PM silences six on ministry beat

The decision has sent shockwaves among media institutions, as the named journalists had all disturbed the PM with their questions. Fatma Çözen from Star TV said she was told several times by prime ministry officials not to ask questions. "Sometimes even the security personnel demanded to know whether we had questions," Çözen noted.

Sultan Özer from daily Evrensel asked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a rather disturbing question to which he argued that the global economic crisis would not touch Turkey. "I asked the PM about the people in Gaziantep who trampled on each other for food aid. I saw the prime ministry spokesman Akif Beki turn his head and give me a long look," Özer stated.

Periodic cleaning

The PM’s press office made its periodic renewal of its accreditation system, and a call was issued to journalists who wished to follow the prime ministers’ programs. Six senior level reporters, who had covered the prime minister's programs for years, were denied renewal, and were told that they were banned from following the PM. The PM’s press office said the ban was directed against the journalists, not against their institutions.

G-9 Journalists Platform stated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attitude against journalists has become unacceptable, in a written declaration yesterday. "Preventing six senior reporters who disturb the prime minister with their questions is nothing less than a manifestation of censorship," read the declaration.

Hasan Tüfekçi, the Prime Ministry reporter at Hürriyet, discovered the secret meeting between Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül in Ankara’s Çukurambar district at the end of July, on the eve of the closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

Abdullah KarakuÅŸ of Milliyet, a reporter who also follows the AKP meetings, has his signature on the report on the then Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, chiding Beki for not interfering with the negative media reports on him last August.Â

Photo: AA