Journalism lessons from the serious crime court!

Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 14, which handed down a twenty-five year custodial sentence to CHP Istanbul MP Enis Berberoğlu in the trial over the ammunition-laden intelligence agency lorries, announced the reasons for its decision the day before yesterday. The reasoned decision does not remotely resemble a legal text, reading as it does like an AKP propaganda piece. The court, in criticising the way that that the issue was reported in its decision, is also trying its hand at journalism.

The court bench presided over by Ali İhsan Horasan recalled in its decision that Aydinlik newspaper carried the report ‘The very ammunition in the lorry’ about the ammunition in question on 21 January 2014. The bench, noting that ‘there was one photograph purporting to be artillery shells’ beside the report, alleged that apart from this no other information, documents or images were present in the report. The bench, noting that, ‘Various news and comments were circulating in the public domain about the activity being conducted by the intelligence agency and the materials being transported following the halting of the lorries,’ asserted that the report in Aydinlik formed part of this. It argued that the secret would not be revealed by ‘a single photo from which it is not even apparent at first glance where it was taken and what the contents were.’ It alleged that the significance of the report did not go beyond hearsay or supposition. However, the report spoke of the lorries transporting locked mortars, rocket heads and various types and quantities of ammunition and these being hidden under medical supplies.

‘Had somehow been obtained’

The phrasing of the decision was observed in places to deviate from legality. Such that the bench, having alleged that, ‘All information from the halting of the lorries to the opening and counting of the goods inside had somehow been obtained by the defendant Kadri Enis Berberoğlu in video form,’ adduced absolutely no evidence regarding this allegation. Seeing no need for this, it asserted that, ‘Berberoğlu obtained the information in an as yet indeterminable manner.’ The bench, on the other hand, at the 24 May session denied the application of Berberoğlu’s lawyers for HTS records to be requested for it to be determined whether there were communications between the defendants being tried at the Court of Cassation and Berberoğlu in connection with the making of the video.

Defender of the AKP

The bench, recalling that Berberoğlu stood for parliament as a CHP candidate in the 7 June 2015 general elections, cast itself in the role of defender of the AKP over the claim that he gave the images to journalist Can Dündar and came up with the following sentence redolent of pro-regime journalists’ pronouncements: ‘The purpose for which Berberoğlu supplied the images was, with them being published in his newspaper by the defendant Can Dündar, to denigrate the ruling AK Party government and chiefly the President in the public eye through perception management taking the form, “Support in the form of arms is being given to terrorist organisations in Syria with intelligence agency lorries,” expose them to penal responsibility, open the way for prosecution, especially of the President, as a war criminal in the national and international arena and create the environment for this.’

Opposition dismissed

Such allegations are made in the decision, with it stated that ‘the environment had assumed vast proportions’ due to domestic and external events at that time, as, ‘It has been ascertained that, with a ready-made environment involving the exposing of the intelligence agency lorries affair being conducive to this, through allegations that the President and government administrators support terrorism and finance terrorism, their elimination was targeted by seeking their trial at the national and international level, the wish was at best to cause difficulties for the government prior to the election and prevent them from winning the election.’ In the decision that is indistinguishable from pronouncements by AKP politicians, an opposition party’s duty to criticise and scrutinise the ruling party is dismissed in the following terms, ‘The defendant, a deputy general chair of the main opposition party and prospective member of parliament on behalf of the people, had to attach greater importance and consideration than a normal citizen to the permanence, national security and interests of the state they were seeking to govern, and the obligation in this regard arises as a matter of priority.’

Trying its hand at journalism

The bench has also made comments in the decision that hold freedom of speech in contempt. The bench, saying, ‘When consideration is given to the manner in which the images were published by the defendant Can Dündar and the comments and text accompanying the images, the purposes they served become abundantly clear,’ has with these words construed making comments and drafting text along with the images to amount to harming the AKP.

Lies about circulation again

Cumhuriyet newspaper’s circulation figures have frequently undergone manipulation in the judicial attacks it has suffered. In the case in which thirteen Cumhuriyet staff have been detained with charges raised over our publishing policy, the prosecution has alleged that circulation has fallen due to a change in the publishing line. Istanbul Serious Crime Court No 14, also manipulating this issue in its reasoned decision, says, ‘The defendant Kadri Enis Berberoğlu, by having information that by its nature was a state secret published in the high-circulation Cumhuriyet newspaper that was in opposition to the government and one week before the election, acted with the intention of ensuring that they obtained a low vote in the election and acquired civil and penal responsibility.’ However, on 27 May 2015 on which the report was published, our paper sold 50,267 copies and ranked in the final places among the mainstream press.