Turkey jails reporter from Germany's Die Welt paper - court witness

[webfact]

Turkey jails reporter from Germany's Die Welt paper - court witness

By Tuvan Gumrukcu and Michael Nienaber

REUTERS

 

Protestors demonstrate, calling for the freedom of German-Turkish journalist Deniz Yucel, in the streets of Berlin, Germany, February 19, 2017. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt

 

ISTANBUL/BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkish authorities on Monday arrested a reporter for a prominent German newspaper on charges of propaganda in support of a terrorist organisation and inciting the public to violence, according to a court witness.

 

Authorities initially detained Deniz Yucel, a correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper, on Feb. 14 after he reported on emails that a leftist hacker collective had purportedly obtained from the private account of Berat Albayrak, Turkey's energy minister and the son-in-law of President Tayyip Erdogan.

 

On Monday, an Istanbul court ordered Yucel, a dual citizen of Turkey and Germany, jailed pending trial, a witness at the court told Reuters. He is the first German reporter to be held in a widespread crackdown that has followed the failed July 15 coup in Turkey and frequently targeted the media.

 

More than 100,000 people have been sacked or suspended from Turkey's police, military, civil service and private sector since the failed coup and tens of thousands arrested. Ankara says the measures are necessary given the security threats it faces.

 

But Turkey's allies, including Germany, fear President Tayyip Erdogan is using the purges as a pretext to curtail dissent. Relations between the NATO allies have been strained by the coup, but Germany desperately needs to Turkey for its part in a deal to stop the flow of migrants into Europe.

 

Yucel's arrest could also put German Chancellor Angela Merkel into an awkward position less than seven months before what promises to be a tightly contested election in September.

 

In a statement, Merkel criticised the move as "bitter and disappointing" and called it "disproportionate".

 

"The German government expects that the Turkish judiciary, in its treatment of the Yucel case, takes account of the high value of freedom of the press for every democratic society. We will continue to insist on a fair and legal treatment of Deniz Yücel and hope that he will soon regain his freedom," she said.

 

Germany's foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, was even more harsh in his assessment of the case, saying it showed in "glaring light" the differences in the two countries in evaluating freedom of press and freedom of opinion.

 

(Additional reporting by Gulsen Solaker,; Writing by David Dolan, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-02-28

[Laughing Gravy]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

Relations between the NATO allies have been strained by the coup, but Germany desperately needs to Turkey for its part in a deal to stop the flow of migrants into Europe.

No they don't. They can tell the tyrant to get stuffed. Stop them at the border and those that get through ship them back. That would go against Merkel's policy of flooding Europe with migrants. They do not need Turkey as a friend, as they are everything the west does not need, under the current regime.

[retarius]

Erdogan is Turkey's Trump. What a guy. There's poor Merkel running along letting in millions of terrorists into the EU, people object so she agrees to pay 6 billion of other people's money to Erdogan to slow the flow, and then guess what Erdogan goes out of his way to make her look like an idiot. He'll have a bigger impact on the German election than Putin did on the US's.

Wonderful stuff.

[ilostmypassword]

1 minute ago, retarius said:

Erdogan is Turkey's Trump. What a guy. There's poor Merkel running along letting in millions of terrorists into the EU, people object so she agrees to pay 6 billion of other people's money to Erdogan to slow the flow, and then guess what Erdogan goes out of his way to make her look like an idiot. He'll have a bigger impact on the German election than Putin did on the US's.

Wonderful stuff.

Millions of Terrorists? Really? Millions? They must be very lazy terrorists. 

[Grouse]

4 hours ago, Laughing Gravy said:

No they don't. They can tell the tyrant to get stuffed. Stop them at the border and those that get through ship them back. That would go against Merkel's policy of flooding Europe with migrants. They do not need Turkey as a friend, as they are everything the west does not need, under the current regime.

 

4 hours ago, Laughing Gravy said:

No they don't. They can tell the tyrant to get stuffed. Stop them at the border and those that get through ship them back. That would go against Merkel's policy of flooding Europe with migrants. They do not need Turkey as a friend, as they are everything the west does not need, under the current regime.

The rate of immigrant flow has reduced very significantly

 

However I think it will not be so long before safe regions of Iraq and Iran may be declared and refugees shipped back

 

Turkey does not fit well with European values and are becoming less useful to NATO

 

 

[Galactus]

55 minutes ago, retarius said:

 

Erdogan is Turkey's Trump. What a guy. There's poor Merkel running along letting in millions of terrorists into the EU, people object so she agrees to pay 6 billion of other people's money to Erdogan to slow the flow, and then guess what Erdogan goes out of his way to make her look like an idiot. He'll have a bigger impact on the German election than Putin did on the US's.

