand have been under serious pressure from Islamist militants from the Taliban insurgency.

Earlier this year in Marjah, U.S. forces conducted several air strikes to help beleaguered Afghan troops, and a U.S. Special Forces soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a Taliban attack.

On Sunday afternoon, a convoy of six lightly armoured Humvees, which also carried an Afghan general, was nearing Marjah when Taliban gunmen opened fire, pelting the vehicles with small arms and rocket fire.

“We were taking very heavy fire,” Tasal told Reuters.

The Humvee carrying Tamanna and Gilkey was hit by a shell and caught fire, killing the journalists and the soldier driving the vehicle, according to witnesses and NPR.

DOZENS FORM GUARD OF HONOR

A gunfight raged for at least 30 minutes before coalition and Afghan aircraft arrived overhead, apparently prompting the Taliban to break off the attack, Tasal said.

The coalition said its aircraft provided surveillance for the Afghans, while attack aircraft were put on standby but never launched.

The other two NPR staffers, traveling in another vehicle, were unharmed.

A veteran photojournalist, Gilkey, 50, had reported from Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001, and won awards for covering veterans issues in the United States and the ebola breakout in Africa.

In a video posted by NPR on May 13, just prior to his departure for Afghanistan, Gilkey described a desire to get close to what is happening.

“What I always try to show in my pictures is what it’s like for the guys on the ground that are having to operate there,” he said.

Like many Afghan journalists who perform the lion’s share of the work covering their country, Tamanna had worked for a variety of foreign outlets, including the Chinese news agency Xinhua and Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency.

Qualified journalists in their own right, Afghans like Tamanna are often contracted to provide translation and other help for foreign reporters.

“He was a very honest, responsible person and loved his country,” Haroon Sabawoon, a friend and business partner, said of Tamanna. “He was very polite, calm and had high hopes for peace and security.”

Tamanna, 38, left behind a wife and three children.

Afghan troops recovered the bodies of the slain journalists and handed them over to coalition forces at Camp Shorab, where the team had just previously been embedded with American troops, Lawhorn said.

“Dozens and dozens” of U.S. troops at the base formed an honor guard, stood to attention and saluted when the journalists’ remains arrived, Bowman reported to NPR.

Coalition CH-47 helicopters then transported them to the base at Kandahar Air Field, Lawhorn said.

(Additional reporting by Josh Smith and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

Governments Claim National Security to Silence Journalists

Governments in the Middle East are using accusations of national security to try and silence western journalists from reporting on government corruption and other abuses of power.

Three journalists for Vice News were detained in Turkey on charges of terrorism for their reports that allegedly promoted Kurdish militants.  A Dutch journalist was also detained on the same charges after being caught covering a Kurdish protest group.

“I’m in custody in Yuksekova,” Frederike Geerdink tweeted.

The Turkish government denied she was arrested for her reporting but for being in an area where fighting was taking place.

“Frederike has not been arrested for journalism. She was in a security zone where there was fighting. Because of that, we could not guarantee her safety, so she has been detained and investigations are continuing,” a government representative told Reuters.

Journalism watchdog groups dismissed the explanation, noting that Geerdink was arrested in January on similar charges of “illegal propaganda” for which she was acquitted in April.

“The Netherlands has been concerned about freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Turkey for some time,” Dutch embassy spokesman Roel van der Meij said. “This remains an important point in our relations with Turkey.”

In Egypt, three Al-Jazeera reporters are being tried on charges they filed false news reports to “promote terrorism.”

“What we see in terms of worrying trends that’s been picking up for a while is the use of overbroad anti-terror laws to prevent coverage and detain journalists,” said Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, to the New York Times.

Mahoney cited many examples of abuse of journalists taking place around the world that largely go unreported in American media.

In Azerbaijan, an investigative journalist who contributed to the US funded Radio Free Europe was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison for reporting on alleged corruption by the nation’s president.

“I don’t think anything will ever really improve unless there is real pressure from the West,” Gulnara Akhundova, who works for International Media Support told the Times. “What we need is real sanctions.”