{"id":324237,"date":"2021-09-24T13:02:58","date_gmt":"2021-09-24T13:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpj.org\/?p=133898"},"modified":"2021-09-24T13:02:58","modified_gmt":"2021-09-24T13:02:58","slug":"turkish-government-official-sues-3-newspapers-for-covering-corruption-allegations-made-in-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/09\/24\/turkish-government-official-sues-3-newspapers-for-covering-corruption-allegations-made-in-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish government official sues 3 newspapers for covering corruption allegations made in parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In late August and early September 2021, Turkish Deputy Health Minister Selahattin Ayd\u0131n filed civil defamation lawsuits against the leftist opposition dailies Cumhuriyet<\/em>, BirG\u00fcn<\/em>, and Evrensel<\/em> seeking damages over their coverage of corruption allegations made against him in the country\u2019s parliament, according to reports by the independent news website Bianet<\/em><\/a> and by each<\/a> outlet<\/a> targeted<\/a> by the suits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ayd\u0131n alleges that each outlet is guilty of \u201ctarnishing\u201d his reputation and dignity by reporting on a lawmaker\u2019s question in parliament in June accusing Ayd\u0131n of illegally giving preference in contracting to a software company with connections to his family, according to those sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement published<\/a> by Cumhuriyet<\/em> on July 23, Ayd\u0131n denied that he had committed any corrupt actions, and called the paper\u2019s coverage of those allegations \u201cslander and defamation targeting not only myself, but also the ministry I represent.\u201d He is seeking 100,000 Turkish liras (US $11,574) in damages from each newspaper, according to the outlets\u2019 reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ayd\u0131n sued Cumhuriyet<\/em> in late August at the Istanbul Court of First Instance, and sued BirG\u00fcn<\/em> and Evrensel<\/em> in early September, those reports said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His suits name Cumhuriyet<\/em> responsible news editor Olcay B\u00fcy\u00fckta\u015f Ak\u00e7a and reporter Erdem Sevgi; BirG\u00fcn<\/em> publisher \u0130brahim Ayd\u0131n and reporter Mustafa Bildircin; and Evrensel<\/em> responsible news editor G\u00f6rkem K\u0131nac\u0131, according to the outlets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of \u201cresponsible news editor\u201d is a legally required position in Turkish media outlets, and makes its officeholder responsible for the outlet\u2019s content in court cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BirG\u00fcn<\/em> lawyer Tolgay G\u00fcvercin and Evrensel<\/em> lawyer Devrim Avc\u0131 told CPJ via messaging app that they have not received notifications for any upcoming court dates. The lawyers said that the case would go to trial and a judge would only be able to dismiss or vacate the suits once that trial had concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CPJ emailed Ayd\u0131n for comment but did not receive any reply.<\/p>\n\n


\r\nThis content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists<\/a> and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In late August and early September 2021, Turkish Deputy Health Minister Selahattin Ayd\u0131n filed civil defamation lawsuits against the leftist opposition dailies Cumhuriyet, BirG\u00fcn, and Evrensel seeking damages over their coverage of corruption allegations made against him in the country\u2019s parliament, according to reports by the independent news website Bianet and by each outlet targeted…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5097,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32402,24529,22127,28818,17621,35785,28820,35786,35787,4434,35788,35789,27150],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5097"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":324238,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324237\/revisions\/324238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}