Wonderful stuff.

and in the meantime, same EU leaded my Germany has no problems to pay 100s of billions of euros to bail out lazy Greece from economic collapse!

but 6 billion euros which is for well being of millions of poor immigrant is a problem? and that money still are not handed to Turkey and that money goes to NGOs not the government.

ahh...classic European hypocrisy!

 

 

in regards to the topic, it is getting awful in Turkey in terms of freedom of press but again, it is turkey that getting a coup attempt and constant terrorist attacks with ISIS and numerous terrorist groups in and out of their borders. i am sure a journalist doing a mild interview with ISIS leaders and praising  them also gets arrested in Europe or USA or in any country with laws.

still, no proper reason imo. a journalist needs to his/her job with freedom.

 

hopefully bigot Erdogan will get a no at the referendum and get the f   k out of Turkey.

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by Galactus

[ilostmypassword]

3 hours ago, Galactus said:

and in the meantime, same EU leaded my Germany has no problems to pay 100s of billions of euros to bail out lazy Greece from economic collapse!

but 6 billion euros which is for well being of millions of poor immigrant is a problem? and that money still are not handed to Turkey and that money goes to NGOs not the government.

ahh...classic European hypocrisy!

 

 

in regards to the topic, it is getting awful in Turkey in terms of freedom of press but again, it is turkey that getting a coup attempt and constant terrorist attacks with ISIS and numerous terrorist groups in and out of their borders. i am sure a journalist doing a mild interview with ISIS leaders and praising  them also gets arrested in Europe or USA or in any country with laws.

still, no proper reason imo. a journalist needs to his/her job with freedom.

 

hopefully bigot Erdogan will get a no at the referendum and get the f   k out of Turkey.

 

No. Germany didn't pay out billions of dollars to rescue Greece. Germany paid out billions of dollars to rescue the German banks that foolishly money to Greece. They should have been allowed to go under, had their assets seized, and eventually had them sold to the highest bidder. This is what Sweden did in 1991.

[Galactus]

On 2/28/2017 at 4:33 PM, ilostmypassword said:

No. Germany didn't pay out billions of dollars to rescue Greece. Germany paid out billions of dollars to rescue the German banks that foolishly money to Greece. They should have been allowed to go under, had their assets seized, and eventually had them sold to the highest bidder. This is what Sweden did in 1991.

anyway, hundreds of billions of euros were handed to Greece by Germany. It does not matter if it is German banks bailing Greece. money comes from German government.

Greece is lazy and they should be pushed out of EU.

[ilostmypassword]

1 hour ago, Galactus said:

anyway, hundreds of billions of euros were handed to Greece by Germany. It does not matter if it is German banks bailing Greece. money comes from German government.

Greece is lazy and they should be pushed out of EU.

You still don't get it. Germany didn't hand Greece the money.  It handed itself the money to repay itself for bailing out the banks.  None of that money ever made it to Greece.

[Galactus]

22 minutes ago, ilostmypassword said:

You still don't get it. Germany didn't hand Greece the money.  It handed itself the money to repay itself for bailing out the banks.  None of that money ever made it to Greece.

i think you dont get it. Was Greece bailed out or not? no need to do a word salad! 

EU leaded by Germany bailed out Greece with hundreds of billions Euros this way or that way it does not matter, while they are complaining for the 3 billion euroes going to immigrants in Turkey.

If Germany did not pay for greece, it was a 4th world quarter now with its citizens begging in places like turkey and Europe!

[ilostmypassword]

41 minutes ago, Galactus said:

i think you dont get it. Was Greece bailed out or not? no need to do a word salad! 

EU leaded by Germany bailed out Greece with hundreds of billions Euros this way or that way it does not matter, while they are complaining for the 3 billion euroes going to immigrants in Turkey.

If Germany did not pay for greece, it was a 4th world quarter now with its citizens begging in places like turkey and Europe!

Again, you seem clearly unable to comprehend that Germany bailed out the banks. If Germany had done nothing the banks would have failed.  So how in your mind is that not a bailout of the banks?

If Germany had not bailed out the banks, Greece would have been free to revert to the drachma and let it's currency help do the work of stimulating its economy. Instead, Germany chose to make Greece liable for Germany's bailing out the banks and not let it leave the Eurozone.  As the IMF has repeatedly pointed out, Germany has put Greece in a hopeless situation. There is no way its economy can even generate enough to pay the current interest on its debt. Its economy hasn't recovered at all. 

And its countries like Greece and Spain the keep the Euro rate artficially low in relation to exports and give a huge boost to the German economy. So, if anything, Greece is helping Germany a lot more than Germany is helping Greece.